Environmental History Modules The University of Stirling

Environmental History

Home to the UK’s first Centre for Environmental History, few universities are better located than Stirling for the study of this exciting new subject. Set in the eighteenth-century designed landscape of the Airthrey estate, looking out over carseland which has been transformed from watery ‘waste’ to productive farmland, and overshadowed by hills whose slopes bear the record of over five millennia of human endeavour, the University is surrounded by reminders of the interaction of Nature and Humanity which has shaped the modern world. Within a few miles of the campus, students will find the evidence for every episode of decisive change in the environmental history of Britain from the end of the last glaciation, through the arrival of the first farmers, the development of industrialised society, to the post-industrial era and the rise of renewable energy sources. Airthrey Castle. Copyright St Andrews University Library. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk

The Environmental History courses on offer in the Department of History at Stirling seek to reflect this tremendous depth of human experience in our own hinterland while at the same time setting it into the wider context of European and global experiences. From first year, students will be introduced to the idea of Environmental History, firstly through individual lectures within overview courses in the BA History or Scottish History degrees, then from second semester through more tightly focussed courses. The first of these, "Introduction to Environmental History" is taught jointly with the School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, a collaboration unique to Stirling. Focussing on the region around Stirling over the last two thousand years, it is designed to introduce students through lectures, field trips and practicals to the range of subjects which combine to inform our understanding of past environments.

In the advanced modules from semester four onwards, students can focus on major events and themes in Scottish, European and World Environmental History, such as the impact of Scandinavian colonisation of the North Atlantic region; effects of population pressures, warfare, famine and epidemic disease in medieval and early modern Britain and Europe; the development of heritage and tourism issues in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Scotland and Europe; the social history of the Victorian city; and African environment and politics in the colonial and post-colonial eras. Throughout their studies, students with an interest in Environmental History will be taught by experts in their field. These scholars may also supervise students’ independent research on an Environmental History topic – where appropriate in collaboration with staff in the School of Biological and Environmental Science – and this research may provide a platform for continuation at postgraduate level to the Masters by Research degree in Environmental History at Stirling and beyond that to doctoral studies. All postgraduate students in Environmental History are based within the Centre for Environmental History.

Students of Environmental History at Stirling have a unique opportunity to explore two millennia of developments on a level from the local to the global in a context that links the Humanities and Natural Sciences in a stimulating, accessible manner.

MODULE HIS9A4: Introduction to Tourism History: The Development of European Tourism, 1750-1914

Educational Illustration of European Union Countries. Copyright Oxford Designers and Illustrators. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk Module Content: This module explores how, when and where tourism developed in Britain, Ireland and on the Continent, focusing both on the development of mass resorts and the more select, as on the Riviera. It asks what the key factors were in the growth of this increasingly important industry, examines the roles played by the state and private enterprise, and assesses why some localities were much more successful than others.

Learning Outcomes: Students will acquire a broad understanding of how and where tourism in nineteenth century Western Europe developed as both a select and a mass phenomenon, using secondary and on occasion primary sources. They will develop assessment skills as to which factors - economic, social and cultural - shaped the direction and scale of tourism, and the role of income, gender, culture and fashion in shaping choice. The module will draw on and further history specific skills as well as extending transferable skills. A full description of the learning outcomes of the module is provided in the module handout.

Module Literature:

The following are books which will serve as a useful introduction to the ground covered by the module, and the issues to be covered:

Black, Jeremy, The British Abroad: the Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century (1986).
Brendon, Piers, Thomas Cook, 150 Years of Popular Tourism (1981).
Durie, Alastair J., Scotland for the Holidays (2002).
Walton, John K., The English Seaside Resort, A Social History, 1750-1914 (1983).
Whitney, Lynn, Grand Tours and Cook’s Tours. A History of Leisure Travel 1750-1915 (1997).

HIS9A4	Introduction to Tourism History: The Development of European Tourism, 1750-1914
Module Structure:	The module is taught through a lecture and a one-hour tutorial per week Attendance at tutorials is compulsory and preparation essential. All tutorials are prescribed classes since students are assessed for their oral performance at them.
Pre-requisite:	Two History modules at level 8.
Assessment:	The grade is based on an essay of 2500 words (40%), a two-hour examination (50%) and oral work (10%).

MODULE HIS9J4: War, Famine, Disease and Death, c.1250-c.1650

Rattus Rattus. Copyright Dianne Sutherland. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk Module Content: This module will focus on the interplay of human and environmental factors in the shaping of later medieval and early modern Scottish society and culture, set into the context and experience of wider British and northern European history. It will explore issues such as population pressure and agricultural exploitation, the impact of warfare and disease on the landscape, population and economy, and long term processes of environmental change. It will adopt a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on historical and archaeological methods and materials, the techniques of environmental science, and evaluation of architecture and the plastic arts as historical sources.

