Economics 315

Highlights

Explore Rome and rural Italy in January, 2006, a region where human beings have altered the environment for thousands of years and had to adjust to nature's volcanic and earthquake surprises.  The ancient still lives side by side with the modern in Italy so it serves as a living laboratory of economic and environmental change.

This class will apply the themes of markets in history and institutions supporting exchange to learn about economic adjustment in Rome and Italy as people changed from human drawn carts to automobiles, from watch-towers to wireless phones, from city states to a nation state.  It will study the efforts of ancient and modern Italy to solve important economic and environmental issues such as traffic congestion, air pollution, water pollution, national park development and antiquities preservation. 

Students will meet with officials of the Cinque Terre National Park and learn about the environmental preservation of this delicate ecosystem that has balanced the interaction of humans and their natural environment for thousands of years.  They will visit grape and olive farms committed to sustainable development and organic production.  Students will also have the opportunity to provide voluntary service by assisting in the repair of the centuries-old dry terrace walls of the Cinque Terre National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

• Discover Cinque Terre National Park in the Ligurian Riviera.

• Explore hill towns of Tuscany and Umbria including Cortona, Orvieto, and Civita di Bagnoregio

• Study the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, St. Peter's Basilica, the Pantheon, the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel

• Travel to Ostia Antica, Rome's ancient seaport

• Visit Pompeii and Stabiae, site of the volcanic disaster in 79 AD

• Explore Naples, Sorrento, and the Amalfi Coast

• Travel to Paestum, a 5th Century B.C. Greek colony lost for centuries to malaria