Courses

This course will introduce students to the relatively new but increasingly important field of environmental history. After looking at how the field has evolved over the last few decades, during a time of increasing environmental instability, this course will examine the central themes that have dominated this field and track how these have changed over time. In the process, this course will highlight the ways in which environmental historians have transformed the discipline of history and unsettled traditional ideas about our relationship with the world around us. Reading key texts in the field alongside primary documents, we will explore these new approaches pioneered by environmental historians and assess their importance for the contemporary world. At a time when the climate crisis has emerged as one of the most important problems confronting our planet, this course will examine the past, present and future of environmental change and probe the forces shaping them.