Deforestation, soil runoff, salination, pollution. While recurrent themes of the contemporary world, they are not new to us. In this broad sweeping review of the environmental impacts of human settlement and development worldwide over the past 5,000 years, Sing C. Chew shows that these processes are as old as civilization itself. With examples ranging from Ancient Mesopotamia to Malaya, Mycenaean Greece to Ming China, Chew shows that the processes of population growth, intensive resource accumulation, and urbanization in ancient and modern societies almost universally bring on ecological disaster, which often contributes to the decline and fall of that society. He then turns his eye to the development of the modern European world-system and its impact on the environment. Challenging us to change these long-term trends, Chew also traces the existence of environmental conservation ideas and movements over the span of 5,000 years. Can we do it? Look at Chew's evidence of the past five millennia and decide. Ideal for courses in environmental history, anthropology, and sociology, and world-systems theory.
Sing C. Chew is professor and chairperson of the Department of Sociology at Humboldt State University, in Arcata, California. Prior to his current appointment, he was the Associate Director in the Office of Vice-President (Resources), International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada. He has been a Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore, and recently, Guest Researcher at the Human Ecology Division, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, where this book was completed. His most recent book is a co-edited volume: The Underdevelopment of Development: Essays in Honor of Andre Gunder Frank.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 PrefaceChapter 2 1. Ecological Degradation over World HistoryChapter 3 2. Third Millenium Bronze Age World System: Mesopotamia and HarappaChapter 4 3. Second Millennium Bronze Age World System: Crete and Mycenaean GreeceChapter 5 4. The Age of City States: Classical GreeceChapter 6 5. The Age of Empire: RomeChapter 7 6. The Sun Rises and Sets in the EastChapter 8 7. The Emerging EconomiesChapter 9 8. Europe at the HelmChapter 10 9. Ecological Consciousness and Social Movements among les ancients et les modernesChapter 11 BibliographyChapter 12 Index
What People are Saying About This
Andre Gunder Frank
The degradation of nature especially through deforesting is 'as old as the hills.' Chew masterfully demonstrates the conflict between culture/society/economy in command and its environmental destruction that in turn imposes limits through ecology in command. He reviews these over 5,000 years around the globe from ancient Mesopotamia and India, Greece and Rome, South, East and Southeast Asia to the European and North American age in this first ever ecocentric instead of only humanocentric book that weds ecological with world system analysis. He also traces responses in ecological consciousness and through environmental movements from the 2700 BC Epic of Gilgamesh in Mesopotamia, Vedas and Buddhism in India, Confucians in China, Pythagoras and others in Greece, Cicero and Pliny in Rome, Spinoza in Europe and Thoreau in the United States, and to contemporary ones like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and Green parties like Nader's 2000 presidential candidacy today.
J Donald Hughes
In this brief by biting analysis of world environmental history from the appearance of the first cities to the present, Sing Chew states his thesis and follows it with admirable directness.... I think this book wil prove stimulating for teachers of courses in World History; there are issues raised by Chew that most texts avoid.