Learning Outcomes: The module aims to examine the role of environmental influences and human/environmental interactions on the development of medieval and early modern Scottish and northern European culture and society. It seeks to deepen history-specific skills already acquired and to help extend further a range of transferable skills. A full description of the learning outcomes of the module is provided in the module handout.

Module Literature:

The following books will serve as a useful introduction to the ground covered by the module, and the issues to be examined:

S. Cohn jnr, The Black Death Transformed (2002).
W. Naphy & A. Spicer, The Black Death (2000).
C. Platt, King and Death (1997).
I.G. Simmons, An Environmental History of Great Britain (2001).

HIS9J4	War, Famine, Disease and Death, c.1250-c.1650
Module Structure:	The module is taught through a lecture and a one-hour tutorial per week. Attendance at tutorials is compulsory and preparation essential. All tutorials are prescribed classes since students are assessed for their oral performance at them.
Pre-requisite:	Two History modules at level 8. ENH9X2 advisable.
Assessment:	The grade is based on an essay of 2500 words (40%), a two-hour examination (50%) and oral work (10%).

MODULE HIS9J5: Gaels, Vikings and Normans: People and Environment in the North Atlantic World, c.850-c.1250

Bone clamp found at Brough of Birsay in Orkney dating from around 900 AD. Copyright National Museums of Scotland. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk Module Content: The module explores ‘the making of the kingdom’ of Scotland within the wider context of Gaelic and Scandinavian interactions within the wider North Atlantic World. Political and military expansion and development is set alongside colonial movements and cultural and economic exchange, all set within the wider framework of the potentials and limitations of the North Atlantic environment. The module offers a multi-disciplinary exploration of the mechanisms involved – employing historical, archaeological and place-name evidence – of the comparisons between wider N. European and Insular developments in this period of migration and expansion, and of the environmental factors which drove processes of migration and cultural change.

Learning Outcomes: The module aims to provide students with an understanding of the processes of state formation and cultural interaction in an era characterised by political disturbance, population displacement and climatic change. It seeks to deepen history-specific skills already acquired and to help extend further a range of transferable skills. A full description of the learning outcomes of the module is provided in the module handout.

Module Literature:

Students are encouraged to read widely and across the full range of disciplines explored in this module. In some seminar topics, students will make use of contemporary sources. It will be useful for students to buy some of the following text books that will provide further guidance to literature:

R. Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Colonisation, Conquest and Cultural Change 950-1350 (1993).
B.E. Crawford, Scandinavian Scotland (1987).
S. Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots (1996).
E. Roesdahl, The Vikings (1998).

HIS9J5	Gaels, Vikings and Normans: People and Environment in the North Atlantic World, c.850-c.1250
Module Structure:	There are no lectures. The module is taught through a series of two-hour weekly seminars. Attendance at seminars is compulsory and preparation essential. All seminars are prescribed classes since students are assessed for their oral performance at them. Students are expected to speak on at least one aspect of each seminar topic.
Pre-requisite:	One History module at level 9. Not available to students who have completed module HISJ6.
Assessment:	The grade is based on two essays of 2500 words (each 45%) and oral work (10%).

MODULE HIS9G6: Social History of the Victorian City: Computer Approaches

City Assembly Rooms at Dundee photographed by Alexander Wilson. Copyright Dundee City Council Central Library Photographic Collection. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk Module Content: This module examines various aspects of life in Victorian cities using computer methods of analysis. Topics covered include: health and housing issues; child labour and the expansion of state education; immigration and emigration; poverty; the social position of women; and the Victorian census.

Learning Outcomes: The module aims to examine the social history of Victorian industrial cities, and to deepen historical skills further through application of computer methods. A full description of the learning outcomes of the module is provided in the module handout.

Module Literature:

It is advisable to purchase some or all of the following books which will serve as an introduction to the subject matter and as text books for the module:

G. Best, Mid Victorian Britain 1851-1875 (1985).
W.H. Fraser and R.J. Morris (ed.), People and Society in Scotland vol. II - 1830-1914 (1990).
K. Gleadle, British Women in the Nineteenth Century (2001).
E. Higgs, Making Sense of the Census – Revisited (2005).
E. Royle, Modern Britain: a social history 1750-1997 (2nd edn., 1997).
T.C. Smout, A Century of the Scottish People 1830-1950 (1986).

HIS9G6	Social History of the Victorian City: Computer Approaches
Module Structure:	The module is taught through a mixture of seminars and laboratory sessions of two-hours each per week. Attendance at seminars is compulsory. All seminars/laboratory sessions are prescribed classes since students are assessed for their oral performance at them.
Pre-requisite:	One History module at level 9 or 10. No previous computer knowledge is required. Not available to students who have completed HIS9G4.
Assessment:	The grade is based on an essay of 3000 words (45%), a two-hour examination (45%) and oral work (10%).

