World Ecological Degradation: Accumulation, Urbanization, and Deforestation, 3000BC-AD2000
Average Rating: out of 3 Reviews
Price: $82.50
Sale: $73.42
Manufacturer: AltaMira Press
EAN (European Article Number): 9780759100305
Number of Items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
Author: Sing C. Chew
Publisher: AltaMira Press
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.75137
Publication Date: 2001-06-06
Reading Level: 224
Description: Deforestation, soil runoff, salination and pollution, all recurrent themes of the contemporary world, but they are not new to the world. This is a sweeping review of the environmental impacts of human settlement and development worldwide over the past 5000 years. The book shows that the processes of population growth, intense resource accumulation and urbanization in ancient and modern societies almost universally bring on ecological disaster, which can often contribute to the fall of that society. It then looks at the modern European world-system and its impact on the environment. The author, Sing Chew, also traces the existence of environmental conservation ideas and movements over the 5000 year span, and challenges the reader to change long-term trends of ecological disaster.
Customer Reviews
Review Summary: World Ecological Degradation: Accumulation, Urbanization, and Deforestration 3000 B.C. - A.D. 2000
Date: 2006-08-09
Details: Using world systems theory as his springboard, Sing Chew develops a social history of the rise and fall of civilizations from the Bronze Age to the emergence of Europe as the center of the world economic system in the eighteenth century.
Chew's thesis is that cultures interact with nature and this interaction is transformative both for culture and nature.
While many social historians dwell on the lives of famous leaders of different societies, Chew demonstrates how social processes of accumulation accelerate destruction of nature and thus decline of civilizations based on resources derived from nature. He uses deforestation as an example of use of natural resources at a rate that is not sustainable.
World Ecological Degradation is a book based on excellent scholarhip. This book is particularly relevant to readers who want historical perspective on patterns of consumption that have lead to the current ecological crisis.
Review Summary: Under-researched and overreaching.
Date: 2003-12-10
Details: One does not need to write a book about the weather when he can simply stick his head out the window.
Although this work compiles some useful data and facts, it does little to answer the most important questions concerning societal collapse. It is not enough to say that rising populations and urban settlements tax the environment, this is obvious; the question is why do populations rise in the first place and why do these populations organize themselves in highly stratified systems with specialized economies necessitating great amounts of food surpluses and specialist produced craft goods?
Moreover, this work attempts to tackle a subject that anthropological archaeologists have been working on diligently for decades without referring to much of their work. For instance Flannery, 1972 isn't even in the bibliography and Culbert's synthesis of the vast amount of Mayan archaeology completed in the 1970's to get at these very ecological questions isn't either.
Review Summary: Underresearched and overreaching.
Date: 2003-12-09
Details: One does not need to write a book about the weather when he can simply stick his head out the window.
Although this work compiles some useful data and facts, it does little to answer the most important questions concerning societal collapse. It is not enough to say that rising populations and urban settlements tax the environment, this is obvious; the question is why do populations rise in the first place and why do these populations organize themselves in highly stratified systems with specialized economies necessitating great amounts of food surpluses and specialist produced craft goods?
Moreover, this work attempts to tackle a subject that anthropological archaeologists have been working on diligently for decades without referring to much of their work. For instance Flannery, 1972 isn't even in the bibliography and Culbert's synthesis of the vast amount of Mayan archaeology completed in the 1970's to get at these very ecological questions isn't either.
out of 3 Reviews
