The ghosts of endangered species past: recent lessons at the intersection of history and biology

In the April 2004 issue of BioScience, Scott Norris described a new conference held at the University of California, Santa Barbara, at which a diverse collection of participants sought to evaluate the historical legacy of the now 30-year-old Endangered Species Act (ESA). The article contained noticeably little history, at least in the way that professional historians keep to conceive it, yet Norris bears little blame for this oversight.

Until lately professional historians in the United States participated relatively little in scholarly discussions about the ESA, biodiversity conservation, or applied ecology in general. As a ensue ecologists interested in ...