History 284 - History, Ecology, & Landscape

This course explores ecological thinking and changes in landscape through human intervention and natural processes, primarily from the eighteenth century to the present. Our survey of thinking will include Europeans such as the founder of modern ecology, Ernest Haekel, and Americans Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Frederick Law Olmsted. Our study of historical landscapes will center on land use practices and water resources and river basins--the Merrimack, the Charles, and the Connecticut; on the interplay of agriculture, forests, and water power in industrialization; and on the Boston Fens designed by Olmsted and our own backyard, the Connecticut River Valley.