It is increasingly clear that social and ecological systems are inextricably
linked on a global scale. Yet, despite the current interest in bridging our
concepts of nature and society, attempts at integration continue to be stymied by the different theoretical trajectories and academic traditions that
divide them.
In this benchmark volume, top scholars come together to pursue a more
rigorous framework for understanding and studying 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 demography 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.
Author(s): Alf Hornborg; Carole Crumley, (eds.)
Publisher: Left Coast Press
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 395+xii
City: Walnut Creek, CA
Tags: World System; Earth System; Social Change; Environmental Change; Sustainability; Neolithic; Natural History; Historia natural; Ecology; Ecología; Climate changes; Cambio climático; Environmental sciences; Ecología humana; Human Ecology; Social Ecology; Ecología social; Alf Hornborg; Carole Crumley; Amazonia; Archaeology; Global History; Historia global; Betty Meggers; Historical Ecology; Historia ambiental; Ecología histórica; Ancient Age; Mesopotamia; Egypt;
Contents
Preface by Alf Hornborg
Contributors
Introduction: Conceptualizing Socioecological Systems by Alf Hornborg
PART I: MODELING SOCIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS: GENERAL PERSPECTIVES
1. Historical Ecology: Integrated Thinking at Multiple Temporal and Spatial Scales by Carole L. Crumley
2. Toward Developing Synergistic Linkages between the Biophysical and the Cultural: A Paleoenvironmental Perspective by Frank Oldfield
3. Integration of World and Earth Systems: Heritage and Foresight by John A. Dearing
4. World -Systems as Complex Human Ecosystems by Thomas Abel
5. Lessons from Population Ecology for World Systems Analyses of Long-Distance Synchrony by Thomas D. Hall and Peter Turchin
6. Sustainable Unsustainability: Toward a Comparative Study of Hegemonic Decline in Global Systems by Jonathan Friedman
PART II: CASE STUDIES OF SOCIOENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN PREHISTORY
7. Agrarian Landscape Development in Northwestern Europe Since the Neolithic: Cultural and Climatic Factors behind a Regional/Continental Pattern by Björn E. Berglund
8. Climate Change in Southern and Eastern Africa during the Past Millennium and Its Implications for Societal Development by Karin Holmgren and Helena Öberg
9. World-Systems in the Biogeosphere: Urbanization, State Formation and Climate Change Since the Iron Age by Christopher Chase-Dunn, Thomas D. Hall and Peter Turchin
10. Eurasian Transformations: Mobility, Ecological Change, and the Transmission of Social Institutions in the Third Millennium and the Early Second Millennium B.C.E. by Kristian Kristiansen
11. Climate, Water, and Political-Economic Crises in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt by William R. Thompson
12. Ages of Reorganization by George Modelski
13. Sustainable Intensive Exploitation of Amazonia: Cultural, Environmental, and Geopolitical Perspectives by Betty J. Meggers
14. Regional Integration and Ecology in Prehistoric Amazonia: Toward a System Perspective by Alf Hornborg
PART III: IS THE WORLD-SYSTEM SUSTAINABLE? ATTEMPTS TOWARD AN INTEGRATED SOCIOECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
15. The Human-Environment Nexus: Progress in the Past Decade in the Integrated Analysis of Human and Biophysical Factors by Emilio F. Moran
16. In Search of Sustainability: What Can We Learn from the Past? by Bert J. M. Vries
17. Political Ecology and Sustainability Science: Opportunity and Challenge by Susan C. Stinich and Daniel S. Mandell
18. No Island Is an ''Island": Some Perspectives on Human Ecology and Development in Oceania by Thomas Malm
19. Infectious Diseases as Ecological and Historical Phenomena, with Special Reference to the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 by Alfred W. Crosby
20. Evidence from Societal Metabolism Studies for Ecological Unequal Trade by Nina Eisenmenger and Stefan Gilium
21. Entropy Generation and Displacement: The Nineteenth-Century Multilateral Network of World Trade by Andre Gunder Frank
References
Index
