History 256. Interpreting Nature: Environmental Thinking and Practice in Europe

1500 to the Present

Fall 2008

Robert Schwartz

Office Hours:

206 Skinner

Tues & Thurs: 1:30-4:00 & by appt.

e-mail: rschwart

 

 

Books available for purchase at the Odyssey:

 

Peter Coates,  Nature : Western Attitudes since Ancient Times. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998/2004)

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Norton pb)

James Winter, Secure from Rash Assault. Sustaining the Victorian Environment. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999)

 

Course Reading on Ella indicated as (Ella)

 

Course Requirements (approximate weight in course grade)

1.      Attendance at all classes, a number of oral presentations, and informed participation in discussions. (15%)

2.      Two abstracts of the required readings. (10%)

3.      Two lab reports. (15%)

4.      An essay (10 to 12 pages. Key parts of the essay will be presented orally) (40%)

5.      A final exam (20%)

 

Schedule of Topics and Readings

 

Conceptions of Nature and Environmental Change from Antiquity to the Enlightenment

 

Sept. 5

 

 

Introduction

Coates, Nature, chap. 1

Schwartz, Teaching Environmental History: Environmental Thinking and Practice in Europe, 1500 to the Present (Ella)

 

Sept. 10

 

Coates, Nature, chaps 2, 4, 5 (pp. 95-109) & 6. (Ancient Greece and Rome and the early modern period, 1500-1750)

Richards, John F. "Climate and Early Modern World Environmental History." In The Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003): 58-88. (Ella)

Richards, John F. “Land Transformation,” in Turner, The Earth as Transformed, chap. 10 (163-178). (Ella)

 

Optional:

Coates, Nature, chap. 3, The Middle Ages.

Blackbourn, David. "Conquests from Barbarism." Taming Nature in Frederick the Great's Prussia." In Nature in German History, edited by Christof Mauch. New York, 2004 (Ella)

McNeill, J. R. "Observations on the Nature and Culture of Environmental History." History & Theory 42, no. 4 (2003): 5-43 (Ella)

 

Post on the Web Forum by Wednesday 9 a.m. an abstract of a chapter from Coates or one of the articles by Richards. (ungraded)

 

Nature as Muse: The Romantic Turn of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century

 

Sept. 17

Jean Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, and William Wordsworth

Coates, Nature, chap. 7

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, selections on Nature; The Reveries of a Solitary Walker (ca. 1774-76), selection (Ella)

Charleton, New Views of the Natural in France, chap. 3: “Wild Sublimity”

Optional: chap. 3 Pastoral Landscapes] (Ella)

Adam Smith, “Philosophic Calm” from “The Principles Which Lead and Direct Philosophical Enquiries, illustrated by the History of Astronomy,” ca. 1750; and “Of the Beauty Which the appearance of Utility Bestows upon all the Productions of Art, and of the Extensive Influence of this Species of Beauty,” from The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759, pp. 295-300, in Clayre (read introductory note for section XIX, pp. xxxiii-xxxiv) (Ella)

W. Wordsworth, “Above Tintern Abbey,” from Lyrical Ballads, 1798, with an introductory note. (Ella)

 

Optional:

Selections from Dorothy Wordsworth’s Grasmere Diary (Ella)

Jonathan Bate, Romantic Ecology, chap. 2, “The Economy of Nature.” (Ella)

 

Written Work

 

Short paper (abstract), September 16 at 5 p.m. Send by email attachment.

Sept. 24

 

Mary Shelly: The Cost of Breaking with Nature

Shelley, Frankenstein, entire.

Optional:

Reviews of Frankenstein: Quarterly Review (Jan. 1818); Edinburgh Magazine (March 1818); Hugh R. Haweis, Introduction to the Rutledge World Library Edition (1886), pp. 187-201 in the Norton Critical Edition of Frankenstein

 

Written work

 

Abstract of Shelley due in class.  

 

Nature Geared to Steam: The Industrial Revolution and Environmental Change in Britain

 

Oct. 1

 

Early Industrialization and the Debate on its Effects

Andrew Ure, “The Blessings of the Factory System,” from The Philosophy of Manufactures, 1835, pp. 67-72, in Clayre (optional: read introductory note for section V, pp. xxiv-xxv) (Ella)

Alexis de Tocqueville, “Manchester,” from Journeys to England and Ireland, 1835, pp. 117-19, in Clayre (read introductory note for section VIII, pp. xxv-xxvi) (Ella)

Winter, Secure from Rash Assault, Introduction, Conclusion, chaps. 1-2.

Optional: chap. 3 Lowland Fields; 4 Upland Moors

Optional:

Charles Dickens, “Coketown,” from Hard Times, 1854, pp. 124-27, in Clayre (Ella)

William Wordsworth, “Outrage Done to Nature,” from  The Excursion, 1814, pp. 175-177, in Clayre (Ella)

 

 

Break

October 11-14

 

Oct. 15

The Victorians and the Environment: The City and the Country

Winter, Secure from Rash Assault, either chap. 7 Holes or chap. 8 Heaps, chap. 9 The City in the Country and 10 Greening the City.

