On Top Of The World

Matt and I have been together in Utah for the AP World History reading, and today we managed to find some time in the evening to talk about environmental history and its place in the study of the Age of Revolutions. Key sources are Mosquito Empires and Pox Americana as we look at how differential immunity played a crucial role in the fate of the Haitian and American Revolutions respectively. We also discuss ways to give disease an important place in events without giving in to environmental determinism, a discussion that was well lubricated by whiskey from High West Distillery. A source for Kwame Nkrumah’s suggested mosquito statue in Accra can be found here. Recommendations are:Matt – Miller, An Environmental History of Latin AmericaDave – Dubois, Avengers of the New World