Colgate University

First-Year Course Offerings — Fall 2022

HIST 224   Introduction to Environmental History (TR)
Credits1
RestrictionsInstr perm req during Drop/Add
Pre-Requisites
Co-Requisites
Core Area
Area of InquirySocial Relations,Inst.& Agents
Liberal Arts Practices

Explores reciprocal relationships between people and the environment over time. These relationships can be intimate and mundane (mowing a lawn, eating an avocado) or much grander in scale (testing nuclear weapons, creating a national park); they are also connected to global processes of colonialism and industrial development. Focusing on the modern period, students investigate how a wide range of people around the globe—from indigenous peoples to plantation workers to suburban families-have used, transformed, and made sense of their environments over time. This history is also considered for its relevance to contemporary environmental politics and activism. (TR)