MODULE HIS9I6: Castles: Power and Authority, Landscapes and Contexts

Attack on Castle Walls Module Content: Focusing mainly on the Scottish experience in the broader context of northern Europe, this module explores the castle, one of the iconic features of the Medieval and Early Modern landscape, in its wider cultural, social and economic roles, using the theories and methods of environmental history and landscape studies. In it, the castle will not be studied as an isolated artefact, but in the direct context of its surrounding human and physical landscapes, exploring how they shaped it and how the castle’s owners reshaped and exploited them for their own purposes and needs. The modules follows a thematic approach to examine a broad range of evidence types (archaeological, architectural, documentary and topographical) to trace the evolution of castles from the 11th to 17th centuries, explore the landscapes of power in which they stood, and assess their legacies in the environmental record.

Learning Outcomes: The module will introduce students, through the study of the castle and its surrounding ‘landscape of power’, not only to the theoretical aspects of environmental history, but also to the methodologies of the various disciplines which contribute to castle studies. Spanning the period c.1100 to c.1650, the module focuses on the development of the castle as a projection of lordship, examining its real and symbolic political, cultural, social and economic roles, and analysing its place in and impact upon the wider landscape of lordship and economic exploitation around it. It will provide a theoretical, philosophical and methodological foundation for the direct application of the principles of environmental studies in general and environmental history in particular, and on the different methodological approaches employed by the various contributory disciplines. It seeks to deepen history-specific skills and help extend a further range of transferable skills.

Module Literature:

Coulson, C.L.H., Castles in Medieval Society: Fortresses in England, France and Ireland in the Central Middle Ages (Oxford, 2004).
Creighton, O.H., Castles and Landscapes: Power, Community and Fortification in Medieval England (London, 2002).
Cruden, S., The Scottish Castle, 3rd edition (Edinburgh, 1981).
Higham, R., and Barker, P., Timber Castles (Exeter, 2004).
Liddiard, R., Castles in Context: Power, Symbolism and Landscape, 1066 to 1500 (Macclesfield, 2005).
McKean, C.A., The Scottish Chateau (Stroud, 2001).
Oram, R.D. and Stell, G.P, Lordship and Architecture in Medieval and Renaissance Scotland (Edinburgh, 2005).

HIS9I6	Castles: Power and Authority, Landscapes and Contexts
Module Structure:	There are no lectures. The module is taught through a series of two-hour weekly seminars. Attendance at seminars is compulsory and preparation essential. All seminars are prescribed classes since students are assessed for their oral performance at them.
Pre-requisite:	One History module at level 9 or 10. Students may find it advantageous to take module ENH2X2.
Assessment:	The grade is based on an essay of 3000 words (45%), a two-hour examination (45%) and oral work (10%).

MODULE HIS9W6: Environment, politics and people in colonial Africa

Illustration from David Livingstone South African missionary journal. Copyright National Library of Scotland. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk Module Content: The module will focus on both human interaction with the African environment and intra-human interaction on environmental issues during the colonial era. Particular attention will be paid to African interaction with, and knowledge, consumption and management of natural resources and the environmental impact of colonial rule. Themes addressed in the module will include ecological imperialism, the European hunting ethos, wildlife conservation and the creation of game reserves, colonial science and natural resource management, natural resource exploitation, and the environmental impact of colonial rule on the human and natural environments in Africa..

Learning Outcomes: This module seeks to challenge perceptions of Western intellectual and scientific superiority at the end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, by focusing on the environmental impact of colonial policies that aimed at regulating the African environment and the interaction of African peoples with this environment. It seeks to deepen history-specific skills already acquired and to help extend further a range of transferable skills. A full description of the learning outcomes of the module is provided in the module handout.

Module Literature: The following books will serve as a useful introduction to the module and the issues to be examined:

M. Leach and R. Mearns (eds), The lie of the land: challenging received wisdom on the African environment, Oxford: James Currey, 1996.
D. Anderson and R. Grove (eds), Conservation in Africa: people, politics and practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
G. Maddox, J.L. Giblin and I.N. Kimambo (eds), Custodians of the land: ecology and culture in the history of Tanzania, London: James Currey, 1996.
J. Carruthers, A political history of the Kruger National Park. Pietermaritzburgh: Natal University Press, 1995
W. Beinart and P. Coates, Environment and history: the taming of nature in the USA and Africa, London: Routledge, 1995.
W. Beinart, Putting a plough into the ground: accumulation and disposession in rural South Africa, 1850-1930, Johannesburg: Raven Press.
T. Griffiths and L. Robin (eds), Ecology and Empire. Edinburgh: Keele University Press, 1996.

