People and the Environment

Catalog description

This course offers an introduction to the methods and insights of environmental history in Europe and the Americas from 1500 to the present. It examines developments in Europe, with background in medieval dynamics and a focus on the period from 1500 onward, through 18th-century projects that cleared land and drained swamps, 19th and 20th century industrialization, World Wars I and II, and the post-World War II era. It also discuss the European colonization of the Americas, with background on Indian use of the land before contact with colonists.