Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this module students should:
- Move away from traditional Eurocentric and Anthropocentric histories of the modern world.
- Demonstrate awareness of the ways in which human societies transformed and were shaped by
the environment at a global scale throughout the modern age.
- Understood the long term historical roots of the current environmental crisis and of
environmentalist thought and policies.
- Develop a reflexivity about the past, present and future of the current environmental crisis.
- Acquire a capacity to read, summarize, contextualize, analyze critically, present and discuss texts
in global environmental history.
- Contribute in a meaningful way to class discussions by demonstrating critical engagement with
the weekly mandatory readings.
Indicative Module Content:
This module will address such topics as:
- From the ecological crisis of feudalism to European ecological imperialism
- The early modern world ecology
- The Great Divergence between China and England
- The climate of history: crisis, wars, rebellions, revolutions and climate change
- From the ‘Industrial Revolution’ to the fossil economy in England
- The rise of fossil nation states and the ‘Second Industrial Revolution’
- From fossil imperialism to modern colonialism: a global environmental history
- Wars in nature, wars on nature: an environmental history of modern warfare
- Fossil capitalism from Fordism to neoliberalism: a global environmental history of the ‘Great
Acceleration’
- Environmentalism and anti-environmentalism in historical perspective