Podcast 1: Professor Karen Jones, Garden History and Empire
In our first Podcast, James Beattie talks with Karen Jones on a cold autumnal New Zealand evening and her bright spring English morning. Karen is Professor of Environmental and Cultural History at the University of Kent, UK, and has a distinguished career as a teacher, editor and writing on a variety of topics.
With John Wills, Karen has written The Invention of the Park (Polity Press, 2005), which overviews the idea of the park from the Garden of Eden to Disneyland and beyond. She has also written works which have reshaped our understandings about animals and parks: Wolf Mountains: The History of Wolves Along the Great Divide (University of Calgray Press, 2002) provided a comparative study of the biology, mythology and culture surrounding wolves in national parks in the Rocky Mountains. As well as studies of firearms, and works on hunting and photography, Karen has written the award-winning work on Calamity: The Many Lives of Calamity Jane, published by Yale University Press in 2020. Most recently she has completed Beastly Britain: An Animal History, also by Yale University Press, published in 2025. As well as writing, Karen was editor of the prestigious journal, Environment and History for some ten years.
Please note the views and opinions expressed in the podcast are the individuals’ involved, and do not represent their institutions’.
The Garden History Research Foundation 