C8930 - Environmental History (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

This course examines the main historical and conceptual issues concerning the complex interactions between humans and the natural world in the early modern and modern periods. Students will explore the historical development of: concepts of nature and the environment; political, technical and scientific approaches to environmental issues; interactions between environmental practices and knowledge.

Course contents

WHAT IS THE “ENVIRONMENTAL” IN ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY? KNOWLEDGE, POWER, AND NATURE

This course presents an overview of the main tools, methods, and issues opened up by an historical approach to the natural environment that takes into the account the inseparability between natural history and human history.

During the course we will explore the following historiographical issues: the relationships between the Anthropocene and history and between ecology and history; the idea of Wilderness and the uses of technology; the “Columbian Exchange” and colonial history; ecofeminist approaches; the historical relations between agriculture and environment; the relations between health, labour and the environment; animal and more-than-human history.

The course will begin on Monday April 5, and will have the following schedule: Monday 3-5pm; Tuesday 3-5pm; Wednesday 1-3pm in Aula II (Via Zamboni 38). 

Readings/Bibliography

 1. The Idea of the Environment

• Paul Warde, Libby Robin, Sverker Sörlin, The Environment. A History of an Idea (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018): Prologue; Road to survival (ch.1).

• Etienne Benson, Surroundings. A History of Environments and Environmentalisms (The University of Chicago Press, 2020): Introduction.

 • William Cronon, "The Trouble with Wilderness. Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature" Environmental History 1, 1 (1996): 7–28.  

 

2. The Pioneers of the Annales School

• Marc Bloch, "The advent and triumph of the watermill", in Id., Land and Work in Medieval Europe (University of California Press, 1967).

• Fernand Braudel, Preface to the First Edition and Preface to the Second Edition, in Id., The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (William Collins, 1972).

• Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Introduction, in Id., Times of Feast, Times of Famine. A History of Climate Since the Year 1000 (Doubleday, 1971).

 

3. The Anthropocene and History

• Dipesh Chakrabarty. “The Climate of History: Four Theses.” Critical Inquiry 35, no. 2 (2009): 197–222.

• Andreas Malm, Alf Hornborg. "The geology of mankind? A critique of the Anthropocene narrative" The Anthropocene Review, 1(1) (2014): 62–69.

• Cristoph Bonneuil, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, The Schock of the Anthropocene (Verso, 2016): Clio, the Earth, and Anthropocenologists (ch. 3).

 

4. Ecology and History

• Carolyn Merchant, Ecological Revolutions (The University of North Carolina Press, 1989): Ecology and History (ch.1).

• Donald Worster, The Ends of the earth: Perspectives on modern environmental history (Cambridge University Press, 1988): Introduction. The Vulnerable Earth: Towards a Planetary History; Appendix: Doing Environmental History. 

 

5. The Columbian Exchange and Colonial History

• Alfred Crosby, The Columbian exchange. Biological and cultural consequences of 1492 (Praeger, 2003): Preface to the 1972 edition; The Contrasts (ch.1).

• Richard Grove, Green imperialism. Colonial expansion, tropical island Edens and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860 (Cambridge University Press, 1995): Introduction; Conclusion. The colonial state and the origins of western environmentalism.

• Hannah Holleman, Imperialism, White Settler Colonialism, and the Ecological Rift (ch.3), in Id., Dust Bowls of Empire: Imperialism, Environmental Politics, and the Injustice of "Green" Capitalism (Yale University Press, 2018).

 

6. Energy and Technology

• David Edgerton, The Shock of the Old. Technology and Global History since 1900 (Profile Books, 2006): Introduction. 

• Andreas Malm, Fossil Capital. The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming (Verso Books, 2016): In the Heat of the Past: Toward a History of the Fossil Economy.

Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, More and more and more. An all-consuming history (Penguin, 2025): Introduction: A symbiotic history of energy.

 

7. Ecofeminist approaches

• Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (Harper&Row, 1990): Preface 1990; Nature as Female (ch.1).

• Ursula Le Guin, The carrier bag theory of fiction, in Id., Dancing at the edge of the world (Grove Press, 1989).

• Sonalini Sapra, "Feminist Perspectives on the Environment' (30 Nov. 2017), in Nalanda Roy (ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies (Oxford Academic, 2017), https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.49.

