Themes for week of 10 January 2008:
History Without Borders: Human Nature and Natural Worlds Through
Time
Discussion Questions:
- How do these authors compare/contrast in their approach to
environmental history? What are their priorities and/or biases?
- How did the natural world influence what people perceived to
be natural and how they acted as a result?
- What is the relation between ideas about nature and human
strategies of production and settlement? Political entities?
Before Next Meeting (Monday)
• Read for general understanding and familiarity:
Fernández-Armesto, pp. 18-38, 39-78;
Steinberg, pp. 21-50
Richards, pp. 58-85
• Read for more expertise and detailed understanding in your
Discussion Assignment (see suggestions on syllabus regarding things
to consider/look for in analyzing material assigned to you for this)
• Be ready to provide a brief overview, in class, of your working ideas
for the term project (ideas for a topic, approach, questions to ask)
History Without Borders: Human Nature and Natural Worlds
A. Environmental history vs history of environmentalism
1. Are humans apart from nature or a part of nature?
a. How did perceptions of nature affect human actions in
relation to nature?
b. How did environmental changes occur and how did
humans adapt?
2. How have humans “constructed” nature through time?
a. What is “nature”? “natural”?
b. Concept of “second nature” and the built environment
i. What was the effect of human activity on surroundings
ii. How did perceptions of “nature” change over time?
-classical sense: “it’s in their nature” (as it is)
-modern sense: untainted by human manipulation?
Discussion Questions:
- How do these authors compare/contrast in their approach to
environmental history? What are their priorities and/or biases?
- How did the natural world influence what people perceived to
be natural and how they acted as a result?
- What is the relation between ideas about nature and human
strategies of production and settlement? Political entities?
- Fernándes-Armesto, pp. 3-17: Environment and Civilization
• “environmental frontiers” as niches for civilization
• Human adaptation and experimentation
• “the itch to civilize” (urge & risk to “improve”/progressive bias)
• The tendency to “overexploit”
• “The Glutinous Environment”
• (environment changes us)
Discussion Questions:
- How do these authors compare/contrast in their approach to
environmental history? What are their priorities and/or biases?
- How did the natural world influence what people perceived to
be natural and how they acted as a result?
- What is the relation between ideas about nature and human
strategies of production and settlement? Political entities?
- Richards, pp. 1-14: Anthropocentric change, 1500-1850
• Intensified land use (and concept of “frontiers”)
• Biological invasions linked with human mobility (“alien species”)
• Species depletion (“simplification” & “the world hunt”)
(we change the environment)
Discussion Questions:
- How do these authors compare/contrast in their approach to
environmental history? What are their priorities and/or biases?
- How did the natural world influence what people perceived to
be natural and how they acted as a result?
- What is the relation between ideas about nature and human
strategies of production and settlement? Political entities?
- Steinberg, pp. 3-20: “Rocks and History”, and “Chaos to Simplicity”
• Geologic origins (Pangea) & “resources”
• Prehistoric climate change
• “Wilderness under Fire”—prehistoric land management
• “Paleoindians” and “mass extinctions”
(“complex dialogue” argument)
Discussion Questions:
- How do these authors compare/contrast in their approach to
environmental history? What are their priorities and/or biases?
- How did the natural world influence what people perceived to
be natural and how they acted as a result?
- What is the relation between ideas about nature and human
strategies of production and settlement? Political entities?
- McNeill, xxi-xxvi, 3-18:
“Rats, Sharks, and History” and “Peculiarities of a Prodigal Century”:
(accelerating adaptations)
• Economic Growth
• Population Growth
• Energy Production
• Energy Use
(self-destructive patterns of adaptation)
History Without Borders: Human Nature and Natural Worlds
A. What is the relation between ideas about nature and strategies of
production?
1. What are “natural” human priorities?
2. What human actions cause environmental transformation?
3. How do different strategies of production affect interaction
with nature?
a. Hunting?
• Totemism and the mythology of oneness with nature
• Wilderness as “home”
b. What was the standard of living in paleolithic times?
