This unit covers history of how people related to and thought about the natural environment. It introduces recent literature on environmental history, beginning with how early modern Europeans used natural resources and the impact on landscape and waterways of new technology, urban growth and larger population. It examines environmental consequences of European expansion into the New World, of industrialization and imperialism, medicine and science. Attention is given to how the environment has affected human society through climate change, plagues and depletion of natural resources. Focuses on changing ideas of the natural environment, which underlay the way people interpreted and used it. -- Course Website
Instructor: David Garrioch
