Corey Ross argued that the production of commodities and their exchange on global markets has been one of the most important human drivers of ecological change in the modern world. The mechanisms of global trade reshuffled biota across vast distances, focused a dispersed worldwide demand onto limited areas of supply, and often depleted nature’s capital by exploiting resources faster than they could be replenished.

The lecture surveyed the boom of commodity production since the mid-nineteenth century through three lenses—time, space, and specialization—to illustrate how it transformed landscapes around the globe. 

Corey Ross is Director of the Institute and Professor for European Global Studies. His expertise focuses on the history of imperialism and global environmental history in the 19th and 20th centuries. His research on the socio-environmental history of Europe’s relations with the rest of the world builds on interdisciplinarity, investigates the global, transimperial and transnational circulation of ideas, goods and people, and aims to highlight perspectives that are relevant to major present-day and future challenges.