The World System And the Earth System ― Global Socioenvironmental Change And Sustainability Since The Neolithic

In this benchmark volume top scholars come together to present state-of-the-art research and pursue a more rigorous framework for understanding and studying the linkages between social and ecological systems. Contributors from a wide spectrum of disciplines, including archaeology, anthropology, geography, ecology, palaeo-science, geology, sociology, and history, present and assess both the evolution of our thinking and current, state-of-the-art theory and research. Covering ancient through modern periods, they discuss the complex ways in which human culture, economy, and demographics interact with ecology and climate change. The World System and the Earth System is critical reading for all scholars and students working at the interface of nature and society.Contributors: Thomas Abel, Bjorn Berglund, Chris Chase-Dunn, Alfred Crosby, Carole L. Crumley, John Dearing, Bert de Vries, Nina Eisenmenger, Andre Gunder Frank, Jonathan Friedman, Stefan Giljum, Thomas Hall, Karin Holmgren, Alf Hornborg, Kristian Kristiansen, Thomas Malm, Daniel Mandell, Betty Meggers, George Modelski, Emilio Moran, Helena Oberg, Frank Oldfield, Susan Stonich, William Thompson, Peter Turchin.

Alf Hornborg is an anthropologist and professor of human ecology at Lund University, Sweden. He has conducted field research in Peru, Nova Scotia, the Kingdom of Tonga, and Brazil, and his current research interest is the cultural and political dimensions of human-environmental relations in past and present societies, particularly from the perspective of world-system analysis. He is author of The Power of the Machine: Global Inequalities of Economy, Technology, and Environment (AltaMira Press 2001) and chief editor of Voices of the Land: Identity and Ecology in the Margins (Lund University Press 1998) and Negotiating Nature: Culture, Power, and Environmental Argument (Lund University Press 2000) and Rethinking Environmental History: World-System History and Global Environmental Change (AltaMira Press, 2007)Carole Crumley is professor of anthropology at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and has conducted research in archaeology, paleoclimatology, and ecology. Her interest in heterarchy’s origins in brain research and artificial intelligence, coupled with a background in Earth systems, led to her current research on contemporary complex systems. Her publications include New Directions in Anthropology and Environment: Intersections (edited; AltaMira Press 2001).