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HIST 620: Environmental History of North America (Rev. 1) Report a Broken Link

HIST 620: Environmental History of North America surveys essential time periods and topographies in which North Americans have developed relationships with natural environments. In keeping with this, several interpretive theories are considered for their power in exploration and explanation of this past that North Americans have created and inherited. The course encourages participants to look for intersections of cultural theory, political economy, common sense, and environmental practices. Typical issues include Aboriginal and European cosmologies; imperialism, industrialism, and consumerism; conservation and preservation; fast cars, fast food, and quickening modernity; pollution and wilderness; city and country, from Mexico to the Arctic; and the "insatiable appetite" among the people of this continent for other environments. Participants will engage in weekly online discussions and will use course concepts to develop a sophisticated research paper treating an environmental issue of personal interest.

Unit 1

Supplementary Readings

Please see the supplementary materials lists after each unit in the HIST 620 Course Guide for annotations on the sources listed below.
Francis, R. Douglas, Richard Jones, and Donald Smith. 2004. Origins: Canadian history to confederation. 5th ed. Toronto: Harcourt Brace.
Francis, R. Douglas, Richard Jones, and Donald Smith. 2004. Destinies: Canadian history since confederation. 5th ed. Toronto: Nelson.
Brinkley, Alan. 2007. American history: A survey. 12th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Hamnett, Brian. 2006. A Concise history of Mexico. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McCann, Larry, and Angus Gunn, eds. 1987. Heartland & Hinterland: A regional geography of Canada. 2nd ed. Scarborough, ON: Prentice Hall.
Tuveson, Ernest Lee. 1980. Redeemer nation: The idea of America’s millennial role. Midway Reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Canclini, Nestor. 1998. Latins or Americans: Narratives of the border. Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 23 (46): 117–131.
Hall, Stuart. 1986. Variants of liberalism. In Politics and ideology, edited by James Donald and Stuart Hall. Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Freeden, Michael. 1996. The family of liberalisms: A morphological analysis. In The liberal political tradition: Contemporary reappraisals, edited by James Meadowcroft. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Ponting, Clive. 1993. A green history of the world. New York: Penguin Books.
Glacken, Clarence. 1967. Traces on the Rhodian shore. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Grove, Richard. 1995. Green imperialism: Colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600–1860. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, John. 2005. Unending frontier: An environmental history of the early modern World. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Worster, Donald. 1994. Nature's economy: A history of ecological ideas. 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hays, Samuel. 1998. Explorations in environmental history. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Web Sites
American Society for Environmental History
Athabasca University: History: History Related Links
Integrated Database in Canadian Environmental History—CFI Project
Nearctica: The Natural World of North America
Online Bibliography: Environmental History of Latin America
United Nations Environment Programme
The World Wide Web Virtual Library: History Central Catalogue

Unit 2

Supplementary Readings

Mann, Charles. 2005. 1491: New revelations of the Americas before Columbus. New York: Vintage Books.
This book is not available from Athabasca University Library. Please try your local library.
Sale, Kirkpatrick. 1996. The conquest of paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian legacy. New York: Taurus Park Paperbacks.
An earlier edition of this book is available from the Athabasca University Library.
Dickason, Olive. 1984. Myth of the savage. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press.
Trigger, Bruce. 1985. Natives and newcomers: Canada’s “heroic” age reconsidered. Kingston: McGill–Queen’s University Press.
Trigger, Bruce. 1987. The children of Aataentsic: A history of the Huron people to 1660. Kingston: McGill–Queen’s University Press.
Melville, Elinor. 1994. A Plague of sheep. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Fisher, Robin. 1992. Contact and conflict: Indian–European relations in British Columbia, 1774–1890. 2nd ed. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Flannery, Tim. 2002. The future eaters: An ecological history of the Australasian lands and people. New York: Grove Press.
Pyne, Steven. 1997. Fire in America: A cultural history of wildland and rural fire. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Web Sites
About: American History: Age of Exploration
Gabriel Dumont Institute for Native Studies and Applied Research
Native Web: Resource Center: History
University of Alberta: Faculty of Native Studies
University of Saskatchewan: Library: Resources for Aboriginal Studies

