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

This exciting new reader in environmental history provides a framework for understanding the relations between ecosystems and world-systems over time. Alf Hornborg, J. R. McNeill, and Joan Martinez-Alier have brought together a group of the prominent social scientists, historians, and geographical scientists to provide a historical overview of the ecological dimension of global economic processes. Readers are challenged to integrate studies of the Earth-system with studies of the world-system, and to reconceptualize the relations between human beings and their environment, as well as the challenges of global sustainability.

Robert B. Marks was Richard and Billie Deihl Professor of History at Whittier College and the author of China: Its Environment and History (R&L 2012) and Tigers, Rice, Silk, and Silt: Environment and Economy in Late Imperial China (CUP 1998). He is the recipient of Whittier College’s Harry W. Nerhood Teaching Excellence Award.

Richard Wilk is Provost's Professor of Anthropology and Director of Food Studies at Indiana University. His recent books include Home Cooking in the Global Village (2006) and Fast Food/Slow Food (2006).