Humans versus Nature

Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-0-19-086471-2
Verlag: ACADEMIC

Buch, Englisch, 624 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 1080 g

Since the appearance of Homo sapiens on the planet hundreds of thousands of years ago, human beings have sought to exploit their environments, extracting as many resources as their technological ingenuity has allowed. As technologies have advanced in recent centuries, that impulse has remained largely unchecked, exponentially accelerating the human impact on the environment.

Humans versus Nature tells a history of the global environment from the Stone Age to the present, emphasizing the adversarial relationship between the human and natural worlds. Nature is cast as an active protagonist, rather than a mere backdrop or victim of human malfeasance. Daniel R. Headrick shows how environmental changes--epidemics, climate shocks, and volcanic eruptions--have molded human societies and cultures, sometimes overwhelming them. At the same time, he traces the history of anthropogenic changes in the environment--species extinctions, global warming, deforestation, and resource depletion--back to the age of hunters and gatherers and the first farmers and herders. He shows how human interventions such as irrigation systems, over-fishing, and the Industrial Revolution have in turn harmed the very societies that initiated them.

Throughout, Headrick examines how human-driven environmental changes are interwoven with larger global systems, dramatically reshaping the complex relationship between people and the natural world. In doing so, he roots the current environmental crisis in the deep past.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Headrick

Headrick, Daniel R.

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Acknowledgments

- Introduction: Global Environmental History

- Chapter 1 The Foragers

- Chapter 2 Farmers and Herders

- Chapter 3 Early Civilizations

- Chapter 4 Eurasia in the Classical Age

- Chapter 5 Medieval Eurasia and Africa

- Chapter 6 The Invasion of America

- Chapter 7 The Transformation of the Old World

- Chapter 8 The Transition to an Industrial World

- Chapter 9 The West and the Non-West in the Nineteenth Century

- Chapter 10 War and Developmentalism in the Twentieth Century

- Chapter 11 Peace and Consumerism in the Twentieth Century

- Chapter 12 Climate Change and Climate Wars

- Chapter 13 Plundering the Oceans

- Chapter 14 Extinctions and Survivals

- Chapter 15 Environmentalism

- Epilogue One Past, Many Futures

- Notes

- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Daniel R. Headrick is Professor of Social Science and History, emeritus, at Roosevelt University. He is the author of numerous books, including The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (OUP); The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism (OUP); The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851-1945 (OUP); When Information Came of Age: Technologies of Knowledge in the Age of Reason and Revolution, 1700-1850 (OUP); Technology: A World History (OUP); and Power over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.