Lifespan/health?
c. How did the transition to neolithic culture affect
lifespans/health?
d. What prompted the transition from paleolithic to neolithic
lifeways?
e. What was the effect of Global climate shifts and
glaciation? (ice ages?)
History Without Borders: Human Nature and Natural Worlds
A. How does agriculture affect perceptions of nature and wilderness?
1. What is “agriculture”? Is it necessary for “civilization?
2. What are the origins of the concept of “gardening”?
B. What caused change in subsistence patterns?
a. Climate change? (global warming/species extinctions?)
b. Population pressures (sedentism, declining food supplies?)
c. Innovation? (experimentation/hobbyists?)
d. Mistake? (big brain is defective adaptation?)
C. Environmental History as the study of regional variation in time?
(see case-study, below)
Emerging Notions of Nature: regionalism and
the cultural baggage of Europeans
How did perceptions of natural vs
unnatural worlds change over time
and why?
How did those perceptions affect
the way people acted in nature, and
with what results?
How do ideas affect what people do in Nature?
•
•
•
•
How does the location of people in nature
relate to their ideas about nature?
“civilization” in association with margins, or
edges (transition zones)
fuel, refuges, reserves and dynamic tension
of people in relation to forests
Robert Pogue Harrison, Forests: The Shadow
of Civilization
Forests & Ancient concepts of wild vs civilized
(humanized?) landscapes:
• Ancient European perceptions of forests as
protective margins of cultural integrity
–
–
–
–
•
•
obstacles to conquest and homogenization
assylums of cultural independence
targets of imperial power
agents of isolation/localization (lucus)
Plato’s account of deforestation in ancient
Greece
Roman law conveyed title to person who cleared
a land parcel
How do Imperial Systems affect
perceptions of nature?
•
How do Imperial Systems affect perceptions of nature?
– potash industry and its impact on forest lands
– leather tanning and impact on forests (500,000 tons
of bark/yr in early 1800s Britain)
– sea-power and deforestation (shipbuilding)
–
•
ecological implications of classical statuary (quaries,
smelting, etc.)
How does nature affect patterns of imperial growth?
–
–
prominence of oak woodlands in Mediterranean ecosystems
relatively insignificant tidal action in Mediterranean Sea
• stability of coastal access
• implications for maritime trade
How does the structure of an imperial
economy affect energy flows and processes?
F. Braudel’s
Mediterranean and
the concept of deep
currents in history
Regional specialization to
serve imperial
economy
Movement of resources
from periphery to
center
Accelerated impacts on
ever-expanding
periphery
The Nature of Imperial Greece
How did the ancient Greeks think about the world
around them?
–
Platonic idealism
•
•
–
imagine there's a real world that you can't really see, hear,
feel, touch, or smell--spiritual essence?
What you think you see is only an illusion, or a shadowimage of what is real
Aristotelian method
•
•
observed "uses"--the real world is all around you and it is
useful
pragmatic knowledge is what really matters (use-value)
What did Greeks do with the nature around them?
–
–
–
How did urbanization affect the landscapes of ancient
Greece?
• Deforestation contributed to soil erosion & siltation of
nearby landscapes and rivers
• growth model of colonization to secure depleted/needed
resources for imperial centers
• localized temperature increases and drought (microclimate
changes from deforestation)
• new marshlands (from floods & siltation) foster mosquitoborne disease epidemics (malaria)
• mining/pollution (air, water)/ and species extinctions
How did ancient Greeks respond to the ecological crisis?
• passive solar heating systems
• plantation forestry
• Contour plowing
Did their efforts succeed in slowing/halting degradation?
The Nature of Imperial Rome
How did the Roman Empire re-make the Greek
world?
