History 397GEH - ST-Global Environmentl History

This honors course will examine the impact that interactions between humans and the larger biophysical world have had on the global past. From the late 1400s, new encounters and unprecedentedly lengthy trade networks rapidly transformed the Old World Web into the World Wide Web. This process has greatly changed the way that nature and humankind interact on a local, regional, and global scale, greatly amplifying the impact that the two have upon one another. We will be asking three key questions: What role has the environment played in major global dynamics? What local and supra-local impacts have major global dynamics had on the environment? How has human thought about the environment developed throughout all these developments? To respond to these questions we will study natural and human-influenced global environmental developments as well as local and regional changes in the relationship between humans and their environment over the past five centuries. We will examine a wide range of fields, from agriculture to disease to transportation to energy to philosophy and beyond, and a wide array of countries stretching from China to Germany to the U.S. to Brazil and beyond.

Open to Senior, Junior, and Sophomore Commonwealth College students only.