A Green History of the World: The environment of the Collapse of Great Civilizations

Abstract

Clive Ponting\u27s book studies the relationship between the environment and human history. It examines world civilizations from Sumeria to ancient Egypt, from Easter Island to the Roman Empire and it argues that human beings have repeatedly built societies that have grown and prospered by exploiting the Earth\u27s resources, only to expand to the point where those resources could no longer sustain the societies\u27 populations and subsequently collapsed. He shows, for example, how the fall of Rome has particular and vital importance for our modern global civilization. Destructive environmental behaviour today takes place on a much larger scale than ever before and the consequences will be correspondingly greater. Ponting argues for a higher sensitivity to the finite nature of our resources and the catastrophic impact on our modern world, should we continue to squander those resources.https://scholar.dominican.edu/cynthia-stokes-brown-books-world-history/1013/thumbnail.jp