Carney intro and ch. 1
If
your Perusall grade did not transfer back to Canvas, please
click through from the assignment in Canvas to Perusall
again!
What is environmental history?
- why did it take so long for people to focus on
environmental issues?
- "the solution to pollution is dilution"
- ecology = the science of the interconnection
of populations of plants and animals and the environment
- environmental history is an area of study (a
discipline) using the questions asked by historians, not
scientists
- but it is interdisciplinary in the sense that
environment historians often use methods and findings from
science (and anthropology and archeology) as well as from
history
- human interaction with the natural world:
- the impact of humans on the natural
environment
- the impact of the natural environment on
humans
Starting point: Trade and colonization transformed not just
economies but also ecology
Food as a way in:
geologic eras: we are in the holocene or anthropocene (started
1950)
climate
variation
in general, agriculture was invented in relatively few places
and spread from there
invention of agriculture proceeded somewhat differently in
Africa--sorghum was domesticated in independent events in
different parts of Africa
African climates were more variable so skills in adaptation
were strong
Our focus with this book is on what people from Africa
contributed and how they were able to make their own lives
better (their agency) even in the awful situation of slavery
Northern Europeans wanted to grow familiar foods in the areas
they colonized:
- wheat, barley, oats, turnips, pasture grasses
for animals (including bluegrass)
- they had to bring honey bees to pollinate
their crops
- but those crops don't grow well in warm
climates
- they also organized their agriculture in
European ways, with large fields of one grain crop at a time
(or pasture) and small plots of vegetables
- they even brought familiar bushes and flowers
to make their new communities look more like home
But Europeans
didn't have plants suited to tropical climates
so when did African become chronically unable to
feed itself?