Climate Change and the Course of Global History: A Rough Journey (Studies in Environment and History)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.18 (767 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0521692180 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 648 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-03-12 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
The author's mastery and referencing of the vast technical literature in different disciplines is remarkable. In Brooke's persuasive account, our evolution to modernity is not absolutely determined by climate and disease, but it has been substantially influenced by them. Unger Vetlesen Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University"John Brooke skillfully joins a vast scientific literature to the historiography of virtually every major region to argue that climatic shifts always have been the primary agency determining the pace and direction of human development. Egerton, Choice . This is big history, framed by big ideas but anchored in the very recent explosion of knowledge about climate through the ages and about our history and prehistory. Summing up: highly recommended." F. The consequence is a fundamental change from a lightly populated world controlled by nature to a heavily populated world
His books include Columbia Rising: Civil Life on the Upper Hudson from the Revolution to the Age of Jackson (2010), which won the Best Book Prize from the Society of the Historians of the Early American Republic; The Heart of the Commonwealth: Society and Political Culture in Worcester County Massachusetts, 1713-1861 (Cambridge, 1994), which won the Merle Curti Award for Intellectual History from the Organization of American Historians; and The Refiner's Fire: Th
Timothy McAllister said A Rather Amazing Synthesis of Knowledge!. Excellent synthesis of current knowledge of MANY aspects of science that are all too often viewed separately. John L. Brooke has written a work that draws together modern understanding of genetics/epigenetics, plate tectonics, climate change, punctuated evolutionary thought and far more in a manner that makes sense. While not "dumbed down" it is not written above the level of educated readers with general knowledge in search of m. Fernando del Rio Haza said One Star. The book is ambitious but plagued with extrapolations and unsustained statements.. Excellent history This volume is "big history" and "global history" at its best. Fully versed in both biological and hard sciences, historian John Brooke presents a masterful overview of the history of humankind from its beginning several million years ago to the present day. Throughout, Brooke illustrates the importance of climate changes in bringing about (indeed forcing) basic alterations in how people worldwide have lived. In very readable pro
Supported by climatic, demographic, and economic data, this provides a pathbreaking model for historians of the environment, the world, and science.. Part II explores the environmental circumstances of the rise of agriculture and the state in the Early and Mid-Holocene, and presents an analysis of human health from the Paleolithic through the rise of the state. Part III introduces the problem of economic growth and examines the human condition in the Late Holocene from the Bronze Age through the Black Death. Part I argues that geological, environmental, and climatic history explain the pattern and pace of biological and human evolution. Climate Change and the Course of Global History presents the first global study by a historian to fully integrate the earth-system approach of the new climate science with the material history of humanity. Part IV explores the move to modernity, stressing the emerging role of human economic and energy systems as earth-system agents in the Anthropocene