 

8. Agriculture and the Environment

• Robert McNeill, Something new under the sun. An environmental history of the twentieth-century world (Norton, 2000): The Biosphere: eat and be eaten (ch.7).

• Raj Patel. "The Long Green Revolution" The Journal of Peasant Studies, 40(1) (2013): 1–63.

• Miriam Borgia and Paolo Savoia, "A Historical Political Ecology of the 16th century Villa: Agostino Gallo on farming, animals, and cheesemaking" Physis (2026), forthcoming.

 

9. Health, Labour, and the Environment

• Stefania Barca, Workers of the earth. Labour, ecology and reproduction in the age of climate change (Pluto Press, 2024): Labouring the earth: Transnational reflections on the environmental history of work (ch. 1); Bread and poison: Stories of labour environmentalism in Italy, 1968-1998 (ch. 2); Labour and the ecological crisis: the ecomodernist dilemma in western marxism(s) (ch. 6).

 

10. More-than-human history

• Amanda Reese, "Animal agents? Historiography, theory and the history of science in the Anthropocene" British Journal of the History of Science: Themes 2 (2017): 1-10.

• Harriet Ritvo, "On the Animal Turn" Daedalus, 136, no. 4 (2007): 118–122.

• Erica Fudge, "A Left-Handed Blow: Writing the History of Animals", in Nigel Rothfels (ed.), Representing Animals (2002): 3-18.

• Anna Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World (Princeton University Press, 2015): History (ch. 12).

 

 

Teaching methods

Lectures.

Texts and primary sources that will be discussed in class will be added to the bibliography for those interested in them. To encourage class participation, each lecture will be followed by a session of questions and comments. I will provide in advance the calendar with all the topics for each lecture, divided into 10 main topics. For each topic there will be a reading list of 2-3 chapters or essays that will be discusses as part of the lectures.  

The second part of the course (the remaining meetings) will be devoted to students' presentations, individually or, preferably, in group, to be developed starting from the topics discussed in the first part of the course, and agreed with the teacher. The dates and contents of the presentations will be decided during the first classes. The unfolding of this second part will be subject to an evaluation based on the number of attendees; the modalities of class presentation will be explained in the first meeting.

Assessment methods

Each student will choose 5 out of 10 topics among those presented in lectures, and prepare the relative reading material for an oral exam.

In the second part of the course students will choose one research idea or topic to present in class, agreed with the instructor, with the help of slides, either individually or, preferably, in group. Slides will be circulated with the whole group 24 hours in advance of the presentation in order to make discussions more precise and lively. This presentation is part of the evaluation. The unfolding of this second part will be subject to an evaluation based on the number of attendees; the modalities of class presentation, as well as those of the oral exam, will be explained in the first meeting.

Students not attending classes must prepare two additional topic among the 10 presented in lectures, with the relative reading material.

Top marks (28-30) will be given to students who demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the material discussed in class and contained in the texts, critical and analytical skills, and the ability to express ideas and concepts clearly and cogently. Those students who will demonstrate a good knowledge of the material but tend to repeat it mechanically rather than demonstrate full understanding and the ability to build connections and present an argument will be rewarded with average to high marks (23-27). Students who demonstrate superficial knowledge, gaps in preparation, poor critical and analytical skills and difficulties of expression will receive average to low marks (18-22). Severe lacunae in one or more areas listed above could lead to the student repeating the exam.

Exam sessions

During the 2026/27 academic year, exam sessions are scheduled for the following months: May, June, July, September, October, December, January.

Students with disabilities and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)
Students with disabilities or Specific Learning Disorders have the right to special adjustments according to their condition, following an assessment by the Service for Students with Disabilities and SLD. Please do not contact the instructor but get in touch with the Service directly to schedule an appointment. It will be the responsibility of the Service to determine the appropriate adjustments. For more information, visit the page: https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students

It is recommended that students contact the University office in advance. Any proposed adjustments must be submitted at least 15 days in advance for the instructor’s approval, who will evaluate their appropriateness in relation to the learning objectives of the course.

Teaching tools

Check the Virtuale online platform.

Office hours

See the website of Paolo Savoia