Unit 3

Supplementary Readings

Melchert, Norman. 2007. The great conversation: A historical introduction to philosophy. 5th ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Quine, Williard Van Orman, and J. S. Ullian. 1978. The web of belief. 2nd ed. New York: Random House.
Dewey, John. [1910] 1960. How we think. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.
Collingwood, Robin George. 1946. The idea of history. London: Oxford University Press.
Gardiner, Patrick. 1959. Theories of history. New York: Free Press.
Hume, David. [1740] 2003. A treatise of human nature. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
Various editions of this book are available from the Athabasca University Library. Another edition is available online at the McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought.
Marx, Karl. 1887. Capital: Volume 1: A critique of political economy. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Various editions of this book are available from the Athabasca University Library. Another edition is available online at the McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought.
Berman, Marshal. 1988. All that is solid melts into air: The experience of modernity. Toronto: Penguin.
Berten, Hans. 1995. The idea of the postmodern: A history. London: Routledge.
Lyon, David. 1994. Postmodernity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Gare, Arran. 1995. Postmodernism and the environmental crisis. London: Routledge.
Ives, Peter. 2004. Chapter 1: Language and social theory: The many linguistic turns. In Language and hegemony in Gramsci. London: Pluto Press.
Palmer, Bryan. 1993. The poverty of theory revisited: Or, critical theory, historical materialism, and the ostensible end of Marxism. Left History 1 (1): 133–162.
This article is not available from Athabasca University Library.
Sheppard, Paul. 1998. Nature and madness. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
Roszak, Theodore, Mary E. Gomes, and Allen D. Kanner, eds. 1995. Ecopsychology: Restoring the earth and healing the mind. San Francisco: Sierra Club.
Web Sites
Interdisciplines: Rethinking Interdisciplinarity
Living Islam: Islamic Tradition
Mysticism and Philosophy: W. T. Stace
Voice of the Shuttle: Web site for Humanities Research

Unit 4

Required Readings
Montrie, Chad. 2004. “I think less of the factory: Than of my native dell”: Labor, nature, and the Lowell “mill girls.” Environmental History 9 (2) (April), 275–295.
Supplementary Readings
McClelland. Peter. 1997. Sowing modernity: America’s first agricultural revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Thoreau, Henry. [1854] 1983. Walden. New York: Penguin Books.
Thoreau, Henry. [1864] 1988. The Maine woods. New York: Penguin Group.
A different edition of this book is available online at the University of Virginia Library, Electronic Text Center.
Steinberg, Theodore. 1991. Nature incorporated: Industrialization and the waters of New England. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sheriff, Carol. 1996. The artificial river: The Erie Canal and the paradox of progress, 1817–1862. New York: Hill and Wang.
Hahamovitch, Cindy. 1997. The fruits of their labour: Atlantic coast farmworkers and the making of migrant poverty, 1870–1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Friesen, Gerald. 2000. Citizens and nation: An essay on history, communication, and Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Wynne, Greame. 2004. “Shall we linger along ambitionless?” Environmental Perspectives on British Columbia. BC Studies 142/143: 5–68.
Forkey, Neil. 2003. Shaping the Upper Canadian frontier: Environment, society, and culture in the Trent Valley. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.
Coates, Colin. 1993. Like “The Thames towards Putney:” The appropriation of landscape in Lower Canada. Canadian Historical Review 74 (3): 317–343.
Zeller, Suzanne. 1987. Inventing Canada: Early Victorian science and the idea of a transcontinental nation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Web Sites
dmoz Open Directory Project: Regional: North America: United States: Regions: New England: Society and Culture: History
Michigan Government: Michigan Department of Natural Resources: History of Ecology and Fire in Michigan

Unit 5

Required Readings
McEachern, Cam. 2006. London, and Schools.
McEachern, Cam. 2006. Winnipeg.
Supplementary Readings
Goodman, Paul, and Percival Goodman. [1947] 1989. Communitas: Means of livelihood and ways of life. New York: Columbia University Press.
This book is not available from Athabasca University Library. Please try your local library.
Stoll, Steven. 1998. The fruits of natural advantage: Making the industrial countryside of California. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Tucker, Richard. 2000. Insatiable appetite: The United States and the ecological degradation of the tropical world. Berkeley: University of California Press.
White, Richard. 1995. The organic machine: The remaking of the Columbia River. New York: Hill and Wang.
Chicago Public Library: Learn Chicago: Chicago Timeline
FloraMex: Links About Jewelry and Mexican Jewelry: The History of Silver in Taxco, Mexico

