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The course pursues two parallel yet coordinated objectives: a) to reconstruct the framework of the main conceptual and historiographical issues related to the history of the relationship between political institutions and the natural environment; b) to provide students with the basic tools for designing and carrying out an independent historical research project, conceived as preparatory training for the final thesis.

The course is structured as an interdisciplinary reflection on the historical relationship between political power and the natural environment. It will therefore begin by examining separately the two elements of this relationship—power and nature—before analyzing their mutual interaction and its long-term evolution.

The first part of the course will focus on the concept of power in general and political power in particular, tracing the main lines of its institutional manifestations throughout Western history, with special attention to the modern and contemporary periods. The second part will be devoted to reconstructing the various conceptions of nature and their subsequent transformations, with particular emphasis on the contributions of environmental history and on the recent debate surrounding the Anthropocene. Finally, the third part will address the power/nature dialectic, showing how political institutions shape the natural world and, conversely, how transformations in the natural world can profoundly affect the institutional landscape.

Main Topics Covered in Class:

- Jurisdiction, sovereignty, government  

- Symbols and representations of power  

- Empire and Church, city and state  

- Central power and local powers  

- Resistance and revolutions  

- The global world: beyond the state?  

- Nature, environment, and non-human worlds  

- The idea of environmental history  

- The debate on the Anthropocene  

- The public administration of nature  

- Natural disasters and political transformations

Reference bibliography for attending students

A) One text to be chosen from:

- M. Foucault, Sicurezza, territorio, popolazione. Corso al Collège de France (1977-1978), Feltrinelli, qualsiasi edizione;

- A. De Benedictis, Politica, governo e istituzioni nell'Europa moderna, il Mulino, 2001 (solo parte seconda e terza)

- P.P. Portinaro, Il labirinto delle istituzioni nella storia europea, il Mulino, 2007;

B) One text to be chosen from:

- P. Bevilacqua, Demetra e Clio. Uomini e ambiente nella storia, Donzelli, 2001;

- J.W. Moore, Antropocene o capitalocene? Scenari di ecologia-mondo nella crisi planetaria, ombre corte, 2017;

- D. Chakrabarty, Clima, Storia e Capitale, nottetempo, 2021;

- M. Campopiano, Storia dell’ambiente nel Medioevo. Natura, società, cultura, Carocci, 2025;

C) One text to be chosen from:

- P. Bevilacqua, La Terra è finita. Breve storia dell'ambiente, Laterza, qualsiasi edizione;

- M. Di Tullio e M.L. Fagnani, Una storia ambientale dell’età moderna. Società, saperi, economie, Carocci, 2024;

- R. Biasillo, Storia globale dell'ambiente, Carocci, 2025.

Non-attending students are required to select one additional text, either from group (A) or from group (C).

Attending students will be assessed partly through an oral examination (including a mid-term test on the first part of the program) and partly through a written component, consisting of a final paper based on an individual research project to be agreed upon with the instructor.

Non-attending students will take an oral examination covering the entire program.