History 3000-A01
Environmental History
Fall 2003
MWF 9:00-9:50 a.m. in Fretwell 107
Instructor: Dr. Peter Thorsheim
Office: 136 Garinger
Office Hours: Mondays-Fridays, 1:00-2:00 p.m. , and by appointment
E-mail: pthorshe@uncc.edu (do not use for submitting assignments)
Phone: (704) 687-4874
Photograph from Alfons Paquet, Der Rhein: Vision und Wirklichkeit (Düsseldorf, 1940)
Description
Throughout history, people have reshaped their environments, and environmental conditions have influenced people. As a field of study, environmental history is a recent development, but one that has already made a large impact on the ways that both professional historians and the public think about the past. This course explores five broad topics: the pre-industrial environment, the impact of industrialization on the environment, early environmentalism, the massive impact of technology on the environment during the twentieth century, and environmental politics and policy since the Second World War. The assigned readings are designed to encourage comparisons between the US , Britain , and the rest of the world.
Expectations
I expect you to complete each day's assigned reading before class, arrive on time and stay for the entire class, and abide by the UNCC Code of Student Academic Integrity: http://www.uncc.edu/policystate/ps-105.html. Plagiarism or other forms of academic dishonesty will result in an F in this course and possible additional penalties. If you have special needs that need accommodation, it is your responsibility to discuss them with me as soon as possible. Please let me know in advance if you must come late or leave early. Failure to do so may result in your being marked absent. More than four unexcused absences will lower your grade. Please keep cellphones and pagers turned off while you are in class. I reserve the right to make changes to this syllabus during the course of the semester and announce them in class. Traffic delays can happen; unless a sign indicates that class is cancelled, please remain in the classroom until 9:20 if I am not there.
Grading
Journal Entries: 15%
Midterm Exam: 10%
Place Paper: 10%
Research Paper: 25% (includes prospectus)
Final Exam: 20%
Attendance and Participation: 20%
Grade Scale: A = 90 to 100%; B = 80 to 89%; C = 70 to 79%; D = 60 to 69%; F = 0 to 59%
Journal Entries: Five times during the semester (you pick the dates, but at least twice before the midterm exam), you are to write a typed, double-spaced reflection (approximately 2 pages long) on that day's reading. Although entries should connect directly with a specific reading assignment, their purpose is not to summarize it. Instead, you should use each journal entry to respond to the reading, ponder questions that it raises for you, and possibly relate it to previous classes or readings. E-mailed entries will not receive credit.
Exams: Exams will consist of a combination of essays and short-answer questions. If you must miss a scheduled exam, contact me in advance to arrange a make-up time. In the event that you miss an exam for an unanticipated reason, you must notify me the same day that the exam is given. Failure to do so will result in a "0" for the exam.
Place Paper (3-4 double-spaced typed pages): This assignment asks you to visit a place and "read" its landscape as a primary source. In other words, you are to interpret what you see and explain how and why you think it came to be that way. Try to look at the place with a fresh set of eyes; don't take anything you see for granted. Be creative in your choice of a place to investigate. You could pick two neighborhoods and discuss their key differences, travel along a road and note how the landscape changes as you move from point A to point B, visit a cemetery and try to discern what attitudes its creators expressed in it, or look at a single city block and try to figure out why and how it came to take the shape that you now see. Whatever place you choose to investigate, the focus of your paper should be on the process of change over time.
Research Paper (8-10 double-spaced typed pages). In consultation with the instructor and following the steps in Writing History: A Guide for Students , you will pick an environmental issue (some form of pollution, urban or agricultural land use, etc.) and write a paper on its history.
Attendance and Participation: Everyone in this class is expected to take an active role in discussion. In addition, you will be expected to give a brief oral summary to the class each time you turn in a journal entry.
Books for Purchase
Guha, Ramachandra. Environmentalism: A Global History . New York : Longman, 2000.
Markowitz, Gerald, and David Rosner. Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution . Berkeley : University of California Press, 2002.
Steinberg, Ted. Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History . New York : Oxford University Press, 2002.
Storey, William Kelleher. Writing History: A Guide for Students . New York : Oxford University Press, 1999.
Winter, James H. Secure from Rash Assault: Sustaining the Victorian Environment . Berkeley : University of California Press, 1999.
Articles and Chapters
As noted below, some are on reserve as hardcopies or scanned articles (find this course, then search author's name), while others are available as full-text electronic journal articles. Please note that you may have to be on a library computer to access the latter. If you have trouble, ask for help at the reference desk on the ground floor.
