This course introduces key issues in environmental history in America from 1600 to present, with emphasis on long-term impacts. Changes to the physical environment shaped the direction of American politics, migration, society, and economy. American ideas about nature, wilderness, science, and geography defined the relationship between people and the land, sea, and sky. In this class, we will unpack the complicated history of the American environment to discover how the inhabitants of the continent understood and interacted with the land, plants, animals, and ecological and scientific ideas of their time. We will uncover how the environment itself was a historical agent, at times allowing and other times limiting migration, expansion, construction, and extraction. We will also give considerable attention to urban and built landscapes like Manchester, New Hampshire and the specific environmental issues they face in the modern day.

This course will explore the history of United States foreign policy. While it will go over the origins of foreign policy and discuss significant events from George Washington's presidency through Franklin Roosevelt's, it will mostly focus on events from after World War II through the withdrawal from Afghanistan.  You will also have the opportunity to solve a hypothetical modern foreign policy dilemma as a member of the American foreign policy team as one of your main projects.