Introduction to Global Environmental History

Catalog description

This course provides a broad introduction to the history of human relationships with nature throughout the world. The human relationship with the natural environment the world of plants, animals, and microbes, of air, water, and land is an important historical subject. History 110 provides a broad, thematic description and analysis of major global trends and shifts, with an emphasis on contemporary issues and problem solving. The most important goal of the course is to provide students with the historical context necessary to construct a thoughtful appreciation of the environmental dilemmas of our time. Ecology has contributed a great deal to historical understanding in terms of specific examples or case studies; however, it has also begun to reconstruct the overall structure of the history that we teach. History 110 seeks to leverage this new paradigm by encouraging students to break down the barriers that often divide the humanities and the sciences. This course utilizes environmental science to demonstrate and explain specific human tendencies. Finally, this course is structured to help students better situate the history of the United States in a more global centered view of both the past and contemporary environmental concerns. Particularly in relation to contemporary environmental issues, History 110 will make clear that many environmental problems are local in neither their construction nor impact. The course will focus on several critical points, including: How has the non-human world shaped the course of human history? What were the environmental impacts of historic changes in the ways humans produced and consumed resources? What ideas shaped the ways different groups of people defined and used specific resources? What role have science and technology played in changing popular attitudes about the human place in the world?