Environmental History

Environmental history examines the changing relationship between human beings and their physical surroundings. We will actively question the boundary between nature and culture, showing how social and natural history mutually inform one another. We will do so by asking three interrelated questions. First, how has the material context in which history unfolded impacted the development of our culture, society, and economy? Second, how and why did people’s ideas and representations of the natural world change over time? Finally, in what ways and to what ends have human beings actively though not always intentionally altered their physical surroundings?