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Environmental History

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Course Type Course Code No. Of Credits
Foundation Core SHE2ED103 4

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The course is an introductory course on the discipline of environmental history, with a particular focus on South Asia. The course will encourage students to build a historical understanding of contemporary environmental concerns and acquaint them with intellectual genealogies of ideas like prudence, conservation and wilderness. It aims to critically examine the ways in which colonialism and capitalism transformed human-environment interactions in the Global South since the sixteenth century. The course will attempt to highlight linkages between the discipline of environmental history and the traditions of environmentalism in postcolonial India.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

  • To learn modes of historical thinking and the turn towards social and environmental history within the discipline.
  • To study the formative and significant works of scholarship in the discipline of environmental history.
  • To study the key debates which have stimulated historical research on environmental issues.
  • To understand the effects of colonialism and capitalism on South Asian landscapes and for communities of pastoralists, peasants and forest-dwellers.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

On the successful of completion of this course, students will be able to:

  • Demonstrate awareness of the ways in which human societies and non-human environments have shaped each other.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of the key works of scholarship and conceptual frameworks within environmental history.
  • Articulate the ways in which colonialism and capitalism have influenced environmental and ecological change in South Asia.
  • Critically examine debates about prudence, resource use and the role of state and communities in conservation in pre-colonial and colonial societies.
  • Appreciate the role of ideas and ideologies in shaping human perceptions and action towards their environments in different historical periods.

S. No.

Module
  1.  

Introduction to Historical Thinking
  1.  

Human Societies in Early South Asian Environments
  1.  

State, Forests and Forest Dwellers in Early India
  1.  

Politics and Resource Use in Pre-Colonial India
  1.  

Environmental History of the Early Modern World
  1.  

Colonialism: Ideology, Property and Law
  1.  

Forests in Colonial India—I (1750—1850)
  1.  

Forests in Colonial India—II (1850—1950)
  1.  

Wilderness and Nature in Environmental History
  1.  

Animals, Hunting and and Wildlife Conservation in the Raj
  1.  

Colonial Hydrology: Tanks, Dams and Canals
  1.  

Nationalism, Nature and Development

INDICATIVE READING LIST

  •  
  • Arnold, D. and R. Guha (Editors). (1995). Nature, Culture, Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental History of South Asia.
  • Carr, E.H. (1987). What is History? (Second Edition). London: Penguin Books (pp. 7—30).
  • Cronon, W. (1995). The Trouble with Wilderness, or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature, excerpted from, Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature. W.W. Norton & amp; Co Inc.
  • D’Souza, R. (2003). Canal Irrigation and the Conundrum of Flood Protection: The Failure of the Orissa Scheme of 1863 in Eastern India. Studies in History, 19, 1, pp. 41—68.
  • Gadgil, M. and Guha, R. (2013). This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
  • Gilmartin, D. (1994). Scientific Empire and Imperial Science: Colonialism and Irrigation Technology in the Indus Basin, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 53, No. 4, pp. 1127—1149.
  • Grove, R. (1993). Conserving Eden: The (European) East India Companies and their Environmental Policies on St. Helena, Mauritius and in Western India, 1660 to 1854, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 318—351.
  • Guha, R. (1990). An Early Environmental Debate: The making of the 1878 forest act, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 27, 1, pp. 65—84.
  • Mandala, Vijaya Ramadas. (2015). The Raj and the Paradoxes of Wildlife Conservation: British Attitudes and Expediencies, The Historical Journal, 58, pp. 75—110.
  • Menon, A. (2004). Colonial Constructions of ‘Agrarian Fields’ and ‘Forests’ in the Koli Hills, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 41, pp. 315—337.
  • Mosse, D. (2006). Rule and Representation: Transformations in the Governance of the Water Commons in British South India, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 65, No. 1, pp. 61—90.
  • Rangarajan, M. (1994). Imperial agendas and India’s forests: The early history of Indian forestry,1800—1878. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 31, pp. 147—167.
  • Rangarajan, M. (2001). India’s Wildlife History. Delhi: Permanent Black
  • Sen, A. P. (1998). Of Tribes, Hunters and Barbarians: Forest Dwellers in the Mauryan Period, Studies in History, 14, pp. 173—191.
  • Worster, D. (1988). The Ends of the Earth: Perspectives on Modern Environmental History.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ASSESSMENTS

Assessment

Weightage

Take Home Essay

30%

In-Class Test

30%

Book Review + End Semester Assessment

40%

 

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