HISTORY 5326 — FALL 2026

Nature and History in America

Dr. Mark Stoll

HUM 454 mark.stoll@ttu.edu https://www.markstoll.net
Office hours: Monday and Wednesday 11:00–12:30 a.m., and by appointment

Course Description

Environmental history is one of the more recent fields in history and since the 1970s has been the world’s fastest growing. This graduate course introduces students to significant scholarship in American environmental history, from the pre-colonial era to the present. We will meet for weekly discussions, focusing on historical interpretations, themes, and conceptualizations, with special attention to sources, argumentation, and methods employed in research and exposition. By the end of the semester, students will have a solid foundation in the field.

Readings and Coursework

I have carefully selected readings to cover a significant recent theme in recent American environmental historiography. Everyone will read all assigned works with care and critical attention, coming to class ready to engage in active discussion. In reading, seek out the book’s key thesis (and be able to summarize it in a few sentences). Also, you should be alert to its structure and rhetoric, note the claims made for advances over previous studies (relationship to the literature), and sketch out the conceptual or theoretical apparatus employed (identifying keywords and the ways they are employed). Finally, you should assess the work’s evidentiary base, the scope and scale of the study within the context of the issues and events it addresses, and its relationship with other aspects of American history. Analysis of the book in this way prepares you for critical discussion and clear writing. Ideally you should each come to class with several questions written out for us to address as a group; I will have a sizable list of such questions as well, so we should have ample resources to work from.

Book reviews can aid the reading process. Look for them in such major journals as the Journal of American History, American Historical Review, Reviews in American History, and H-Net (Humanities Online), along with such specialized journals as Environmental History and Environment and History. You can access on-line indexes to journal articles through the library Website.

Class Organization

The structure of the course centers on a core book each week, fourteen monographs in all. Each week we will spend the first two-thirds of our time (roughly 3:00-4:50) critically assessing it. Following a 10-minute break, one student will present a summary and critique of a second, supplementary work (20-25 minutes). Then we will close with comparative comments and thoughts on research initiatives this discussion has opened up.

We start on August 25 with introductions to each other and to the course. You will sign up for a second book then. On September 4, we will discuss the book by Alfred Crosby.

Writing

Weekly Notes

To promote discussions of substance, each student will write notes over the week’s reading (not required of the second book, however). These notes should cover important contents and points each week’s book makes, as well as many of the points mentioned above in connection with reading strategies. Aim to make them a useful resource for future reference for such purposes as papers or comprehensive exams.

Very importantly, add comments of your own as they occur to you during the reading. Set them off in some obvious manner (e.g., with an asterisk or in a different font, or in some other way). These comments can be of any sort of thought that occurs to you, such as comments, connections to other things you’ve read in this or other classes, disagreements with the author, personal experiences, and so forth. Students will hand in a copy of their notes each week. Your notes are not a polished paper; rather, they demonstrate to me your engagement with the text. Also, the notes do not need to be extensive or many pages long to do the job.

Grading of the notes will be on the following basis:
A: Good, complete, useful notes, with comments
B: Good notes, but unsatisfactory or missing comments
C: Poor or incomplete notes

Papers

Students will write two analytical papers about books read together and presented to class. The papers will discuss selected books and bring out their themes, evidence, strengths, weaknesses, and so forth, and analyze ways they complement, conflict with, or advance over each other. The papers are due in class October 20 and in my office by 5:00 p.m. on the last day of finals.

Use 12-point Times Roman or Times New Roman, double-spaced, with 1" margins all around and page numbers in the margin. Do not add extra space between paragraphs. If your word-processing program adds space automatically, adjust the Paragraph settings. Footnotes and bibliography are not required but, if used, must conform to Turabian standards. Turabian’s Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (identical to the Chicago Manual of Style) is widely available at most bookstores and in libraries.

Graduate-level writing should have no major problems in grammar and punctuation. If you suspect your paper is weak in those areas, I strongly encourage you to ask for help from the University Writing Center, which can advise you either online or in person: <https://www.depts.ttu.edu/provost/uwc/graduate/index.php>

Presentations

Students will select one book on the first day of class to present to the class. A presentation should inform the rest of the class about the book’s contents, author, and significance. I recommend reading such complementary sources as a biography, book reviews (if available), historiographies, and similar works to gauge the full importance of a work. The purpose of these presentations is to acquaint the class well enough with works of foundational literature that they could discuss them intelligently in a paper. I highly recommend that students practice their presentations before class, to make sure that the presentation is strong and fits within the time allotted. The class would be expected to take notes over the presentations.

Grading of presentations will be on the basis of the cogency and clarity of the presentation as well as coverage of the main points mentioned above. Presentations that run longer than 25 minutes will be docked a letter grade.