Unit 6

Required Readings
Hughes, Elaine L. 1995. Fishwives and other tails: Ecofeminism and environmental law. Canadian Journal of Women & the Law 8 (2): 502–530.
Hamlin, Christopher, and John T. McGreevy. 2006. The Greening of America, Catholic Style, 1930-1950. Environmental History (July).
Supplementary Readings
Nash, Roderick. 1988. The rights of nature: A history of environmental ethics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Bernstein, Steven. 2001. The compromise of liberal environmentalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Hailwood, Simon. 2004. How to be a green liberal: Nature, value and liberal philosophy. Montreal: McGill Queen’s University Press.
Bruggemann, Walter. 2002. The land: Place as gift, promise, and challenge in biblical faith. 2nd ed. Minneapolis, MI: Augsburg Fortress.
Glacken, Clarence. 1967. Traces on the Rhodian shore. Berkeley: University of California Press.
McCloskey, Maxine, and James Gilligan, eds. 1969. Wilderness and the quality of life. Proceedings of the 10th wilderness conference. San Francisco: Sierra Club.
Turner, Frederick Jackson. 1986. The frontier in American history. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Another edition of this book is available online at the University of Virginia Department of English Web site.
Daniels, Stephen. 1993. Fields of vision: Landscape imagery and national identity in England and the United States. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Siemerling, Winfried. 2005. The new North American studies: Culture, writing, and the politics of re/cognition. New York: Routledge.
Stegner, Wallace. 1962. Wolf willow. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada.
Tuan, Yi–Fu. 1989. Topophilia: A study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values. New York: Columbia University Press.
An earlier edition of this book is available from the Athabasca University Library.
Cresswell, Tim. 2004. Place: A short introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Burnett, Alexander J. 2003. A passion for wildlife: The history of the Canadian wildlife service. Vancouver: UBC Press.
Dorsey, Kurkpatrick. 1998. The dawn of conservation diplomacy: U.S.–Canadian wildlife protection treaties in the progressive era. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Web Sites
Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
College of Natural Resources, University of California: Community Forestry Research Fellowships: Resources: Bibliographies: CFRF Working Bibliography on Place
Environmental Law Centre
Harvard University: Center for the Environment: The Forum on Religion and Ecology
Hieros Gamos Worldwide Legal Directories
National Law Centre for Inter–American Free Trade: Publications: Overview of the Environmental Laws of Mexico
The Nature Conservancy
Postcolonial Web Site: Political Discourse: Theories of Colonialism and Postcolonialism
University of Maryland: Center for American Studies: Current Approaches to American Studies: Sense of Place

Unit 7

Supplementary Readings

Turner, Frederick Jackson. 1986. The frontier in American history. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Another edition of this book is available online at the University of Virginia Department of English Web site.
Johnson, Robert. 1998. Beyond “The West”: Regeneration, liberalism, and the evasion of politics in the new western history. Rethinking History 2 (2): 239–279.
Flores, Dan. 2001. The natural West: Environmental history in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Isenberg, Andrew. 2000. The destruction of the bison: An environmental history, 1750–1920. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Friesen, Gerald. 1999. The West: Regional ambitions, national debates, global age. Toronto: Penguin Books.
This book is not available from Athabasca University Library. Please try your local library.
Friesen, Gerald. 1987. The Canadian prairies: A history. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Waldram, James. 1988. As long as the rivers run: Hydroelectric development and Native communities in western Canada. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.
Web Site
Canada West Foundation
Discovering Lewis & Clark: Visions: Freeman–Curtis Expedition
Latin America Network Information Center: Countries: Mexico: Mexico City’s Water Supply

