Dr Brett M. Bennett

Biography

Brett Bennett received his PhD in history from the University of Texas at Austin in December 2010. He is an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow from 2011-2014.

Brett is currently working on multiple projects examining the environmental and scientific histories of the world's forests and climate. These projects include a book on the global history of forests in the 20th century, a co-authored book (with Gregory Barton) on ideas of human-induced climate change before global warming, an edited book (with James Beattie and Edward Melillo) on networks of nature in the British Empire, and an edited book on the history of forestry in South Africa. He is working on numerous other articles and media projects.

He encourages potential honours or postgraduate students interested in the fields of environmental history, the history of science, or British imperial history to contact him.

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Areas of Research / Teaching Expertise

Environmental History; History of Science; Global History; History of Empire; Trans-national History; Southern African History; South Asian History; Southeast Asian History; Australian History; British History

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Grants / Current Projects

Recent Grants

2011-2014 Australian Research Council (ARC) Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship (APD)

2010 Alfred Bell Fellowship, Forest History Society

2009-2010 Social Science Research Council (SSRC)-American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) International Dissertation Research Fellowship funded by the Mellon Foundation

2009-2010 National Science Foundation (NSF) Science, Technology, and Society Dissertation Improvement Grant

2009 J.B. Harley Fellowship for Cartographic History

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Awards and Recognition

Fellow, Centre for Environmental History, the Australian National University

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Selected Publications

Books

Forthcoming (edited with Joseph M. Hodge) Knowledge and Networks: Science Across the British World 1800-1970 (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan)

Articles

Forthcoming April 2011‘A Global History of Australian Trees’, Journal of the History of Biology (Springer Press)

Forthcoming June 2011 ‘“Fit the Tree to the Climate”: South African-Australian Exchange and the Rise of Comparative Climatic Forestry’, Journal of Southern African Studies (Taylor and Francis)

Forthcoming (with Gregory Barton) ‘E.H.F. Swain’s Vision of a Forest Modernity’, Intellectual History Review (Taylor and Francis)

‘The El Dorado of Forestry: the Eucalyptus in India, South Africa and Thailand, 1850-2000’, The International Review of Social History Vol. 55, Supplement 18 (December, 2010): 27-50 (Cambridge University Press)

(with Gregory Barton) ‘“There is a Pleasure in the Pathless Woods”: The Culture of Forestry in British India’, The British Scholar Journal Vol. 3, No. 2 (September, 2010): 219-234 (British Scholar Society)

(with Gregory Barton) ‘Forestry as Foreign Policy: Anglo-Siamese Relations and the Origins of Britain’s Informal Empire in the Teak Forests of Northern Siam, 1883-1925’, Itinerario: International Journal of the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction Vo. 34, No. 2 (Summer, 2010): 65-86 (Cambridge University Press)

‘A State, National, and Imperial Debate: The Rise and Near Fall of the Australian Forestry School, 1927-1945’, Environment and History Vol. 15, No. 2 (May 2009), pp. 217-44 (White Horse Press)

(with Gregory Barton) ‘Environmental Conservation and Deforestation in India 1855-1947: A Reconsideration’, Itinerario: International Journal of the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction Vol. 38, No. 2 (Fall, 2008), pp. 83-104 (Cambridge University Press)

Book Chapters

Forthcoming (with Gregory Barton) ‘A Case Study in the Environmental History of Gentlemanly Capitalism: The Battle Between Gentlemen Teak Merchants and State Foresters in Burma and Siam, 1827-1901’, Festschrift for A.G. Hopkins edited by Toyin Falola (Carolina Academic Press)

Forthcoming ‘Networks of Science in the British Empire’, in Brett M. Bennett and Joseph Morgan Hodge (eds.) Science and the British Empire: Networks of Science in the British Empire 1850-1970 (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan)

Forthcoming ‘Rethinking State and Professional Forestry in British India’, in Brett M. Bennett and Joseph Morgan Hodge (eds.) Science and the British Empire: Networks of Science in the British Empire 1850-1970 (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan)

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Media and Essays

Interview by Robyn Williams for ABC Radio’s The Science Show, 3 July 2010

‘Make a Museum out of the Former Australian Forestry School Building’, The Canberra Times, April 28 2010, p. 11

‘Reading the Land: Changing Landscapes and the Environmental History of South Africa’, an 8,000 word commissioned essay in the exhibit catalogue for The Lie of the Land: Representation of the South African Landscape in the Old Town Hall Michaelis Collection, Cape Town, May 2010-September 2010

‘Thinking of Moving Abroad? How to Begin Applying for Foreign Jobs’, Perspectives on History: The Newsmagazine of the American Historical Association (April 2010), p. 29-30

2010 ‘Cuts are Inevitable, So Let’s Join the Debate’, Times Higher Education (Jan 7 2010), p. 30

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