J. R. McNeill

John R. "J.R." McNeill (born October 6, 1954, in Chicago, Illinois, USA) is an environmental historian, author, and professor at Georgetown University. He is best known for authoring "Something New Under The Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-century World".

Biography

McNeill received his BA from Swarthmore College in 1975, then went on to Duke University where he completed his MA (1977) and PhD (1981). In 1985 he became a faculty member at Georgetown University, where he serves in both the History Department and the Walsh School of Foreign Service. From 2003 to 2006, he held the Cinco Hermanos Chair in Environmental History and International Affairs, until his appointment as University Professor, a highly distinguished role. He has held two Fulbright Awards, a Guggenheim fellowship, a MacArthur Genius Grant, and a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

His father is the famous University of Chicago historian William Hardy McNeill, with whom he co-authored the book "The Human Web: A Bird's-eye View of World History" (New York: Norton, 2003).

Works

McNeill most famous work is "Something New Under The Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-century World", which documents the dramatic ways humankind has changed Earth. The book won the 2000 World History Association book prize, the Forest Society book prize, among other awards, and has been translated into at least 6 languages.

He has published more than 40 scholarly articles in professional and scientific journals. His other books include "The Atlantic Empires of France and Spain, 1700-1765" (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); "Atlantic American Societies from Columbus through Abolition" (co-edited, London: Routledge, 1992); "The Mountains of the Mediterranean World: An Environmental History" (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992); "The Environmental History of the Pacific World" (edited, London: Variorum, 2001); the "Encyclopedia of World Environmental History" (co-edited, New York: Routledge, 2003), and "Rethinking Environmental History: World System History and Global Environmental Change" (co-edited, AltaMira Press, 2007).

McNeill's next book, "Epidemics and Geopolitics in the American Tropics, 1640-1920" (New York: Cambridge University Press) is due in 2008. He is also working on an environmental history of the Cold War.

References