Unit 8

Supplementary Readings

Lucas, Rex. 1971. Minetown, milltown, railtown: Life in Canadian communities of single industry. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Tarr, Joel A. 1996. The search for the ultimate sink: Urban pollution in historical perspective. Akron, OH: The University of Akron press.
Innis, Harold A. [1930] 1999. The fur trade in Canada: An introduction to Canadian economic history. Reprint edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Seeley, J. R., A. R. Sim, and E. W. Loosley. 1956. Crestwood Heights: A study of the culture of suburban life. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Homer-Dixon, Thomas. 2006. The Upside of Down; Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization. Toronto: Knopf Canada.
Web Sites
Northgate Minerals Corporation: Kemess North Development
Alcola: Sustainability: 2020 Framework
Harvard Business School: Working Knowledge: Business and the Environment
History Cooperative: Environmental History: January 2005: The Business-Environment Connection
International Relations Center: Trade & Economic Integration: Mexico, NAFTA, and Beyond

Unit 9

Supplementary Readings

Simon, Joel. 1998. Endangered Mexico: an environment on the edge. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.
Web Sites
Greenpeace Web Blog: Genetic Engineering: Monthly Archives: June 14, 2004: Mexican Maize: The Truth
Planeta.com: Mexico: Mexico Parks Explained
Soil and Water Conservation Society: Soil Degradation and Conservation in Mexico

Unit 10

Required Readings
McEachern, Cam. 2006. Toys.
Supplementary Readings
LacLau, Ernesto, ed. 1994. The making of political identities. London, UK: Verso.
Leopold, Aldo. 1966. A Sand County almanac: With essays on conservation from Round River. New York: Ballantine Books.
Seed, John, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess. 1992. Thinking like a mountain: Toward a council of all beings. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers.
Obach, Brian. 2004. Labour and the environmental movement: The quest for common ground. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
This book is not available from Athabasca University Library. Please try your local library.
Bullard, Robert D., ed. 1994. Unequal protection: Environmental justice & communities of color. San Francisco: Sierra Club.
Moore, Donald S., Anand Pandian, and Jake Kosek, eds. 2003. Race, nature, and the politics of difference. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
McKay, Ian. 1994. The quest of the folk: Antimodernism and cultural selection in twentieth–century Nova Scotia. Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press.
Web Sites
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development: Education Topics: Environmental Education: Resources: Environmental Education: Historical Roots, Comparative Perspectives, and Current Issues in Britain and the United States
Aurora Online: Issue 2004: John Bellamy Foster
Slow Food
Washington State University: American Studies: Cultural Environmental Studies
White Hutchison Leisure & Learning Group: Children’s Development: Articles: Young Children’s Relationship with Nature

Unit 11

Supplementary Readings

Nuttall, Mark, and Terry V. Callaghan, eds. 2000. The Arctic: Environment, people, policy. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers.
Haycox, Stephen. 2002. Frigid embrace: Politics, economics and environment in Alaska. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press.
Coates, Ken S., and William R. Morrison. 2005. Land of the midnight sun: A history of the Yukon. Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press.
The first edition of this book is available from the Athabasca University Library.
Morrison, William, R. 1998. True north: The Yukon and Northwest Territories. Toronto: Oxford University Press.
Zaslow, Morris. 1971. The opening of the Canadian North, 1870–1914. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Zaslow, Morris. 1988. The Northward expansion of Canada 1914–1967. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Saïd, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
West, Douglas A. 1991. Re–searching the North in Canada: An introduction to the Canadian Northern discourse. Journal of Canadian Studies 26 (2): 108–119.
Tester, Frank, and Peter Kulchyski. 1994. Tammarniit (mistakes): Inuit relocation in the eastern Arctic 1939–63. Vancouver: UBC Press.
Kohlhoff, Dean. 1995. When the wind is a river: Aleut evacuation in World War II. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
This book is not available from Athabasca University Library. Please try your local library.
Berger, Thomas, Alexei Rodionov, and Douglas Roche. 1989. The Arctic: Choices for peace and security: Proceedings of a public inquiry. Vancouver: Gordon Soules Book Publishers.
Web Sites
Arctic Institute of North America
Canadian Policy Research Network: Publications: A Model of Engagement: Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of the Berger Report:
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Essays on the Arctic
United Nations Environment Programme: Maps and Graphics Library: Arctic Environmental Atlas
University of Alberta: Canadian Circumpolar Institute
University of Colorado at Boulder: Department of Geography: Peter D. Blanken (home page): Discover the Boreal Forest Ecosystem: Policy Shep Ryen: The Mackenzie Gas Pipeline: Links and Notes

