Mark Barrow

Associate Professor of History

Blacksburg Campus

• Environmental history and history of biology, especially natural history. Research focuses on the intersection of natural history, wildlife conservation, and the broader culture in the nineteeth- and twentieth-century United States. First book, A Passion for Birds: American Ornithology after Audubon (1998), examines the relationship between scientific ornithologists and other American bird enthusiasts, including conservationists, birdwatchers, and commercial naturalists. Second book, Nature\'s Ghosts: Confronting Extinction froomt he Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology (forthcoming), looks at how naturalists have engaged with the issue of human-induced wildlife extinction over the last two centuries. Current research projects: an environmental and cultural history of the American alligator; On the Trail of the Ivory-bill, a long view of attempts to locate the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker; and a social and cultural history of birdwatching in America.