HIS9W6	Environment, politics and people in colonial Africa
Module Structure:	The module is taught through a series of two-hour weekly seminars. Attendance at seminars is compulsory and preparation essential. All seminars are prescribed classes since students are assessed for their oral performance at them.
Pre-requisite:	One History module at level 9 or 10. ENH9X2 also advisable. Not available to students who have completed HIS9V4.
Assessment:	The grade is based on an essay of 3000 words (45%), a two-hour examination (45%) and oral work (10%).

MODULE HIS9Z6: The Development of Tourism in Scotland, c.1770-1914

Anti Midge Lotion manufactured by Hardys between 1890 and 1940. Copyright Museum of Islay Life. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk Module Content: The module explores the rise of tourism in Scotland from something only for the monied few to an experience shared by all sections of the community as well as visitors from aboard. It looks at the various types of tourism – sporting, scenic, cultural and health, -the forms which developed from day tripping to the summer second home at the coast or inland; the role played by railway and steamship companies and travel firms such as Thomas Cook, and assesses the impact on Scottish life. We explore why some resorts did so well e.g. Rothesay and others remained only small scale.

Learning Outcomes: The module aims to bring an understanding of when, where and why tourism developed in Scotland, and to reflect on the way that choice was shaped by income and class, gender and age, health and interests. It also will promote a critical capacity to review a wide range of secondary and primary sources, and to select the evidence and arguments of most substance and relevance. An increased ability will be fostered to present findings on paper and orally in a focused, shaped and structured form, which knits together in a balanced way argument and evidence. A full description of the learning outcomes of the module is provided in the module handout.

Module Literature:

The following books are recommended for purchase and will act as module textbooks.

Durie, A.J., Scotland for the Holidays. Tourism in Scotland 1780-1939, (East Linton 2003)
Simpson, Eric Going on Holiday, (Edinburgh, 1997).

MODULE HIS9A7: Living on the Edge? Environment, Landscape and Improvement in the North Atlantic World c.1500 to c.1900

Module Content: This module focuses on the progress and impact of the phenomena labelled as 'Improvement and Modernity' in the North Atlantic World between the 16th and 19th centuries. It sets the profound cultural and socio-economic changes in Britain and Ireland, Iceland and western Scandinavia which characterised this period into their wider environmental context. The course promotes greater understanding of the interplay of anthropogenic and natural processes in a period which witnessed the beginnings and full force of a seismic shift in Western European intellectual, social and economic structures. It will explore the intellectual development of attitudes to environmental resource exploitation, charting the development from the fundamental Christian cornucopian view, through the more rigorously utilitarian modes of the Enlightenment, to the emerging Malthusian capitalist regimes of the early 19th century. Many of these changing attitudes were underpinned by the shifting perceptions of Nature, ethnography, race and exploitation. Alongside this intellectual context, the module will address key issues such as climate-change; intensifying levels of exploitation of marine and terrestrial resources; industrialisation and urbanisation; concepts and experiences of crises in supply of resources; the impact of epidemic and disease; and the emergence of the 'Improvement Myth' which still influences many historical perceptions of the processes at work across this period. It aims to provide students with a greater understanding of the depth of the impact of environmental determinants on society and socio-economic factors on the environment, and to enable them to assume personal intellectual responsibility in the definition of problems, the formulation of arguments and the identification of sources.

Learning Outcomes:

An understanding of the problematic nature of the past.
An appreciation of the complexity and diversity of the past.
An understanding of the limitations of historical knowledge.
A capacity to collect evidence to test or support a historical case.
An awareness of the importance of debate in history.
The formulation and sustaining of an extended piece of work.
The ability to evaluate source material critically.
An understanding of historical and scientific methods of analysis and Enquiry
Ways of bridging the intellectual gap between humanities and the sciences.

Module Literature:

Environmental History is a relatively new discipline, and there is no single textbook that deals with all the different aspects we teach in this module. However, there is a good general textbook that should be available at the start of semester both in the library and from the University Bookshop:

I.G. Simmons, An Environmental History of Great Britain from 10,000 Years Ago to the Present. Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh, 2001).

HIS9A7	Living on the Edge? Environment, Landscape and Improvement in the North Atlantic World c.1500 to c.1900
Module Structure:	There are no lectures. The module will be taught through weekly seminars, each lasting three hours. Attendance is compulsory and preparation essential. All seminars are prescribed classes since students are assessed for their oral performance at them.
Pre-requisite:	The module is restricted to 4th-year Honours students.
Assessment:	The grade is based on three essays of up to 4000 words (together 50%), two two-hour examinations (together 40%) and oral work (10%).

Department of History

Historical Fields Taught