HIST 2045 - The U.S. West: Environment, Culture, and Politics

Credits: 3
Hours/Week: Lecture 3 Lab None
Course Description: This second-year course examines the intersections among the culture, the politics, and the environment of a specific United States region: the U.S. West. It focuses on the connections between human history and the western environment, especially during the 19th and 20th centuries. Topics include the role of conflict in the West; the West¿s views on natural resource use, its relationships with the federal government, and its ethnic and cultural diversities; and the ways that the environment and environmental movement, affect the West and the rest of the U.S.
MnTC Goals
5 History/Social/Behavioral Science, 10 People/Environment

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1020  with a grade of C or higher or ENGL 1021  with a grade of C or higher.
Corequisite(s): None
Recommendation: None

Major Content

1. Native Homelands and European Contact
2. The West as Contested Space during the 19th Century
3. The Use  of Western Resources
4. Race, Ethnicity, and Western Identity
5. The Western Myth
6. Resource Conservation and Wilderness Preservation
7. Water, Federal Reclamation, and the Dust Bowl
8. Militarization and the West
9. Civil Rights and Labor in the West
10. Western Politics: The Sagebrush Rebellion, Environmental Activism
11. The U.S. West in the 21st Century

1. explain the story of the U.S. West, accounting for complex relationships between diverse environments and human cultures.
2. analyze primary and secondary sources using historical methods of evidence.
3. synthesize historical material from diverse sources and points of view. 
4. demonstrate critical analysis of historical events, processes, and/or concepts.
5. evaluate the relevance of the environmental history of the U.S. West to their own lives.

05. 02. Examine social institutions and processes across a range of historical periods and cultures.

05. 03. Use and critique alternative explanatory systems or theories.
Competency 2 (7-10)
10. 01. Explain the basic structure and function of various natural ecosystems and of human adaptive strategies within those systems.

10. 02. Discern patterns and interrelationships of bio-physical and socio-cultural systems.

10. 03. Describe the basic institutional arrangements (social, legal, political, economic, religious) that are evolving to deal with environmental and natural resource challenges.

10. 04. Evaluate critically environmental and natural resource issues in light of understandings about interrelationships, ecosystems, and institutions.

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