Taking as its starting point an understanding of capitalism as significantly more than an economic system but, rather, as a world re-making force, what Jason Moore has described as “capitalism as world ecology,” this course inquires into the relationship between imperial formations and environmental change from the 16th century to the present. Taking a global perspective, and drawing on a variety of methodological and disciplinary approaches, we will explore a range of topics, such as: the relationship between credit and peasant production in the Indian and Egyptian countrysides; the transition from transhumant pastoralism to industrial cattle production in Eastern Africa; the ecological consequences of the imposition of regimes of private property in the United States; the globally uneven labor regimes governing extractive industries, among others. We will query the impact of these transformations for human and extra-human life, and enquire as to what the implications are for our collective present.