#176 John Brooke: Environmental History, And The Anthropocene
Dr. John Brooke is Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor of History, Professor of Anthropology, and Director of the Ohio State University Center for Historical Research. He is also the co-chair of the 2011-2012 Program: Disease, Health, and Environment in Global History. In 2007-2008 he served as the president of the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic. His teaching areas include Early American History and Environmental History. His most recent book, Climate Change and the Course of Global History: A Rough Journey, published in 2014, examines the long material and natural history of the human condition.
In this episode, we talk about Dr. Brooke’s book, Climate Change and the Course of Global History, and about the discipline of Environmental History. We start with a definition of the discipline, and its objects of study, and then go through some of the major evolutionary steps in our History, like the development of culture and agriculture. Then we refer to how climate fluctuations played a role in the crash of societies since the advent of agriculture, and also the role of epidemics and war. We also talk about a recent study about how the arrival of Europeans in the Americas contributed to the death of the death of 55 million people and a drop in global temperatures. After that, we discuss the environmental conditions that favored the development of the industrial revolution in Northern Europe, and how it also might have contributed to the abolishment of slavery. Toward the end, we talk about the Anthropocene, and human-made climate change, and how to best tackle it, and also the relationship between Environmental History and Big History, and using energy/energy density as a common metric from Physics to History.
Time Links:
What is Environmental History?
Human culture as a tool we evolved to deal with climate fluctuations
Environmental conditions that favored the development of agriculture
Was agriculture a single event in human History?
What is more important in society collapses, overexploitation of resources or climate fluctuations?
The role of epidemics, parasites and pests
Wars, and the violent struggle for resources
The arrival of Europeans in the Americas, disease and climate change
Environmental conditions behind the industrial revolution
The industrial revolution and the abolishment of slavery
The Anthropocene
The best ways to respond to human-made climate change
Considering energy sources (renewables, nuclear energy)
Environmental History, Big History, and energy/energy density as a common unit
Follow Brooke’s work!
Follow Dr. Brooke’s work:
Faculty page: https://bit.ly/2HzW1IN
Articles on Researchgate: https://bit.ly/2BWELZI
Climate Change and the Course of Global History: https://amzn.to/2Hdz5OF
Referrenced books/articles:
European colonisation of the Americas killed 10% of world population and caused global cooling: https://bit.ly/2SnCoJO
Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492: https://bit.ly/2SigqqK
Revolutions that Made the Earth: https://amzn.to/2HP7ROl