Optional: chap. 11 The Environment of Leisure; chap. 12 The Hungry Ocean.

Douglas, Ian, Rob Hodgson, and Nigel Lawson. "Industry, Environment and Health through 200 Years in Manchester." Ecological Economics 41, no. 2 (2002): 235. (Ella)

R Schwartz, “Railways and Population Change in Industrializing England,” chapter 1. (Ella)

Optional:

Friedrich Engels, “Manchester,” from The Conditions of the Working Class in England, 1844-45, pp. 122-24, in Clayre (Ella)

Robert Vaughan,. The Age of Great Cities: or, Modern Society Viewed in Its Relation to Intelligence, Morals, and Religion, selection (Ella) 

Rees, “Revisiting carrying capacity: Area-based indicators of sustainability.” (Ella) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Written work

Howell, “The Impact of Railways on Agricultural Development in Nineteenth-Century Wales.” (Ella) 

C.S. Hallas, “The social and economic impact of a rural railway: the Wensleydale line” (Ella) 

Richard Perren, Agriculture in Depression, 1870-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995), chaps 1-3, 7, and conclusion (Ella) 

 

One-page lab report due on Friday, October 17. Send by email attachment.

 

Oct. 22

Industrial Technology: The Railroad

Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey. Trains and Travel in the 19th Century, chap. 3 “Railroad Space and Railroad Time,”and chap. 12 “Tracks in the City.” (Ella)

Optional: chap. 4 Panoramic Travel

Winter, Secure from Rash Assault, chap. 6 Cutting New Channels

R. Schwartz, “Railways and Population Change in Industrializing England,” chapter 2 (Ella)

Optional:

Jack Simmons, The Railway in Town and Country, chap. 2 (London) or chap. 4 (Great Provincial Cities); chap. 10 Rural England and Wales (Ella)

Written work

 

Oct. 29

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lab report due on Friday, October 24. Send by email attachment.

 

 

Lab. Migration in Industrializing England

Summary of Colin Pooley and Jean Turnbull, Migration and Mobility in Britain since the 18th Century (London: UCL Press, 1988) (Ella)

Two chapters from Lawton and Pooley, as listed under Further Reading.

 

Further Reading

Lawton, Richard, and Colin G Pooley. Britain, 1740-1950: an Historical Geography (London, 1992) [Ella], chaps. 8 (Demographic Change) 9 (The Countryside, 1830-1890), 10 (Industry and Industrialization, 1830-1890); 11 (Urbanization and Urban Life, 1830-1890),14 (Countryside, 1890-1940); 15 (Industrialization, 1890-1940); 16 (Urbanization, 1890-1940)

Emanuel Lovekin (mining butty) and Thomas Wood (engineer) in Burnett, Useful Toil

Gwyneth Nair And David Poyner The Flight from the Land? Rural Migration in South-East Shropshire in the Late Nineteenth Century (Ella)

Thomas Hardy, 'The Dorsetshire Labourer' (1883) (Ella)

Reverend Augustus Jessopp, 'Clouds Over Arcady' (1883) (Ella)

Richard Jefferies, 'The Wiltshire Labourer' (1883) (Ella)

Film: “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” (adoption of Thomas Hardy’s 1891 novel by Roman Polanski)

 

Nov. 5

 

 

Environmental Issues in the British Parliamentary Papers

Selection of documents keyed to your essay project

Optional:

Melissa Joyce, “Industrialisation and Environmental History in Victorian England: Wolverhampton, Wolverton and The Railroad,” International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing, 2008 (Ella) [a revised and expanded version of her paper for History 256 in the fall 2005.]

 

Nov. 12

Darwin: Man in Nature

Peter Marshall, “Darwinism and the Web of Life,” chap. 23 in Nature’s Web. An Exploration of Ecological Thinking (New York, 1992) (Ella).

 

Nov. 19

 

Written Work due

 

Presentations based on papers

 

Essay due November 20. Send by email.

Break

November 22-26

The Twentieth Century: The Past in the Present

 

 

Dec. 3

Robert Pois, National Socialism and the Religion of Nature, chap. 3; “Man in the Natural World,” and Conclusion. (Ella)

Optional: chap. 5 “The Natural, Authentic Man and the Road to Auschwitz”(Ella).

Peter Marshall,  “The Resurrection of Gaia,” chap. 28 in Nature’s Web (Ella)

James Lovelock, “Gaia,” from C. Merchant, ed., Ecology, 198-206 (Ella)

 

 

 

 

Sandra Chaney, “For Nation and Prosperity, Health, and a Green Environment. Protecting Nature in West Germany, 1945-70,” In Nature in German History, edited by Christof Mauch. New York, 2004 Ch. 5. (Ella)

Coates, Nature, chaps. 8

 

 

Dec. 10

Conclusion: Change and Continuity

Coates, Nature, chaps. 9

J. R. McNeill, “Historical Perspectives On Global Ecology” (Ella)

William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness: or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” from Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (New York, 1996); (Ella)

Review for Final Exam