Unit 12

Required Readings
Szylvian, Kristin M. 2004. Transforming Lake Michigan into the “world’s greatest fishing hole”: The environmental politics of Michigan’s Great Lakes sport fishing, 1965–1985. Environmental History 9 (1) (January): 102–127.
Read, Jennifer. 1996. “Let us heed the voice of youth”: Laundry detergents, phosphates and the emergence of the environmental movement in Ontario. Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 7 (1): 227–250.
This site has been linked to information maintained by érudit at http://www.erudit.org.
Supplementary Readings
Dempsy, Dave. 2004. On the brink: The Great Lakes in the 21st century. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
Sproule–Jones, Mark. 2002. Restoration of the Great Lakes; Promises, practices, performances. Vancouver: UBC Press.
Kehoe, Terence. 1997. Cleaning up the Great Lakes: From cooperation to confrontation. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.
Web Sites
Association for Great Lakes Maritime History
Great Lakes Directory
Great Lakes Information Network: Education: TEACH Great Lakes
Michigan Sea Grant: Jennifer Read
United States Environmental Protection Agency: Great Lakes
University of Toronto: Centre for Environment: John A. Holmes (home page): Limnology: Lecture Notes: Nutrient Pollution: Eutrophication

Unit 13

Required Readings
Crosby, Alfred W. 1995. The past and present of environmental history. American Historical Review 100(4) (October): 1177–1189.
Rome, Adam, et al. 2005. Anniversary forum: What’s next for environmental history? Environmental History 10 (1) (January): 30–111.

Press Next in the bottom right corner to access the first article.
Supplementary Readings
Rome, Adam. 1996. Coming to terms with pollution: The language of environmental reform, 1865–1915. Environmental History 1 (3): 6–28.
This article is not available from Athabasca University Library.
Rome, Adam. 2002. What really matters in history? Environmental perspectives on modern America. Environmental History 7 (April).
Thomas, Keith. 1983. Man and the natural world. New York: Pantheon Books.
Barber, Lynn. 1980. The heyday of natural history 1820–1870. London: Jonathan Cape.
Preece, Rod. 2002. Awe for the tiger, love for the lamb: A chronicle of sensibility to animals. Vancouver: UBC Press.
MacKenzie, John, ed. 1990. Imperialism and the natural world. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
Grove, Richard. 1995. Green imperialism: Colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600–1860. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Flannery, Tim. 2002. The future eaters: An ecological history of the Australian lands and people. New York: Grove Press.
Anker, Peder. 2001. Imperial ecology: Environmental order in the British Empire, 1895–1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Griffiths, Tom, and Libby Robin, eds. 1997. Ecology and empire: Environmental history of settler societies. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Schama, Simon. 1995. Landscape and memory. New York: A. A. Knopf.
Weiner, Douglas. 1999. A little corner of freedom: Russian nature protection from Stalin to Gorbachëv. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cioc, Mark. 2002. The Rhine: An eco–biography, 1815–2000. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Pyne, Stephen. 1997. Vestal fire: An environmental history, told through fire, of Europe and Europe’s encounter with the world. Seattle: Washington University Press.
Saïd, Edward. 1993. Culture and imperialism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Scott, James. 1998. Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Gadgil, Madhav, and Ramachandra Guha. 1993. This fissured land: An ecological history of India. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dovers, Stephen, Ruth Edgecomb, and Bill Guest, eds. 2002. South Africa’s environmental history: Cases and comparisons. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Roberts, J. Timmons, and Nikki Thanos. 2003. Trouble in paradise: Globalization and environmental crises in Latin America. New York: Routledge.
Heidegger, Martin. [1927] 1962. Being and time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper & Row.
Heidegger, Martin. [1959] 1982. On the way to language. San Francisco: Harper.
Collins, Jeff, and Howard Selina. 1998. Introducing Heidegger. Cambridge, UK: Icon Books.
Web Sites
Counterpunch: Archives: Archive of May/August 2003 Stories: The Heavy Cost of Empire
Pete’s Home Page: Martin Heidegger: Heidegger and the Environment