–
–
–
–
–
Pliny’s Natural History (1st century AD) &
Aristotelian method (observational "uses")
land-armies and defensive ramparts (2000 x 3000 ft
per 3-legion army
Health problems associated with industrialization &
extensive use of heavy metals (lead, silver, gold)
note high lead content in garum and liquamen
(common sauces in Roman foods)
lead sulfide as common prescription for diseases,
scars, eyewash, and hairwash (cosmetic)
The Nature of Monastic Enclaves
How did European perceptions of nature change
after the Fall of the Roman Empire, and why?
–
Intellectual retreat into monastaries and the study of
localized nature
– “discovered” order vs "classical order"
• sensational Nature (monastery grounds) vs
authoritative texts (Pliny’s Natural History , 1st
century AD)
• priestly ideal of [re-]naming God’s creation
• Disjuncture of daily life and Pliny’s Nature
– Europe’s Deforestation: 95% forested in 1st century,
20% forested in 1100 AD (45 million people)
How did the “Little Ice Age” affect
Renaissance thinking and the “Discovery”
impulse?
•
•
•
•
declining agricultural productivity and the
crisis of Christendom (ca 1200-1350)
Black Death of 1347-1350 and biological
luxuries for survivors (temporary surplus)
Apparent surplus and flowering of
cultures
population recovery and resource crisis,
1400-1500
The Nature of Discovery
How did “discovery” of America affect
European ideas about nature?
–
–
–
–
Challenged European constructs of nature (religious &
scientific):
• unexplained variation in species, people, resources (new
science)
• new observations conflict with classical and renaissanceera texts (sensational vs rational order)
Disrupted faith in order and stability in nature as evidence of
God’s order (nature as unknown threat)
Native Americans as a challenge to Aristotelian ideal of “folk
wisdom” (observational and use knowledge)
Scientific/religious retreat into idealized systems (formalism,
immutable “laws”, linear time)
• de-spiritualized and commodified “nature”
• Protestant/Calvinist doctrine of pre-destination
What (mis)perceptions of forests and nature did
Europeans bring to North America after 1500?
•
Forested landscape as impediment/threatening
wilderness (vs valued legacy)
•
Ecological diversity as an intellectual and metaphysical
problem (vs introduced species as food source)
•
Aristotelian concept of use-value/ways of knowing and
understanding nature (materialism)
•
Platonic traditions of idealism (supernatural forms)
The Nature of Doubt
How did the scientific Revolution affect European
priorities in the Discovery Era, 1500-1700?
•
Instrumentation and the narrowing of perspective
(alienation from nature)
•
Scientific method and the concept of "facts" (data)
alienated from nature (context or value)
–
–
Descartes and the "method of doubt"--disbelief in
common-sense nature (“the noise of breaking
machines”)
Newton and systematic "laws" of a mechanistic
universe (soul-less nature vs soul-ful humanity)
The Nature of Belief
How did Judeo-Christian mythology/beliefs
structure human perceptions of the landscape?
–
–
"Garden" imagery and the concept of a "humanized"
environment (pastoral/agricultural ideals)
"Paradise Lost" and the search for other-worldly
"redemption" (vs "stewardship" ideals?)
How did the Protestant Reformation affect
European perceptions of/interactions with
nature?
–
–
search for order and stability in nature as a symbol of
God’s order/divine plan (John Winthrop's "City on a
Hill"
puritan ideology of a natural order apparent in
physical world (appearance is everything)
Implications of European confusion about the
natural world (what is natural) at the time of
contact with the Americas:
– European spiritual leadership in chaotic
disorder and violent contest
– “long century” of violent competition for
ideological advantage (1480s to 1620s)
– Implications for European perceptions of
exotic landscapes and peoples (the "other")
The Nature of Enlightenment
Before Next Meeting (Monday)
• Read for general understanding and familiarity:
Fernández-Armesto, pp. 18-38, 39-78;
Steinberg, pp. 21-50
Richards, pp. 58-85
• Read for more expertise and detailed understanding in your
Discussion Assignment (see suggestions on syllabus regarding things
to consider/look for in analyzing material assigned to you for this)
• Be ready to provide a brief overview, in class, of your working ideas
for the term project (ideas for a topic, approach, questions to ask)