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       #Post#: 22--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Reading #1: Worster and Diamond - Defining Environmental His
       tory
       By: Tommy Is The Person Who I Am Date: January 7, 2019, 9:42 pm
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       [move]Hello[/move]
       In my previous post, which was made after just reading Worster’s
       essay, one of my main takeaways was the ambiguity and complexity
       of environmental science. After reading Diamond’s essay,
       however, I feel that I have a better sense of how the study of
       environmental history can be applied more specifically to give a
       relatively-straightforward answer to a question that involves
       millennia of human history. I was intrigued by how Diamond
       considered the effect of a society’s environment on the
       structure of that society, and how this can both be caused by
       and lead to how that society interacts with its environment
       (e.g. early Americans killing off 80% of large mammal species in
       the Americas, leading to less domestication options, and people
       in Eurasia spreading domesticated species because the
       continent’s east/west axis made it possible).
       Also, in response to Cale’s post-
       [quote]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 is shocking to me that such an important and
       impactful topic only caught on in the 1970s.[/quote]
       I was also intrigued by this. I suppose that it could be in part
       because the divide between humans and nature, or perhaps the
       “conflict” between the two, is becoming more apparent. When
       Europeans were conquering the Americas, I figure that they were
       less focused on why they had an advantage and more focused on
       how they could use that advantage. History is a study of the
       past, so I would argue that, to an extent, much history is a
       revision of what was formerly contemporary. As Worster mentions,
       the 1970s marked an increase in environmental awareness and
       concern. This marked a break from the way many cultures have
       perceived nature, as something to conquer. While there was not a
       sudden global shift in perception of the environment, for many
       this shift could have made that older view of nature suddenly
       become a thing of the past, which would in turn invite
       historical study. As we as humans have become more aware of our
       environmental impact, we have become more aware of the need to
       study the history that led to where our relationship with the
       environment is now.
       #Post#: 23--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Reading #1: Worster and Diamond - Defining Environmental His
       tory
       By: JTodd Date: January 7, 2019, 10:43 pm
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       I found Worster's take on the "history of history," if you will,
       one I had never heard before. Throughout my studies of history,
       and especially in AP World History, I was taught to use the
       SPICE categories of Social, Political, Interactions (with the
       environment and between peoples), and Economics. I never stopped
       to consider that environmental history was exempt for quite some
       time in some of the most formative times of human
       macro-development. I had always figured that history had always
       been recorded, at least in the west, by the means I had studied.
       I found myself relating parts of the essay, particularly
       Worster's definitions, to the philosophical text "Ishmael" by
       Daniel Quinn. The novel explores many anthropological, cultural,
       social; and most importantly, environmental, themes. As I
       recall, Quinn put forth the concept that humans discern
       ourselves as separate from the environment while we are, in
       fact, anything but separate from the environments in which we
       have established ourselves. I relate this back to the Worster
       text through this quote from "Doing Environmental History,"
       "…with such phenomena as the forest and the water cycle, we
       encounter autonomous energies that do not derive from us. Those
       forces impinge on human life, stimulating some reaction, some
       defense, some ambition." In other words, humans are at the mercy
       of our environment, not the other way around. It is therefore
       important to keep track of how our environment affects us.
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