hist 180 – global environmental history of the twentieth ... · 4. in addition, i have...

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HIST 180 – Global Environmental History of the Twentieth Century

Instructor: Edward Melillo

A farmer in southern China

Office Hours (Rice 307): Spring 2008

Wednesday: 3:00 – 5:00 p.m. Office Phone: (440) 775-8528

[email protected]

Downtown São Paulo, Brazil

Course Description: This course examines the environmental history of the world since

1900 with a particular focus on Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and China. We will

use books, articles, three films, and a range of online media to illuminate the comparative

and interdisciplinary possibilities of global environmental history. In addition to studying

the past, we will explore how to use historical knowledge in the formulation of policy

recommendations and grassroots initiatives for addressing contemporary environmental

issues.

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Format: Our class will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:00-12:15 p.m. in King

343. Class attendance is mandatory; class participation is 10% of your final grade.

Required and Recommended Texts:

1. J. Timmons Roberts & Nikki Demetria Thanos, Trouble in Paradise:

Globalization and Environmental Crises in Latin America (New York: Routledge,

2003)

2. James C. McCann, Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land: An Environmental

History of Africa, 1800-1990 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1999)

3. Elizabeth C. Economy, The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to

China’s Future (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004)

4. In addition, I have recommended: J.R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun:

An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World (New York: Norton,

2000). We will refer to this text on several occasions, so you may find it useful to

own a copy. I will post all readings from McNeill’s text on Blackboard.

5. Unless I hand them out in class, all other readings will be available on

Blackboard as scanned texts or as links to online articles.

Assignments:

1) Three short papers: During the third week of the semester, I will provide you with

a list of five essay topics with accompanying due dates. Each of these topic

questions will ask you to use your knowledge of environmental history to

formulate a policy recommendation or design a grassroots initiative to help solve a

contemporary environmental problem. From among the five topics, you should

choose three on which you will write. You must write a paper for the first due

date. Your essays should be between 5-6 pages in length (no longer) and double-

spaced. Each essay is worth 15% of the final grade. You will hand in your essays

at the end of class on the day that they are due. Late assignments will lose at grade

point per day (e.g. A ! A-).

2) Three Map Quizzes: At the beginning of the Latin America, Africa, and China

units, I will ask you to locate on a map a series of relevant countries, key cities,

and/or major ecological zones. I will provide you with study guides for these

quizzes ahead of time.

3) Final Exam: The final exam will consist of short identification questions, a

mapping exercise, an image identification section, and two essay questions.

Assessment of Your Work:

Your final grade will reflect your performance on the short papers (45%), your map

quizzes (15%), your final exam grade (30%), and your class participation (10%).

Honor Code: The Oberlin community takes its honor code very seriously. You should be familiar with the honor code, which is available for download at:

http://www.oberlin.edu/students/links-life/rules-regs.html It is crucial that you write and sign the honor code on all work you hand in for this class. The Code reads: “I affirm that I have adhered to the Honor Code on this assignment.”

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Course Schedule

Tuesday, February 5: Introduction

Thursday, February 7: No Class – I will be at a conference in Salt Lake City

Please read the following:

• J. Donald Hughes, “Global Dimensions of Environmental History,” The Pacific

Historical Review, vol. 70, no. 1 (February 2001), pp. 91-101. Available at:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0030-

8684%28200102%2970%3A1%3C91%3AGDOEH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J

• Something New Under the Sun, xii-18, 212-226.

Latin America: February 12 & 14: 1900-1930s

• Guillermo Castro Herrera, “Environmental History (Made) in Latin America”

(April 19, 2001), available at:

http://www.h-net.org/~environ/historiography/latinam.htm

• David Cleary, “Towards an Environmental History of the Amazon: From

Prehistory to the Nineteenth Century,” Latin American Research Review, vol. 36,

no. 2 (2001), pp. 65-96. Available at:


8791%282001%2936%3A2%3C64%3ATAEHOT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J

• Trouble in Paradise, pp. vii-33.

• I will give you a list of essay topics in class.

February 19 & 21: 1940s-1960s

• Steve Marquardt, “Pesticides, Parakeets, and Unions in the Costa Rican Banana

Industry, 1938-1962,” Latin American Research Review, vol. 37, no. 2. (2002),

pp. 3-36. Available at:


8791%282002%2937%3A2%3C3%3APPAUIT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W

• Trouble in Paradise, pp. 35-127.

• Map Quiz – February 19

February 26 & 28: 1970s-2000

• Brant H. Millikan, “Tropical Deforestation, Land Degradation, and Society:

Lessons from Rondonia, Brazil,” Latin American Perspectives, vol. 19, no. 1

(Winter 1992), pp. 45-72. Available at:


582X%28199224%2919%3A1%3C45%3ATDLDAS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q

• Pedro Armillas, “Gardens on Swamps,” Science, vol. 174, no. 4010. (November

12, 1971): pp. 653-661. Available at:


8075%2819711112%293%3A174%3A4010%3C653%3AGOS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-

G

• Trouble in Paradise, pp.129-211.

