|
| Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World (Global Century Series) | 
| Authors: J. R. Mcneill, John Robert Mcneill, Paul Kennedy
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy Used: $5.03
You Save: $14.92 (75%)
New (34) from $11.12
Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 75303
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0393321835
Dewey Decimal Number: 577
EAN: 9780393321838
ASIN: 0393321835
Publication Date: April 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
J.R. McNeill, a professor of history at Georgetown University, visits the annals of the past century only to return to the present with bad news: in that 100-year span, he writes, the industrialized and developing nations of the world have wrought damage to nearly every part of the globe. That much seems obvious to even the most casual reader, but what emerges, and forcefully, from McNeill's pages is just how extensive that damage has been. For example, he writes, "soil degradation in one form or another now affects one-third of the world's land surface," larger by far than the world's cultivated areas. Things are worse in some places than in others; McNeill observes that Africa is "the only continent where food production per capita declined after 1960," due to the loss of productive soil. McNeill's litany continues: the air in most of the world's cities is perilously unhealthy; the drinking water across much of the planet is growing ever more polluted; the human species is increasingly locked "in a rigid and uneasy bond with modern agriculture," which trades the promise of abundant food for the use of carcinogenic pesticides and fossil fuels. The environmental changes of the last century, McNeill closes by saying, are on an unprecedented scale, so much so that we can scarcely begin to fathom their implications. We can, however, start to think about them, and McNeill's book is a helpful primer. --Gregory McNamee
Product Description
A look at the history of change brought about by and affecting the lives of homo sapiens. Discusses the interdependence of man and nature, contending that adaptability to change and the ability to explore alternatives to the main sources of needed resources will be the key to the survival of mankind. Softcover. DLC: Human ecology--History--20th century.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 Something New Under the Sun October 10, 2008
I like the book because of the historical perspective on the detrimental effects of the environment with selected topics, although I am preferring my other book which tells the stories of different places on the what the effects of the environment has had over the years of human civilization. Still, both are quite good...
Excellent November 29, 2007
This is a must read for people interested in either history, the environment, or people. It is well written and provides an excellent view about the history of the twentieth century that most people do not usually know about. Everyone should read it.
Where we went astray and what we might do about it November 27, 2007
Boom. This is a biggie. Yowzah! If you want a clear view of our specie's impact on our world there is no better place to start than here. J.R. McNeill offers a balanced and comprehensive look at the century which changed everything, and his title, contradicting Ecclesiastes' assertion that nothing is new, says it all. The core idea here is that in the last century humanity moved beyond affect of local systems to dominance of the biosphere. We are everywhere. McNeill covers our impact on all of the life on our planet, from his prologue discussion of economy, population and energy, to his deeper analysis of soil, air, water and the whole of living systems. He offers clear views of the demographic and technologic forces which have shaped our modern world. Most illuminating of all are the complicated ways in which each change we have wrought has brought both destruction and remediation. Oil, the number one eco-villain in recent history, particularly when pumped through internal combustion engines, has also cleaned up city air enormously when it replaced coal and wood for heating and power generation. It also eliminated the need to remove 10-15,000 horse carcasses from average large cities each year and saved the great whales from extinction. Nuclear energy, an utter failure economically and with wastes which will be our generation's longest lasting heirloom, at least doesn't pollute the air. Population growth has had enormous impact on environmental damage, but less than I would have estimated as a percentage, and in some places it has even permitted improvements impossible without many hands. We are, in his words, the "rogue primate" which became smart enough to threaten every other life form on the planet, from smallpox virus to blue whales. Our success has paradoxically been very good for the viruses that cause the common cold and for rabbits. From the general to the specific, whole systems to individual tools (automobile, chain saw) McNeill has achieved a grasp of how and what we did, and tells the story masterfully. For readers who took up my recommendation of A GREEN HISTORY OF THE WORLD (Clive Ponting, St. Martin's Press, 1991), this one is better (and Ponting's work is one of McNeill's sources). Bingo.
One of a kind book on environmental history June 4, 2007
I wrote my economics undergraduate thesis on development and environmental management back in 1976-77, and surely I would have enjoyed and valued to have Professor McNeill's book in my hands in those years.
His book is remarkable in many ways. It is a well written book, extraordinarly documented and well supported with eye opening statistical tables and illustrations. His material is useful for graduate and undergraduate students alike, and also for wider audiences interested on reviewing a different approach on history's complexities.
As the book front page indicates, the author centers his work on the 20th century's humankind events, termed by himself as the most influential on the process of ecology's evolution.
The book is very well organized so the reader keeps information organized in a properly way. At the end, Professor McNeill leaves many questions open that will be ample material enough to study in the years to come. Among those questions is the one concerned with society's will to deal seriously with environmental crises that have accumulated on the latest decades. We can have a readily answer to that subject if political leaders continue to privilege the narrow view of economic growth, instead of considering to seriously discuss the implementation of more integral strategies that would deliver environmental friendly sustainable economic development at the end.
Without question I recommend this book.
Easy to read and full of history everyone should know December 12, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book may be the best historical survey I've ever read. (And with an M.A. in history, I've read a few!) I got this book to complement my hard science slogging on global warming, and found so much more than I hoped for or ever imagined! McNeil's book provides the historical background and the human context for all the graphs and numbers in the science texts. If you're looking for one book to give you a focused overview of just how much human civilization has accomplished, good and bad, in the last 100 years, this is it.
The organization of the book is excellent. McNeil sources everything, ends each chapter with an excellent summary, and wraps it all up with his own thoughtful commentary on climate change. He uses an inspired mix of the small detail (birds dying mid-flight) and the enormous concept (the Aswan dam affected the entire Mediterranean ecosystem). He describes chains of cause and effect and makes connections other historians and scientists seem to miss. The chapters dealing with agriculture are, I think, particularly relevant to our everyday lives; but students in nearly every subject will find this book useful. My husband is a family physician, and has read the sections on public health; my neighbor is a biologist with the USGS, and is reading the chapter on dams and irrigation.
|
|
|
Wildlife, nature and the Environment
Sponsored Links
Learn how to get your own Amazon Book shop | |
