An Environmental History of the World: Humankind's Changing Role in the Community of Life

by J. Donald Hughes

An Environmental History of the World is a concise history, from Ancient to Modern times, of the interaction between human societies and the other forms of life that inhabit our planet. This original work follows a chronological path through the history of mankind, in relationship to ecosystems around the world. Each chapter concentrates on a general period in human history which has been characterised by large scale changes in the relationship of human societies to the biosphere, and gives three case-studies that illustrate the significant patterns occurring at that time. Little environmental or historical knowledge is assumed from the reader in this introduction to environmental history.

Genres: Nonfiction, Environment, History

284 pages, Hardcover

First published July 25, 2001

Reviews

[Liisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never before added books that I’m reading for university in Goodreads, but I realized that they’re just like any other non fiction - I just have an exam in the end. And as they take up a lot of my reading time it’s only fair that they help with my reading goals.
An Environmental History of the World takes on quite a challenge: to summarize the history of human-environment interactions. But I think that Hughes does a really great job! Each chapter covers a certain time period and starts with an introduction that goes through the main points. Then there are three case studies, almost all of which Hughes has studied himself. I felt like everything can be easily understood even without much of a background knowledge in biology or history. With a book like this it might be needless to say, but I did learn a lot. And this really fits into my environmental sciences studies!

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hughes does a solid job of compressing the long environmental history down into a readable format that lacks ethnocentrism and presents its points clearly. Probably the best overall book I read for my environmental history class.

[Kylie Wong · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for environmental history. i did not like this book very much and a lot of the information is very outdated.

[Mårten Thorslund · Rating 3 out of 5]

För att innehållet och ämnet ligger mig varmt om hjärtat och boken är relativt heltäckande och relativt väl underbyggda slutsatser kombinerat med egna erfarenheter. Minus för att den är ganska tydligt politisk och på ett sätt som jag tror inte bara är till fördel för det jag trot Hughes syftar till att göra med boken, nämligen att skapa bestående förändring. Budskapet är nog lite för svårsmält för den breda massan (som han i o f s inte tydligt riktar in sig på men som jag tror skulle kunna ta till sig ben bok som denna om den var mer inriktat till att steg för steg också förändra samhället. Jag välkomnar en bok som mer än han gör också öppnar upp för alternativa världsåskådningar och även problematiserar miljörörelsen, utofr¨ån att den ibland målar in sig i ett hörn, så som t ex Joachim Radkau gör i "Nature and Power".

[Patsy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This includes interesting points about reducing funding for public services such that only private companies can build and run water and sewer facilities. Where I live we have just handed over construction and running a sewer plant to a private company. For better or worse.