Becoming History: Species Extinctions in the Americas Over Time
A talk by
German Vergara
Associate Professor of History at Georgia Tech
September 26, 2025
Friday
2:30 pm – 4 pm
Free and open to the Public
Withers Hall, Room 140
North Carolina State University
101 Lampe Dr, Raleigh, NC 27607
My talk, “Becoming History: Species Extinctions in the Americas Over Time“, based on a book project I’m currently working on, focuses on the biodiversity and extinction crisis in the Americas. Recent estimates suggest that 41 percent of described amphibians, 26 percent of mammals, and 13 percent of birds currently face the threat of extinction worldwide. As one of the global centers of biodiversity, the Americas are at the heart of the current extinction crisis. Few regions of the world have experienced as many extinctions or near extinctions as the Western Hemisphere. The talk (like the book) examines the historical roots of this crisis, adopting a very long-term perspective to better understand the social, cultural, and economic patterns that have resulted in high rates of species loss. Somewhat unwisely, the talk (and the book) travels from the Late Pleistocene to the modern history of capitalism in the region to ponder whether humans are a uniquely adept species at extinguishing other life forms. Less abstractly, I will discuss topics such as the capitalist commodification of animals and nature, scientific ideas about extinction, animal-human relations, and conservation efforts in the Americas over the centuries.
—
Germán Vergara (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley) specializes in environmental and Latin American history. His research and teaching explore environmental change, animal history, energy regimes, and the ecological problems of capitalism(s) and industrialization in Latin America, which he tries to locate in a global context. His first book, Fueling Mexico: Energy and Environment, 1850-1950 (Cambridge University Press, 2021), examined how and why modern Mexico transitioned from an agrarian society powered by animal muscle, water, and wood to a fossil-fueled industrial society. His second book examines the history of human-caused animal extinctions in the Americas over the centuries.
After earning his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, Germán spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow in environmental history at Brown University. He has received fellowships from the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC-MEXUS), the Charles A. Hale Fellowship for Mexican History from the Latin American Studies Association, and the USMEX Fellowship Program at the University of California, San Diego. He was selected as the 2022-23 Cisneros Visiting Scholar of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) at Harvard University.