Assoc Prof Ruth Morgan

Contacts

Associate Professor, School of History
Director, Centre for Environmental History

Director of the ANU Centre for Environmental History, Ruth is an environmental historian and historian of science with a particular focus on Australia, the British Empire, and the Indian Ocean world, living and working on the unceded lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples.

Her research has been generously supported by the Australian Research Council, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the Rachel Carson Center for Environment & Society.

Ruth is Vice President of the International Consortium of Environmental History Organizations, and Treasurer of the International Water History Association.

She was previously based at Monash University (2012-2020), and completed her doctoral studies at the University of Western Australia.

Research interests

  • Environmental History
  • History of Science
  • Climate History
  • Water History
  • Environmental Humanities

Groups

  • Morgan, R 2023, 'Great Southern Land: The Story of the Australian Continent, National Museum of Australia, Canberra', Australian Historical Studies, vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 354-358.
  • Leahy, C, Gaynor, A, Sleight, S et al. 2022, 'Sustainable Academia: The Responsibilities of Academic Historians in a Climate-Impacted World', Environment and History, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 545-570.
  • Cook, M, Frost, L, Gaynor, A et al. 2022, Cities in a Sunburnt Country: Water and the Making of Urban Australia, Cambridge University Press, New York.
  • Caretta, M & Morgan, R 2021, 'Special Issue on Indigenous knowledge for water-related climate adaptation', Climate and Development, vol. 13, no. 9, pp. 761-765.
  • Morgan, R 2021, 'Health, hearth and empire: Climate, race and reproduction in British India and Western Australia', Environment and History, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 299-250.
  • Beattie, J & Morgan, R 2021, 'From history of science to history of knowledge? Themes and perspectives in colonial Australasia', History Compass, vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 1-10.
  • Morgan, R 2021, 'Fueling the colonial future an environmental history of the Blue gum, from British India to California', Pacific Historical Review, vol. 90, no. 2, pp. 183-210.
  • Protschky, S & Morgan, R 2021, 'Historicising sulfur mining, lime extraction and geotourism in Indonesia and Australia', The Extractive Industries and Society, vol. 8, no. 4.
  • Morgan, R & COOK, M 2021, 'Gender, environment and history: New methods and approaches in environmental history', International Review of Environmental History, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 5-19.
  • Morgan, R & Holmes, K 2021, 'Placing gender: Gender and environmental history', Environment and History, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 187-191.
  • O'Gorman, E & Morgan, R 2021, 'Fluid Terrains: Approaches in Environmental History', Australian Historical Studies, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 141-170.
  • Morgan, R 2020, 'Prophecy and prediction: Forecasting drought and famine in British India and the Australian colonies', Global Environment, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 95-132.
  • Dobbie, M, Morgan, R & Frost, L 2020, 'Overcoming Abundance: Social Capital and Managing Floods in Inner Melbourne during the Nineteenth Century', Journal of Urban History, vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 33-49.
  • Morgan, R 2020, 'The Allure of Climate and Water Independence: Desalination Projects in Perth and San Diego', Journal of Urban History, vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 113-128.
  • Morgan, R 2020, 'Prophecy and Prediction: Drought and Meteorology in British India and the Australian Colonies', Global Environment, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 96-133.
  • Morgan, R 2020, 'Looking for the Leeuwin An Environmental History of the Leeuwin Current', in Martin Mahony & Samuel Randalls (ed.), Weather, Climate and the Geographical Imagination, University of Pittsburgh Press, USA, pp. 21 pages.
  • Holmes, K, Gaynor, A & Morgan, R 2020, 'Doing environmental history in urgent times', History Australia, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 230-251.
  • Morgan, R 2020, 'Southern skies: Australian atmospheric research and global climate change', Disaster Prevention and Management, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 47-63.
  • Cattelino, J, Drew, G & Morgan, R 2019, 'Water Flourishing in the Anthropocene', Cultural Studies Review, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 135-52.
  • Morgan, R 2019, 'The Continent without a Cryohistory? Deep Time and Water Scarcity in Arid Settler Australia', Journal of Northern Studies, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 43-69.
  • Morgan, R 2019, 'Climate, weather, and water in history', WIREs Climate Change, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 13.
  • Morgan, R 2019, 'The anthropocene as hydro-social cycle: Histories of water and technology for the age of humans', Icon, vol. 23, pp. 36-53.
  • Antonella, A & Morgan, R 2018, 'Making and unmaking bodies: embodying knowledge and place in environmental history', International Review of Environmental History, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 55-67.
  • Morgan, R 2018, 'Dry continent dreaming: Australian visions of using Antarctic icebergs for water supplies', International Review of Environmental History, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 145-166.
  • Morgan, R 2018, 'Climate and empire in the nineteenth century', in Sam White, Christian Pfister, Franz Mauelshagen (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History, Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp. 589-603.
  • Beattie, J & Morgan, R 2017, 'Engineering Edens on this 'Rivered Earth'? A review article on water management and hydro-resilience in the British Empire, 1860-1940s', Environment and History, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 39-63.
  • Morgan, R 2017, 'AHS classics: Rural history and environmental history', Australian Historical Studies, vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 554-568.
  • Morgan, R 2017, 'On the home front: Australians and the 1914 drought', in Georgina H. Endfield, Lucy Veale (ed.), Cultural Histories, Memories and Extreme Weather, Routledge, London, pp. 34-54.