The world is full of environmental injustices and inequalities, yet few European historians have tackled these subjects head on; nor have they explored their relationships with social inequalities. In this innovative collection of historical essays the contributors consider a range of past environmental injustices, spanning seven northern and western European countries and with several chapters adding a North American perspective. In addition to an introductory chapter that surveys approaches to this area of environmental history, individual chapters address inequalities in the city as regards water supply, air pollution, waste disposal, factory conditions, industrial effluents, fuel poverty and the administrative and legal arrangements that discriminated against segments of society.

Genevieve Massard-Guilbaud is Professor at the Aecole des Hautes Aetudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, where she holds a chair in Environmental History. Her last book, Histoire de la pollution industrielle, France 1789-1914, was published in 2010 (Paris: EHESS). She is currently completing, with Stephen Mosley, a book entitled Common Ground. Integrating the Social and Environmental in History (forthcoming, Newcastle: CSP). Since 2007 she has been the president of the European Society for Environmental History. In France, she initiated the RUCHE (Scholarly Network of Researchers in Environmental History). At the beginning of 2010 she was appointed by the Hu- manities and Social Sciences Institute and the Ecology and Environment Institute of the CNRS to lead their common interdisciplinary research network in Environmental History. Richard Rodger is Professor of Economic and Social History at Edinburgh University. He has published widely on the economic, business and urban history of Britain since 1800, was edi- tor of Urban History from 1987-2007, and joint editor for a series of forty books under the title of 'Historical Urban Studies', published by Ashgate. His book The Transformation of Edinburgh: Land, Property and Trust in the Nineteenth Century was awarded the Frank Watson Prize for works on Scottish history. Ongoing research includes a project on the development of public and envi- ronmental health in Victorian Scotland. In recognition of his contributions to the study of eco- nomic and social history, Rodger was elected to the Academy of Social Sciences in 2004.