Environmental history of the Alps, 18th to 21st century

The increasing damage to nature and the environment, now nearing a critical threshold that could endanger life on Earth, places humanity at a crossroads: either continue exploiting nature’s resources, further disrupting ecological and environmental balances, or reshape its relationship with nature by respecting its regenerative processes and promoting sustainable development models.
Taking inspiration from the current ecological crises affecting the planet — from climate warming to environmental pollution, from biodiversity loss to the overexploitation of resources — the course addresses key issues of the “environmental matter,” focusing on the Alpine chain, an area where the process of human settlement and transformation has accelerated significantly over the past century, profoundly altering its ecological balance and the natural processes that for centuries have shaped the lives of its inhabitants.
The course is structured into three main parts. After introducing the principal theoretical approaches of environmental history and its development within the international historiography, the first part of the course will focus on the analysis of interactions between the environment and humans. Taking a long-term perspective, it will explore the adaptive strategies of Alpine societies in response to climate change, their reactions to “natural” disasters, and the regulation mechanisms they developed to manage the relationship between population and resources.
In the second part, the course examines how European societies’ perception of the Alps and the Alpine nature has evolved. It traces the “discovery” of the Alpine region through Enlightenment thought, the emergence of conservationist ideology in the 19th century, and finally, the rise of environmental awareness and ecological movements in the Alps during the second half of the 20th century.
The third part of the course addresses the environmental impacts brought about by industrial modernization in the 19th and 20th centuries. It explores the role of forests within Alpine socio-ecological systems, the socioeconomic, landscape, and environmental implications of exploiting water resources, the environmental conflicts caused by industrial pollution, and finally, the effects of tourism on mountain ecosystems.

Through a long-term perspective spanning from the 18th century — the period when the Alps were “discovered” by European culture — to the present — and the issues related to climate change — the course aims to provide students with a comprehensive overview of how societies and economies, both Alpine and non-Alpine, have interacted with the Alpine environment and have been influenced by it. In particular, the course seeks to illustrate how these interactions have evolved over time, in light of changing perceptions of the Alpine mountains and humanity’s view of nature, as well as transformations in economic systems and in the ways Alpine resources have been used. Specifically, the course aims to enable students to: acquire the tools needed to interpret current environmental issues within a diachronic perspective; develop a basic historiographical vocabulary related to environmental history; learn to connect different environmental phenomena and processes using the historical-conceptual framework and theoretical references presented during the course; strengthen their ability to critically analyze various types of historical sources (documents, newspaper articles, video footage, iconographic materials, etc.) and to provide commentary in both oral and written form.

In presence

The course is delivered through traditional lectures, supported by slides and various documents made available on the iCorsi platform. During the lectures, students are invited to present and comment on a range of sources (newspaper articles, reports, legal texts, expert assessments, iconographic materials, etc.) provided by the instructor. Optionally, students may also submit a written thematic paper (max. 15,000 characters including spaces and footnotes) on a topic related to the course content.

The exam is conducted in written form. For students who choose to submit the optional written paper, it will count for 20% of the final exam grade.