- Environmental History of Latin America

Catalog description

This course examines how the peoples of Latin America have lived with, utilized, and transformed the environments in which they lived over time. Environmental History is a fascinating way to study the past and to understand the present. Many ideas that we may think of as static or unchanging – such as those about nature, wilderness, landscape, science, technology, land-use planning, and conservation emerged from historical relations with our physical environment. Yet these ideas about the environment are always embedded in power structures and social relations. Nature, as we will see, is as much cultural, social, political, and economic as it is natural or ecological. We will explore how human-nature interactions have shaped human history through the exploration of how natural disasters, ecological zones, natural resources, livestock and wildlife, and epidemic diseases (among other things) influence peoples' lives in various historical moments with a focus on Latin America.