Over three and a half billion people live on the Asian continent. In this subject, you will discover how this concentration of humanity occurred, and explore the consequences. Some of the earliest civilisations developed next to Asia's rivers. Then, as now, the peoples of Asia were reliant on Monsoonal rains and Himalayan ice-melt for their agriculture. But as the human population increased, other creatures retreated, especially the wild elephants that once inhabited much of Asia. Along with the continent's largest creatures, we examine its smallest: the bacteria and viruses that hitched rides with travelling armies, creating deadly epidemics. We focus on three case studies: the Mongol Empire (13th-14th Centuries) and the Bubonic Plague; the British Empire(18th-20th Centuries) and Malaria; and the Japanese Empire and tuberculosis. You will debate key concepts in Asian and Environmental Histories: the relationship between humans and the natural world, the role empires and nation-states have had on both human and natural history, and the complex interdependent systems that underpin these interactions.

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