• In-class film: “Charcoal People” (Vanguard Cinema, 2001)

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Essay 1 – February 28

Sub-Saharan Africa: March 4 & 6: 1900-1930s

• William Beinart, “African History and Environmental History” (June 11, 2001),

available at:

http://www.h-net.org/~environ/historiography/africaeh.htm

• David Anderson, “Depression, Dust Bowl, Demography, and Drought: The

Colonial State and Soil Conservation in East Africa during the 1930s,” African

Affairs, 83 (1984), 321-43.

http://www.jstor.org/view/00019909/ap020167/02a00030/0 • Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land, pp. 1-51.

• Map Quiz – March 6

March 11 & 13: 1940s-1960s

• “Protecting the Fauna of the Empire: The Evolution of National Parks in

Tanzania,” Ch. 4 in Roderick P. Neumann, Imposing Wilderness: Struggles over

Livelihood and Nature Preservation in Africa (Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1998), pp. 122-156.

• David Bunn, “An Unnatural State: Tourism, Water & Wildlife Photography in the

Early Kruger National Park,” Ch. 10 in Social History & African Environments

(Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2003), pp. 199-220.

• Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land, pp. 55-107.

• In-class film: “Darwin’s Nightmare” (Image Entertainment, 2007)

March 18 & 20: 1970s-2000

• Please read the contents of the following afrol News website on African

deforestation:

http://www.afrol.com/features/10278

• David Quammen (Photographs by George Steinmetz), “Tracing the Human

Footprint,” National Geographic Special Issue on Africa (September 2005),

available at:

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0509/feature1/index.html

• Christian Parenti and Laura Hanna, “The Fight to Save Congo’s Forests,” The

Nation (October 22, 2007), pp. 11-17. Available at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071022/parenti

• Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land, pp. 109-180.

Essay 2 – March 20

- March 25 & 27: Spring Break -

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China: April 1 & 3: 1900-1930s

• Robert Marks, “ ‘People Said Extinction Was Not Possible’: Two Thousand

Years of Environmental Change in South China,” Ch. 2 in Alf Hornberg, ed.,

Rethinking Environmental History: World-System History and Global

Environmental Change (New York: Altamira Press, 2007), pp. 41-60.

• The River Runs Black, pp. 1-57.

• Map Quiz – April 3

April 8 & 10: 1940-1960s

• “Deforestation, Famine, and Utopian Urgency,” Ch. 2 in Judith Shapiro, Mao’s

War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 67-94.

• Richard L. Edmonds, “The Environment in the People’s Republic of China 50

Years On,” China Quarterly, no. 159 (September 1999): 640-649. Available at:


7410%28199909%290%3A159%3C640%3ATEITPR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S


April 15 & 17: 1970s-2000

• Lester R. Brown, Who will feed China? Wake-Up Call for a Small Planet (New

York: W.W. Norton, 1995), 13-32.

• X.J. Ye, Z.Q. Wang, and Q.S. Li, “The ecological agriculture movement in

modern China Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, Vol. 92, no. 2-3

(November 2002), pp. 261-281. Available at:

http://journals.ohiolink.edu/ejc/xml_ft.cgi/Ye_X.J.html?issn=01678809&issue=v

92i2-3&article=261_teamimc


• In-class film: “Inside China” (PBS Home Video, 2006)

Essay 3 – April 17

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The World: April 22 & 24: Synoptic Views, Local Knowledge(s)

• James Scott, Seeing Like a State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp.

11-52, 262-306.

• Paul Robbins, “The Practical Politics of Knowing: State Environmental

Knowledge and Local Political Economy,” Economic Geography, vol. 76, no. 2.

(April, 2000), pp. 126-144.

• Martin O’Conner, “Is Sustainable Capitalism Possible?” Ch. 8 in Is Capitalism

Sustainable? Political Economy and the Politics of Ecology, Martin O’Conner,

ed. (New York: The Guilford Press, 1994), pp. 152-175.

• In-class film: “Black Gold” (Mongrel Media, 2006)

Essay 4 – April 24

April 29 & May 1: Alternative Perspectives

• Ramachandra Guha, How Much Should a Person Consume? Environmentalism in

India and the United States (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006),

pp. 220-250.

• Immanuel Wallerstein, “The Ecology and the Economy: What is Rational?” Paper

delivered at Keynote Session of Conference, “World System History and Global

Environmental change,” Lund, Sweden, 19-22 September 2003.

• Carolyn Merchant, Radical Ecology: The Search for a Liveable World (New

York: Routledge, 1992), 211-234.

• In-class film: “Harvest of Fear” (PBS Home Video, 2001)

May 6 & 8: History and Ecology

• Something New Under the Sun, 325-362.

• D.M.J.S. Bowman, “Future eating and country keeping: what role has

environmental history in the management of biodiversity?” Journal of

Biogeography, vol. 28, no. 5 (May 2001), pp. 549–564. Available at:

http://journals.ohiolink.edu/ejc/article.cgi?issn=03050270&issue=v28i0005&artic

le=549_feackwhitmob&search_term=%28%22environmental+history%22%29

• Daniel Botkin, Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First

Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 3-71.

Essay 5 – May 8

May 11-13: Reading Period

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