Cole, Luke W., and Sheila R. Foster. "A History of the Environmental Justice Movement." In From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement , 19-33. New York University Press, 2001. (ON RESERVE)
Cronon, William. "The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature." In Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature , 69-90. New York : W. W. Norton, 1995. (ON RESERVE)
Melosi, Martin V. "Pollution and the Emergence of Industrial America ," In Effluent America : Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment , 49-67. Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001. (ON RESERVE)
Thorsheim, Peter. "Interpreting the London Smog Disaster of 1952." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, Providence , R.I. , April 2003. (ON RESERVE)
Thorsheim, Peter. "The Paradox of Smokeless Fuels: Gas, Coke and the Environment in Britain , 1813-1949." Environment and History 8 (2002): 381-401. (ON RESERVE)
Worster, Donald. "Appendix: Doing Environmental History." In The Ends of the Earth: Perspectives on Modern Environmental History , 289-307. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1988. (ON RESERVE)
25 Aug. Introduction
27 Aug. What is Environmental History? Read Worster, 289-307
29 Aug. Coming to America ; read Steinberg, 3-38
1 Sept. Labor Day (UNCC closed)
3 Sept. The Old South; read Steinberg, 71-88
5 Sept. Transforming the American West; read Steinberg, 116-37
8 Sept. No Class (instructor at a conference)
10 Sept. Trees; read Steinberg, 39-51 and Winter, 83-103
12 Sept. Cities and Consumption; read Winter, 166-88, and Steinberg, 55-70
15 Sept. Place Paper Due; Mining; read Winter, 124-42
17 Sept. The Environment and the Civil War; read Steinberg, 89-98
19 Sept. Research Paper Prospectus Due; The Industrial Landscape; read Winter, 143-65
22 Sept. Pollution in the Nineteenth Century; read Thorsheim, "Paradox," and Melosi, 49-67
24 Sept. Reshaping the British Landscape; read Winter, 104-23
26 Sept. Technology and the Environment in 19 th -Century Britain ; read Winter, 1-39
29 Sept. Agricultural Change in Britain ; read Winter, 40-82
1 Oct. Agricultural Change in America ; read Steinberg, 175-89
3 Oct. The Post-bellum South; read Steinberg, 99-115
6 Oct. Environmentalism in Historical Perspective; read Guha, 1-9
8 Oct. Back to Nature; read Winter, 209-30 and Guha, 10-24
10 Oct. Scientific Conservation; read Steinberg, 138-56, and Guha, 25-43
13 Oct. Fall Break
15 Oct. Wilderness Conservation; read Guha, 44-62
17 Oct. Urban Environmental Reform; read Winter, 189-208, and Steinberg, 157-72
20 Oct. What's for Dinner? read Steinberg, 190-205
22 Oct. Review for Exam; read Winter, 249-57
24 Oct. Midterm Exam
27 Oct. Cars and Suburbs; read Steinberg, 206-25
29 Oct. Garbage; read Steinberg, 226-38
31 Oct. Communism and the Environment; read Guha, 125-37
3 Nov. Corporations and the Environment; read Markowitz and Rosner, xi-xv and 1-35
5 Nov. Lead Paint; read Markowitz and Rosner, 36-107
7 Nov. Factory as Environment; read Markowitz and Rosner, 108-38
10 Nov. Air Pollution after World War II; read Markowitz and Rosner, 139-67, and Thorsheim, "Smog"
12 Nov. Silent Spring and After; read Guha, 63-97
14 Nov. Plastics and Politics; read Markowitz and Rosner, 168-233
17 Nov. Research Paper Due; Environmental Justice; read Cole and Foster, 19-33
19 Nov. US Environmental Politics; read Steinberg, 239-61
21 Nov. Rethinking Wilderness; read Cronon, 69-90
24 Nov. Who Pays for Pollution? read Markowitz and Rosner, 234-86
26 Nov. Thanksgiving Break
28 Nov. Thanksgiving Break
1 Dec. Globalization; read Steinberg, 262-81
3 Dec. International Development and the Environment; Guha, 98-124
5 Dec. Regulation; read Markowitz and Rosner, 287-306
8 Dec. Environment, History, and the Future; read Guha, 138-54
10 Dec. Last Class/Review for Exam; read Steinberg, 283-85
FINAL EXAM: Wed. Dec. 17, 9-11 a.m.