History of Nature in America

Catalog description

Why do so many people feel at peace in the woods? Who supplies the meat for hamburgers? The course surveys the environmental history of what is now the United States from the fifteenth century to the present. Students will learn not only about changes in the American environment, but also about the ideological and political development of conservation, preservation, and environmentalism in the United States; the role of resources in economic and geographic expansion; transformations in the landscape; and ways in which some segments of the population have benefited from the control of nature at the expense of other groups.