Rethinking Environmental History ─ World-System History and Global Environmental Change

If one applies the world-system perspective pioneered by Immanuel Wallerstein to the study of environmental history, it becomes clear that the unequal power relations between rich core regions and the poor periphery should have their corollaries in the unequal distribution of environmental damage and burdens. Based on this central premise, this interdisciplinary collection presents 20 case studies and theoretical discussions exploring the political economy of environmental history from ancient Rome to modern Brazil. Examples of specific topics addressed in the papers presented by Hornborg (anthropology and human ecology, Lund U., Sweden), McNeill (environmental and international affairs, Georgetown U., US), and Martinez-Alier (ecological economics, Autonomous U. of Barcelona, Spain) include food, war, and crisis in the 17th century Swedish Empire, the role of deforestation in earth and world-system integration, political ecology and the East African ivory trade, the globalization of diet and the extractive economy, the physical inevitability of uneven development under capitalism, uneven ecological and consumption-based environmental impacts, historical trends of physical trade flows of pollution-intensive products, and environmental issues at the US-Mexico border and the unequal territorialization of value. Annotation c2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Alf Hornborg is an anthropologist and professor of human ecology at Lund University. J. R. McNeill is professor of history, director of graduate studies, and Cinco Hermanos Chair of Environmental and International Affairs at Georgetown University. Joan Martinez-Alier is professor of ecological economics in the Department of Economics and Economic History at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.