Department of History
University of California, San Diego
Mark L. Hineline
Fall 2001
Office: H&SS ____, Tuesday and Thursday 2:30-3:30 pm
hineline@helix.ucsd.edu
Official reading list at http://helix.ucsd.edu/~hineline/west.html
The purpose of this course is to introduce environments as historical
actors in the continuing drama of the American West. We will come to see
environments as antagonists and protagonists; as villains, heros, and
victims. And we will meet the playwrites: scientists, advertising
copywriters for the railroads, novelists, environmentalists, historians.
Even a drama critic.
Because we will be sensitive to temporal and physical scale, we will try
never to speak of "the" environment (though we will undoubtedly slip up
from time to time).
We will read the following books (available at Groundworks
bookstore):
Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
D.W. Meinig, The Southwest
Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian
Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge
Donald Worster, Rivers of Empire
Groundworks has a few copies of optional texts, including Beck and Haase,
The Historical Atlas of the American West.
Grades will be based on a two short papers (20% each), a final exam
(28%), and four quizzes, each work 8% (32%). Departmental policy requires
that you complete all work in order to receive a grade. You may make up
any quiz by writing a 4-5 page review of a book on the environmental
history of the west; see me for a list of acceptable books in the event
you need to make up a quiz.
The physical and cultural geography of the West is important for an
understanding of its history. For that reason, I strongly
emphasize geographical competence. You should know the present (and
sometimes the past) locations of cities, agricultural districts, mountain
ranges, rivers and lakes, deserts, railroads, highways, canyons, and
reservations. There will be at least one question on a quiz and another
on the final exam that will require you to label a 'blank' map. Keep in
mind that geography is not historically static; much of eastern Nevada
and western Utah were submerged under water even as human populations
were interacting with the western environment. When you think about maps,
think about them as though they were like the weather maps -- with clouds
in motion -- that you see on television.
Part One: Overview
1. Introduction (September 20)
Reading: Begin reading Abbey
Recommended: Colin Fletcher, The Man Who Walked through
Time (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968); Ann Zwinger, Downcanyon: A
Naturalist Explores the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995)
2. The Physical Landscape (September 25, 27)
Reading: Finish Abbey, Begin reading Meinig
Recommended: William Cronon, "The Trouble with Wilderness, or
Getting Back to the Wrong Nature," in William Cronon, ed., Uncommon
Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995);
Donald K. Grayson, The Desert's Past: A Natural Prehistory of the
Great Basin (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press,
1993); Ann Zwinger, The Mysterious Lands: A Naturalist Explores the
Four Great Deserts of the Southwest (Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 1989); James R. Hastings and Raymond Turner, The Changing Mile:
An Ecological Study of Vegetation Change with Time in the Lower Mile of
an Arid and Semiarid Region (Tucson: University of Arizona Press,
1965)
3. The Peoples of the Southwest (October 2, 4)
Quiz #1 Reading: Finish Meinig
Recommended: Gary Paul Nabhan, The Desert Smells Like Rain: A
Naturalist in Papago Indian Country (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1982); See also below
Part Two: Historical Themes
4. The Pre-Columbian Era (October 9, 11)
Reading:See on-line syllabus
Recommended: Christy G. Turner, Man Corn: Cannibalism and Violence
in the Prehistoric American Southwest (Salt Lake City: University of
Utah Press, 1999)
5. The Spanish/Mexican era in the Southwest (October 16, 18)
First short paper due: Landscape description (October 18)
Reading: See on-line syllabus, begin reading Stegner
Recommended: Ramon Gutierrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn
Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico,
1500-1846 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991); Edward H.
Spicer, Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico, and the
United States on the Indians of the Southwest, 1533-1960 (Tucson: The
University of Arizona Press, 1962)
6. Science and Exploration (October 23, 25)
Reading:Finish Stegner
Recommended: Stephen J. Pyne, How the Canyon Became Grand: A
Short History (New York: Viking, 1998); Donald Worster, A River
Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell (Oxford and New York:
Oxford University Press, 2001); William Goetzmann, Army Exploration in
the American West, 1803-1863 (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1959); William Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire (New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1966)
7. Water and Land Use (October 30, November 1)
Reading: Begin Worster
Recommended: Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert: The American West
and Its Disappearing Water (New York: Viking, 1986); William deBuys,
Salt Dreams: Land & Water in Low-down California (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1999)
Quiz #2 8. Water and Power (November 6, 8)
Quiz #3 Second short paper due: Historical land use analysis (Nov. 8) Reading: Finish Worster
Recommended: William deBuys, Enchantment and Exploitation: The
Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1985)
9. Industries and Tourism (November 13, 15)
Reading: See on-line syllabus
Recommended: TBA
10. The Cold War Era in the Southwest (November 20)
Quiz #4 Reading: Begin Williams
Recommended: TBA
Part Three: Futures
11. The Once and Future Southwest (November 27, 29)
Reading: Finish Williams
Recommended: Dan Flores, Horizontal Yellow: Nature and History
in the Near Southwest (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
1999)