Ecological Importance of an animal, vegetable, mineral, and microbe to human history

Write a 5-6 page essay (~1500-1800 words) answering the following group of questions. Base your answers on assigned readings, films, and recorded lectures, as well as outside research on your chosen “animal, vegetable, mineral, or microbe.”

How has the interregional interchange of animals, plants, minerals, microbes, and cultural practices influenced specific human societies—and caused farther reaching environmental changes—during the past 1500 years? When composing your answer, give explicit attention to the following historical episodes: the expansion of Islamic and pastoralist empires in the Eastern Hemisphere during the medieval period (circa 500-1500 CE); the Columbian exchange and conquest ecological imperialism in the Americas during the early modern period (circa 1500-1750); and the neo-Columbian exchange and neo-ecological imperialism during the first two centuries of the modern period (circa 1750-1950).

When crafting your answer, give more detailed and specific attention to at least one animal, one vegetable, one mineral, and one microbial disease, in addition to the one you researched, following directions in the previous prompt (so at least five total). These details can be derived from any part of the course. How have specific human groups benefited or suffered from their involvement with each of these animals, vegetables, minerals, or microbes? How do they relate to the episodes of globalization listed above? How have these involvements, in turn, impacted other organisms or caused other forms of environmental and societal transformation?

When concluding your essay, please comment on the insights that these historical dynamics potentially provide you into understanding the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and public health crisis, as well as other contemporary environmental problems, such as climate change, pollution, the conservation of biodiversity, and our entry into the Anthropocene.

Use 12-point Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins, and double space. Organize each essay to defend a central argument, expressed in a succinct thesis statement in the first paragraph. Synthesize what you have learned in class and read so far. Make generalizations but also provide specific examples to answer each part of the exam question, and use the structure of the question to help order your response. Your essay will be evaluated not only for the insight and accuracy of its content, but also for its ability to defend an argument or interpretation, and the extent to which it is written in a professional, coherent, succinct manner.