William J. Cronon
Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of
History, Geography, and Environmental Studies
Education
- PhD, Yale University, 1990
- D.Phil., Oxford University, 1981
- B.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1976
Research Areas
- Environmental History
- Historical Geography
- History of the American West and Frontier
- United States 19th- and 20th-century social and economic history
- The Writing and Rhetoric of History and Geography
Current Research
- Completing a book entitled "Saving Nature in Time: The Environmental Past and the Human Future," based on the Wiles Lectures at Queen's University in Belfast, discussing contributions environmental history can make to contemporary environmental politics.
Working on a local history of Portage, Wisconsin (Frederick Jackson Turner's home town), to explore ways of integrating environmental and social historical methods with non-traditional narrative literary forms, book to be published by W. W. Norton & Co.
Recent Publications
- "The Riddle of the Apostle Islands: How Do You Manage a Wilderness Full of Human Stories?" Orion (May-June 2003), 36-42.(read)
- Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, 20th anniversary edition, Hill & Wang, 2003.
- "Why the Past Matters," Wisconsin Magazine of History, 84:1 (Autumn 2000), p.2-13. Awarded the William Best Hesseltine Award for the best article published in the Wisconsin Magazine of History in 2000-2001.
- "Only Connect...: The Goals of a Liberal Education," The American Scholar, (Autumn, 1998), p.73-80.
- "The Uses of Environmental History" (Presidential Address, American Society for Environmental History), Environmental History Review, 17:3 (Fall 1993), p.1-22.
Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, W. W. Norton, 1995.- "Telling Tales on Canvas: Landscapes of Frontier Change," In: Discovered Lands, Invented Pasts: Transforming Visions of the American West (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
- "A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative," Journal of American History 78:4 (March, 1992), p.1347-1376.
- Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, W. W. Norton, 1991. (Awarded the Bancroft Prize, Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, and one of three nominees for the Pulitzer Prize in History.)
Courses Taught
- Hist, Geog, IES 460 American Environmental History
- Hist 462 The American West Since 1850
- Hist 600 History as Storytelling
- Hist/Geography 932: Seminar in American Environmental History
- Hist 965 Seminar in the History of the American West
-
View geography course
descriptions - View history course descriptions
Other Activities
- Founding Faculty Director, Chadbourne Residential College, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1997-2000.
- Board of Curators, Wisconsin Historical Society.
- Governing Council, The Wilderness Society.
- Board of Directors, Trust for Public Land.
- Series Editor, Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books, University of Washington Press.
- Vice President for the Professional Division, American Historical Association.
- Board, Organization of American Historians
- Editorial Board, Environmental History.
- Editorial Board, Journal of Historical Geography.
Awards and Honors
American Academy of
Arts and Sciences Fellow, 2006- Distinguished teaching awards from both Yale University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison
- American Philosophical Society Fellow, 1999
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow, 1985-90
- Guggenheim Fellow, 1995
- Danforth Fellow, 1976
- Rhodes Scholar, 1976
Graduate Students
For an updated and complete list of past and current students, please see William Cronon's Students.
Contact Information
Office Hours: Email for appointment
Mailing Adress:
- Department of History
- 5103 Humanities Building
- 455 North Park St
- Madison, WI, 53706
- Phone (608) 265-6023
- Fax (608) 263-5302
- Email: wcronon@wisc.edu
Also in:
- Dept of Geography
- 443 Science Hall
- wcronon@wisc.edu