Course Description

This course seeks to introduce students to the study of history through an examination of the different and changing ways humans have defined their relationship with the natural environment.

地球史的な観点から世界における環境の歴史について考察する。

Part One: World Environmental History

Dec 09 Introduction: What is history? What is environmental history?

Dec 12 Climate and Disease as History Makers

Dec 16 Ecological Imperialism

Dec 19 The Industrial Revolution: Discussion

Jan 06 Population Explosion

Jan 09 Polluting the World

Jan 16 New Ideas, New Technologies, New Affluence, New Poverty: Discussion (reaction paper 1)

Part Two: Japanese Environmental History

Jan 20 Rice and Japanese Culture

Jan 23 Japan’s “Age of Development”

Jan 27 East-West Biotic Exchange

Jan 30 How Green was the Edo Period? (Discussion)

Feb 03 The Environmental Consequences of Bunmei Kaika

Feb 06 The History of the Tama River

Feb 10 Industrial Pollution: Minamata and Beyond 

Feb 13 The Great East Japan Earthquake and Disaster: Discussion (reaction paper 2)

Part Three: The Search for Solutions to Local and Global Environmental Problems

Feb 17 An Inconvenient Truth

Feb 20 Japan and the World Environment: Is Japan Doing Enough?

Feb 24 Discussion Class: Lessons from 3/11: Are We Learning from the Past? (Reaction paper 3)