In the course of the 20th century the human race, without intending anything of the sort, undertook a giant, uncontrolled experiment on the earth. In time, according to John McNeill in his new book, the environmental dimension of 20th century history will overshadow the importance of its world wars, the rise and fall of communism, and the spread of mass literacy. Contrary to the wisdom of Ecclesiastes that "there is nothing new under the sun", McNeill sets out to show that the massive change we have wrought in our physical world has indeed created something new. To a degree unprecedented in human history, we have refashioned the earth's air, water and soil, and the biosphere of which we are a part. The author work is a compound of history and science. He infuses a substrate of ecology with a lively historical sensibility to the significance of politics, international relations, technological change and great events. He charts and explores the breathtaking ways in which we have changed the natural world with a keen eye for character and a refreshing respect for the unforeseen in history. He introduces us to little-known figures like Thomas Midgely, the chemical engineer who, McNeill claims, has had more impact on the atmosphere than any other organism in earth history. From Midgely's work with General Motors came the inventions of leaded gasoline and of Freon, the first of the chlorofluorocarbons that drift into the stratosphere and rupture ozone molecules. McNeill recounts episodes of environmental disaster - the mercury poisoning of Japan's Minamata Bay, the death of the Aral Sea in Soviet Central Asia - but shows too the successes of environmental policy in reversing pollution of the air and water. He fashions his story without pronouncements of doom or sermons on the ethical lapses of humankind. The author assesses the ecological course we have taken in the 20th century as an interesting evolutionary gamble. We have become exquisitely adapted to particular circumstances - a stable climate, cheap energy, rapid economic growth. But our fossil fuel-based civlization is on ecologically disruptive that it undermines the stability of these conditions. He does not speculate on the consequences, but his insights illuminate the new path we made in the global century.

Something New Under the Sun : An Environmental History of the World in the 20th Century

Business & Money

J. R. McNeill

Economics

Penguin Books, Ltd.

The Webs of Humankind: A World History (Seagull Edition) (Vol. Volume 1)

W.W.Norton&Company

The Webs of Humankind: A World History, Seagull (Volume 2)

W.W.Norton

The Webs of Humankind: A World History (Volume 2)

The Webs of Humankind: A World History, Seagull (Combined Volume)

Note: You are purchasing a standalone product. A cohesive, single-author world history built around the webs of interaction that stitched together regions and over time, the globe. A leader in the field presents a cohesive narrative of world history that effectively addresses the main challenge of the introductory survey: how to navigate beginning students through the vast detail of the subject. McNeill uses connective webs—along which trade, religious beliefs, technologies, pathogens, and much else traveled—to organize details and keep the big picture in view. Students emerge with clear takeaways and a strong sense of the basic dynamics of world history. Together with digital resources that amplify the webs approach and highlight diverse types of evidence, John McNeill’s The Webs of Humankind offers a clear and effective teaching tool for the world history survey course.

WEBS OF HUMANKIND:VOLUME 2-TEXT

WWNorton

The Encyclopedia of World Environmental History provides much-needed explanation of urgent social and environmental issues - from urbanization to water shortages, climate change to the extinction of species - in articles replete with the stories of human and natural history. World historians, anthropologists, geographers, and biologists from around the world have pooled their knowledge to trace the interaction of humankind and nature over the course of human history, across cultures, and in the modern world. In more than 500 accessible, lively articles emphasizing cross-cultural exchange, diffusion, and change over time, these scholars demonstrate why the approaches of environmental history are having such wide influence. This essential work belongs in any collection serving world history, ecology, environmental studies, geography, or environmental science programs.

Encyclopedia of World Environmental History

Reference

Encyclopedias & Subject Guides

Berkshire/Routledge

The Webs of Humankind (Combined Volume) Courseware (Norton Illumine Ebook, InQuizitive, Maps and Primary Source Exercises, History Skills Tutorials, and Additional Content)

Big History places the history of humanity and the Earth in the largest of contexts--that of the universe. The interdisciplinary approach taken in Big History draws from diverse fields including archaeology, paleoanthropology, astronomy, and biology and raises new questions about the future of our species and its relationship to the biosphere. The articles included, several written by big-history author David Christian, convey big historys span and scope from cosmology, creation myths, and the Gaia theory to ice ages, extinctions, and migrations. Big History also explains why many geologists believe the world entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when human activity unwittingly became the single most important force for change in the biosphere.

Big History (Berkshire Essentials)

History

David Christian

Jerry H. Bentley

William H.McNeill

Ralph C. Croizier

World

Berkshire Pub Group

Something new under the sun: an environmental history of the twentieth-century world (Chinese Edition)

CITIC Press Corporation

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Books by J. R. McNeill