This course investigates a relatively new and exciting genre of historical scholarship: the development and history of global environmentalism, with a particular focus on Australia. The course is team taught, and the themes investigated coincide with the research specialty of the teachers. The three major components of the course will offer different but complementary views of environmental history: deep-time and ecological perspectives;  imperial visions and a history of environmental ideas;  and the social and political context of environmental policy in post-war Australia.

The course will introduce students to a range of issues central to the environmental history of  Australia and the world. It seeks to help students to develop their intellectual resources in three major ways:

by increasing knowledge and understanding of key issues relating to the development of the environmental movement around the globe, and particularly in Australia.

by introducing students to important conceptual issues in the study of how humans have impacted the environment

by relating history to present-day debates on such subjects as deforestation, pollution and climate change.

Student Skills Objectives

By the end of this course, they should be able to:

1. Analyse the way humans have interacted with their natural environment, and how that environment has affected human society. The recognition of and construction of arguments will be key to this process of analysis.
2. Use primary and secondary evidence from the past to explain key ideas, themes, and structures that inform environmentalism in the modern age.
3. Speak, argue, and write about key concepts, themes and theories in environmental history.
4. Reflect on and discuss your own learning as it relates to the subject matter of the course.
5. Select and combine materials on a topic important to understanding environmental history.

Assessment Method:

Essay of 1,500 words (35%)

Essay of 2,500 words (55%)

Tutorial participation (10%)

Prerequisite: completion of two courses (12 units) in History at first-year level or with permission of the convenor.

Preliminary Reading (not required):

 Introductions to issues addressed in the course:

Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy (Cambridge, 1998) (paperback)

 Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism (paperback)

 Gregory Barton, Empire Forestry and the Origins of Environmentalism (Cambridge; 2007) (paperback)

 Tom Griffiths, Forests of Ash: An environmental history, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2001

 None of these texts are required preliminary reading.

NO VALUE