Description
Book SynopsisIdentifies four broadly shared historical processes that speeded environmental change from roughly 1500 to 1800 ce: intensified human land use along settlement frontiers; biological invasions; commercial hunting of wildlife; and problems of energy scarcity. This book considers each of these trends in a series of case studies.
Trade Review“Richards steers a calm course between these extremes [of the catastrophic and the celebratory view of environmental history], but it is as clear from his choice of examples as from his language that he inclines more to the celebratory than the apocalyptic view. . . . Richards advances beyond a purely Eurocentric approach to the dynamics of change and presents the frontier as an evolving, interactive process influenced by both human and non-human factors. That is no mean achievement.” * Times Literary Supplement *
“Richards has an economical way of surveying vast amounts of evidence which makes it an easy and rewarding read.” -- Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, * History Today *
“This is a major work of world and environmental history that experts and nonexperts will be consulting and quoting for years to come.”
* American Historical Review *
“This is more than a good textbook for a world history course. . . . It is a work that should be required reading for all early modernists, because it makes the strongest case to date for the importance of environmental history to the broader field.”
* Journal of Modern History *
“An excellent addition to the literature of world environmental history and a valuable aid to teaching.” * International History Review *
“Richards’s book is an admirable success and an intellectual adventure. Completely dependable in its scholarship, it undoubtedly will be one of the few that environmental historians place on a shelf within reach for ready consultation. . . . All in all, this work is a masterpiece that will stand the test of time.”
* Environmental History *
Table of ContentsList of Maps List of Tables Preface Introduction Part I. The Global Context 1. The Early Modern World 2. Climate and Early Modern World Environmental History Part II. Eurasia and Africa 3. Pioneer Settlement on Taiwan 4. Internal Frontiers and Intensified Land Use in China 5. Ecological Strategies in Tokugawa Japan 6. Landscape Change and Energy Transformation in the British Isles 7. Frontier Settlement in Russia 8. Wildlife and Livestock in South Africa Part III. The Americas 9. The Columbian Exchange: The West Indies 10. Ranching, Mining, and Settlement Frontiers in Colonial Mexico 11. Sugar and Cattle in Portuguese Brazil 12. Landscapes of Sugar in the Antilles Part IV. The World Hunt 13. Furs and Deerskins in Eastern North America 14. The Hunt for Furs in Siberia 15. Cod and the New World Fisheries 16. Whales and Walruses in the Northern Oceans Conclusion Bibliography Index
