DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
US Environmental History Class at CSW
HTML https://cswenvirohistclass.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Mod 4, 2019
*****************************************************
#Post#: 2--------------------------------------------------
Reading #1: Worster and Diamond - Defining Environmental History
By: TeacherRachel Date: January 5, 2019, 9:55 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Please read (actively) Donald Worster's "Doing Environmental
History" and Jared Diamond's, "Predicting Environmental History"
(pp.1-7 in your packets). Post as required. Good luck.
#Post#: 3--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #1: Worster and Diamond - Defining Environmental His
tory
By: Shi Shi Date: January 7, 2019, 6:47 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
In the past, I learned about guns, germs, and steel and how they
impacted the European conquering of the Aztec and Inca empires.
Before reading Diamond’s section, I had never really considered
the underlying reasons as to why the Europeans had such
advantages; it just felt like given information that Europe was
stronger and more developed than other parts of the world. I
found it really interesting to see how Diamond broke down the
different advantages Europeans had by coming up with
subsequential questions relating to various environmental
influences. Of course, since this is an environmental history
course, these types of questions are to be expected, however, I
found myself having an Ah Ha! moment while reading about the
various situations he analyzed. I now have a better
understanding as to how eminent the environment in regards to
history seeing how European colonization has played out. For
example, I was unfamiliar with Europe’s environmental advantages
and what they allowed the region to accomplish. I was well aware
of Europe’s “germ” advantage when it came to conquering
different parts of the New World. However, reading about how
Europe’s viruses and diseases originated from an abundance of
domesticated animals gave me a different perspective on European
colonization. I hadn’t really thought about how much of an
impact differing environments had on European colonization, but
understanding the influence land had on the types of
domesticated animals allowed me to see why Europe had more
advantages. Due to Eurasia’s similar latitude, it allowed for
animals in that region to become adapted and domesticated
throughout various regions in that area. The Americas, however,
were less capable of having a larger range of animals due to
their north and south axis, thus putting them at a disadvantage
in regards to germs (p. 13).
#Post#: 4--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #1: Worster and Diamond - Defining Environmental His
tory
By: Casey A Date: January 7, 2019, 6:51 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
For my first post I would like to talk about the first two pages
of the reading as I have not yet read past that as I am writing
as I thought this would be a good place to write my thoughts
down. I thought that when Worster was emphasizing the idea that
humans naturally want to find a conclusive reason behind things.
For example Worster writes that people “tried to reconcile
history ‘from the bottom up.’” which I portrayed as us human
beings wanted to start from a very focused point in history to
cover all of the questions of: “What caused this thing to
happen?” and “what caused the thing that caused that to happen?”
and so on. What I also noticed was that our desire to know the
reasoning behind everything had to be categorized, had to make
perfect sense and had to be absolute. Forster talks about
“inquiries that do not neatly fit within national boarders”
along with saying “we cannot avoid getting some mud on [our
shoes].” This line stood out to me as be a metaphor that to try
to understand environmental history, we must be okay with the
fact that not everything has a clear or clean answer.
#Post#: 5--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #1: Worster and Diamond - Defining Environmental His
tory
By: TeacherRachel Date: January 7, 2019, 6:59 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Casey and Shi Shi, thanks for getting us off to a great start!!
Casey - be careful of making too much from such a small
section... good to draw connections, but you might need more
text to make them substantive. Shi Shi - thank you for drawing
out those key elements... are they shaping your overall
definition of Environmental History? I'm eager to hear other's
thoughts and replies! Rock on!!!
#Post#: 6--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #1: Worster and Diamond - Defining Environmental His
tory
By: Casey A Date: January 7, 2019, 7:33 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Partly in response to Shi Shi's post, partly a continuation of
my own post.
Okay, follow up post to my first one, after reading Diamond’s
essay, it helped me contextualize what I believe we will be
studying in this class. I think this focuses on the topic of
causation from environmental purposes such as in Diamond’s
writing in how he explains his answers in parts that provoke
more questions, and then keeps going further back until the
history becomes environmental. Along with Shi Shi, I also found
the reasons surprising behind the advancement of Eurasia. What
I commonly learned in past courses left me with an unsatisfying
answer of they had more metal to make more technology with, but
that left me with the question of why did they have more
advanced tools? After reading the essay, I find that the answer
is quite simple that with less illness and more crops other
people could devote more time to weapon crafting. Of course I
still now have questions like why were certain illnesses more
common in Eurasia to have an immunity to them built up? How do
certain bacteria evolve differently in different climates? But
that goes further back into a range that may not be history.