Book Paper

Each student will write one paper over the book he or she chose to present in class. The paper will discuss the book’s main argument or purpose, its historical context, its author and his or her significance, and its reception, impact, and place in the literature of American environmental history. Students should consult contemporary and modern reviews, a biography and other relevant secondary sources, articles, and other secondary literature to construct this paper of 8–10 pages in length. The primary goal is the fullest possible expansion of the work’s significance.

Use 12-point Times Roman or Times New Roman, double-spaced, with 1" margins all around, with page numbers in the margin, and no extra space between paragraphs. Use a cover page. Footnotes and bibliography must conform to Turabian standards. Turabian’s Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (identical to Chicago Manual of Style) is widely available at most bookstores and in the reference section of libraries.

The book paper will be due in class THREE WEEKS AFTER YOUR PRESENTATION.

Grading

Grades for this course will be based 45% on your papers, 25% on your notes, 10% on your presentation, and 20% on the quality of your contributions to class discussion.

A Note on AI

There are two main goals of this seminar. The first is to familiarize you with the field of environmental history. The second goal is to train you in scholarly practices of reading texts quickly and effectively, understanding and discussing them accurately, and using their insights, methods, and approaches in your own work. I expect that you will not use any generative artificial intelligence system (like ChatGPT) in your work for this course. Any use of AI-generated work at any stage of writing for this class is a violation of academic integrity. Such systems are often inaccurate, summarize complex materials badly, and make your work worse and less interesting. Using them does not serve your development as a thinker, writer, and scholar.

The purpose of a writing assignment is not to find out what a computer program thinks or to fill the world with yet more words. The purpose is to find out what you think, but more than that, it is to prompt you to figure out for yourself what you think and put those thoughts into words in order to clarify your thoughts to yourself and express them to others.

Note also that even a small request from an AI program uses a huge amount of energy and water. It also leads to possible plagiarism.

Here is the official policy of this course: The use of generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT) is strictly prohibited in this course for any purpose. Information gathered from AI cannot be used even with appropriate citation. Submission of AI-generated content (i.e., information, text, or images) as your own work is a violation of academic integrity and may result in referral to the Office of Student Conduct. Please contact me if you have questions regarding this course policy.

Books

McNeill, J. R. Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Modern World. New York: Norton, 2026

Crosby, Alfred W. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015 (1986)

Norton, Marcy. The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2024

Bouchard, Jack. Terra Nova: Food, Water, and Work in an Early Atlantic World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025

White, Sam. A Cold Welcome: The Little Ice Age and Europe’s Encounter with North America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017

Chaplin, Joyce E. The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025

McNeill, John Robert. Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010

Davis, Jack E. The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea. New York: Liveright, 2017

Cronon, William. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: Norton, 1991

Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979

Elmore, Bartow J. Seed Money: Monsanto’s Past and Our Food Future. New York: Norton, 2021

Nygren, Joshua. The State of Conservation: Rural America and the Conservation-Industrial Complex since 1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2025

Gross, Rachel S. Shopping All the Way to the Woods: How the Outdoor Industry Sold Nature to America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2024

Jennings, Eric T. Vanilla: The History of an Extraordinary Bean. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025

Second Books (list to choose from on the first day of class)

Texas Tech Policies Concerning Academic Honesty, Special Accommodations for Students with Disabilities, Student Absences for Observance of Religious Holy Days, and Accommodations for Pregnant Students:

These statements can be found at this URL: <https://www.depts.ttu.edu/tlpdc/RequiredSyllabusStatements.php>

HIST Statement on Academic Integrity: The Department of History adheres to Texas Tech University’s statement and related policies on issues of academic integrity as detailed in OP 34.12 (see above).

Any student found to be in violation of these policies will be subject to disciplinary action at both the departmental and university levels. At the departmental level, such action may include one or more of the following: a failing grade (F) for the assignment in question; a failing grade (F) for the course; a written reprimand; disqualification from scholarships and/or funding

Graduate students violating academic integrity policies may also be subject to removal from the program. (See the department’s Graduate Program Handbook for more information.)

Course Schedule

Aug 25		Introduction
Sep 1		Crosby, Ecological Imperialism
Sep 8		Norton, The Tame and the Wild
Sep 15		Bouchard, Terra Nova
Sep 22		White, A Cold Welcome
Sep 29		Chaplin, The Franklin Stove
Oct 6		Davis, The Gulf
Oct 13		McNeill, Mosquito Empires
Oct 20		Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis (Part III is optional) Paper 1 due
Oct 27		McNeill, Something New Under the Sun
Nov 3		Worster, Dust Bowl
Nov 10		Nygren, The State of Conservation
Nov 17		Elmore, Seed Money
Nov 24		Jennings, Vanilla
Dec 1		Gross, Shopping All the Way to the Woods
Dec 9		*Paper 2 due*