History
Undergraduate and Graduate Seminar
Th 2:10-4PM
The Soviet Union, like the Russian Empire before it, straddled one-sixth of the planet’s landmass. Both powers drew on this territory’s vast resources—organic, mineral, animal, and human—to dominate their neighbors and exert power on the world stage. In the process, they dramatically reconfigured local ecosystems, from Central Asian deserts to Pacific islands. This seminar traces the interaction between empire and environment across three eras: Tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet. Its approach is comparative, framing developments in Russia alongside those elsewhere—in China, Europe, and the US. The course asks: How have modern polities transformed Eurasia’s land, water, and air? In turn, how has the natural world shaped the trajectories of diverse imperial projects? And what legacies have these encounters left for today?
Link to Vergil
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