#Post#: 7--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #1: Worster and Diamond - Defining Environmental His
tory
By: Cale is not me. Date: January 7, 2019, 8:03 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Hello, it’s me. For this response, my main interest / question
is going to be about why environmentalism never played much of a
role on the way history was told until the 20th century. It
affects where cities are founded, warfare and even trade. I
wonder why such a form of history did not naturally develop
earlier. The reading states that: “Environmental history is, in
sum, part of a revisionist effort to make the discipline more
inclusive in its narratives than it has traditionally been.” Yet
I fail to see how environmental history is inherently inclusive
or exclusive. Later Worster says the study is also non-political
which seems to clash with that Idea. Maybe I’m missing
something. This, I suppose, also ties in with the other
relatively modern history of looking at things from a class,
race, etc perspective as both are revisionist. However, if a
state was to use history for political or nationalist reasons as
the text states it could make sense that they might want to
gloss over topics of class, race, and gender but Environment
history could still be useful in this context. It is shocking to
me that such an important and impactful topic only caught on in
the 1970s. Additionally, I am interested in what makes history a
revisionist history. When I've heard about revisionist history
it was typically in a negative context but it wasn't used that
way by Worster. Sorry if this makes no sense.
#Post#: 8--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #1: Worster and Diamond - Defining Environmental His
tory
By: Kasey Date: January 7, 2019, 8:10 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
While reading Worster’s section, I came across the idea of
nature impacting human life and human life impacting nature,
which seemed to be Worster’s belief of what environmental
history is. In class on our first day, this was the definition I
started off with, but I did not realize how complex this
definition can be. Human life has so many different qualities
that affect nature such as technology, architecture, and
culture. Everything that is man made or affected by any human
life will cause a chain reaction to nature and the environment.
Not to mention with Diamond’s views Eurasians who are spread all
around the world were taking over the modern world and each
growth in technology, trade, and consumerism would affect nature
itself. These advancements in swords and weapons need resources
from nature and were also used to kill many of the natives of
the New World. Plus, with the traveling of people and trading of
technology and resources used ships that brought different
organisms and diseases that were affecting life itself. Diseases
were also killing those who had not built up a resistance to
them, so many native people and other organisms died. Humans
continuously affect the environment and vice versa because each
decision that is made will bring time towards one path rather
than another. With human advancements in technology and trading,
it is affecting our environment substantially due to transfer of
organisms, resources, and diseases, plus the resources that are
taken out of the environment and what is brought back to pollute
the same once upon a time oasis.
#Post#: 9--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #1: Worster and Diamond - Defining Environmental His
tory
By: kellyf Date: January 7, 2019, 8:12 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
To make life easier for myself tomorrow, I am going to try and
define "Environmental History" using Worster's essay. (Full
disclosure, I have not read Diamond's yet, but I will post again
after that.) The main goal I pulled was to understand, "how
humans have been affected by their natural environment and how
through time and, conversely how they have affected that
environment and with what results." (pg. 2) An example of which
Shi Shi aptly described in her post. So maybe a definition could
be: The study of how and why nature affected humans in the past.
Though I still have questions: How can we tell what is nature?
(or as Worster described as the "non-human world," (pg. 2) <
that doesn't give me any clarity!) And if we don't have a solid
understanding of nature, how can we tell what is environmental
history and what is not? So, I didn't come to a full definition,
but I will check back in tomorrow!
#Post#: 10--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #1: Worster and Diamond - Defining Environmental His
tory
By: renee Date: January 7, 2019, 8:14 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I was also interested in Jared Diamond’s section and why the
Europeans had such an advantage over those living in the New
World. One major advantage was the amount of domesticated
animals in Europe vs. the Americas. I never realized how many
diseases come from animals, such as cattle, pigs, and birds.
Europeans had much more exposure to these animals than the
people living in the New World and developed immunities to the
diseases which the animals carry. Although there were still many
mammals living in the Americas, most of them were wild birds. I
was surprised to learn that “more than 80% of the large mammal
species of North and South America became extinct, probably
exterminated by the first arriving Indians” (13). I wonder what
sort of animals lived in the Americas before becoming extinct
and why the Europeans did not have such an effect on the wild
animals living in Europe. This reading made me realize how there
have always been inequalities across continents and how the
reasons are all pretty much based on the environment. I’ve never
thought about how much the environment silently impacts everyday
life. Even a simple detail such as having domesticated vs. wild
animals depends entirely on the surrounding environment and
human’s interaction with the land.
#Post#: 11--------------------------------------------------
Re: Reading #1: Worster and Diamond - Defining Environmental His
tory
By: alaina.h Date: January 7, 2019, 8:17 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I found it interesting that in the Diamond reading, he mentioned
that the pattern in history is not fully driven by human
differences themselves, but by the environment that they were
in. In class when we were talking about the definition of
history and the past and humans were mentioned as the key
components. Though he is saying that humans were an important
factor, environmental history focuses on the physical
environment as the main idea. After these readings, I am now
starting to get an idea about the study of environmental history
in general. It is about the events surrounding nature and
environment such as natural disasters, weather, farming,
epidemics and how those events affect humans and their way of
life. Similarly to Shi Shi, I thought that how Diamond dissected
the natural advantages that Europeans had was interesting to
think about. Sometimes the assets that the Europeans used from
the environment were contradicted by another environmental issue
when others brought in unknown diseases as an epidemic and
became a disadvantage. Though in general, Europe had more access
to these better materials which obviously propelled them into
more success. It just shows just how much location can affect
how much a society can accomplish with the right environmental
conditions.
*****************************************************
DIR Next Page