Environmental Anthropology: A Historical Reader (Blackwell Anthologies in Social and Cultural Anthropology) [Paperback]

Michael Dove (Editor), Carol Carpenter (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1405111372 | ISBN-13: 978-1405111379 | Publication Date: December 11, 2007 | Edition: 1

Environmental Anthropology: A Reader is a collection of historically significant readings, dating from early in the twentieth century up to the present, on the cross-cultural study of relations between people and their environment.

• Provides the historical perspective that is typically missing from recent work in environmental anthropology
• Includes an extensive intellectual history and commentary by the volume’s editors
• Offers a unique perspective on current interest in cross-cultural environmental relations
• Divided into five thematic sections: (1) the nature/culture divide; (2) relationship between environment and social organization; (3) methodological debates and innovations; (4) politics and practice; and (5) epistemological issues of environmental anthropology
• Organized into a series of paired papers, which ‘speak’ to each other, designed to encourage readers to make connections that they might not customarily make

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This reader provides an excellent sampling of classic anthropological writings on human ecology and environments. A truly comprehensive survey of the field and a range of genuine classics … articles that deserve their wide reputation. In comparison with other readers on this general topic, the present one focuses on truly influential, widely cited works and is more balanced and comprehensive. Very highly recommended for courses in environmental or ecological anthropology, conservation biology, and human ecology. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.”
Choice, November 2008

“Distinguished environmental anthropologists Michael Dove and Carol Carpenter provide a great service for both professional colleagues and students in this specialization through a wonderful benchmark sampling of articles from its history with an emphasis on its formative and mature development during the decades of the 1950s through the 1990s. The progression of different phases and approaches in the history of environmental anthropology is exceedingly well illustrated through the five thematic parts of this anthology. The chapters are placed in context through an extensive, informative, and insightful introduction. This anthology goes a long way toward filling one of the previously empty niches among the textbooks available for this specialization and nicely complements rather than competes with them. It is also indispensable as a reference work.”
Leslie E. Sponsel, Director, Ecological Anthropology Program, University of Hawaii

Review

“This volume is the foundational volume on environmental anthropology I wish I had put under my belt a decade ago. Selected with scrupulous care and introduced with illuminating commentary, this collection is Indispensable both for its intellectual depth and breadth.”
–James C. Scott, Yale University

“This reader is exactly what professors like me have long dreamed of, but never had, in teaching environmental anthropology. Dove and Carpenter, two of the field’s most distinguished scholars, have assembled and integrated the perfect collection of classic and recent essays on humans and the environment. They successfully develop the key historic themes of the field which are then fleshed out through a careful selection of theoretical debates and ethnographic cases written by some of the best anthropological minds of the past and present.”
–Robert E. Rhoades, University of Georgia

“Distinguished environmental anthropologists Michael Dove and Carol Carpenter provide a great service for both professional colleagues and students in this specialization through a wonderful benchmark sampling of articles from its history with an emphasis on its formative and mature development during the decades of the 1950s through the 1990s. The progression of different phases and approaches in the history of environmental anthropology is exceedingly well illustrated through the five thematic parts of this anthology. The chapters are placed in context through an extensive, informative, and insightful introduction. This anthology goes a long way toward filling one of the previously empty niches among the textbooks available for this specialization and nicely complements rather than competes with them. It is also indispensable as a reference work.”
–Leslie E. Sponsel, Director, Ecological Anthropology Program, University of Hawaii

 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 504 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 1 edition (December 11, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1405111372
• ISBN-13: 978-1405111379
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #155,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael R. Dove (B.A., Northwestern University; M.A., Ph.D., Stanford University) is the Margaret K. Musser Professor of Social Ecology, Professor of Anthropology, Director of the Tropical Resources Institute in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Curator of Anthropology in the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Co-Coordinator of the joint doctoral degree program between F&ES and the Department of Anthropology, and Coordinator of the program on social adaptation and outreach in Yale's new Climate and Energy Institute.

His research focuses on the environmental relations of local communities, especially in South and Southeast Asia, where he has been working for nearly forty years. He has spent more than a dozen years in the field during this period, carrying out long-term research on human ecology in Borneo and Java, developing government research capacity in Indonesia, and advising the Pakistan Forest Service on social forestry policies.

His most recent books are Conserving Nature in Culture: Case Studies from Southeast Asia (co-edited with P. Sajise and A. Doolittle, Yale Southeast Asia Program, 2005), Environmental Anthropology: A Historical Reader (coedited with C. Carpenter, Blackwell, 2007), Southeast Asian Grasslands: Understanding a Folk Landscape (editor, New York Botanical Gardens Press 2008), The Banana Tree at the Gate: The History of Marginal Peoples and Global Markets in Borneo (Yale University Press, 2011), and Complicating Conservation: Beyond the Sacred Forest (coedited with P.E. Sajise and A. Doolittle, Duke University Press, 2011). He is currently working on a book on the history of the anthropological study of climate change and another book (co-authored with D. Kammen) on The Anthropology and Physics of Conservation and Development.

His research and teaching interests include the anthropology of climate change and the cultural and political aspects of natural hazards and disasters; political dimensions of resource degradation; indigenous environmental knowledge; contemporary and historical environmental relations in South and Southeast Asia; the study of developmental and environmental institutions, discourses, and movements; and the sociology of resource-related sciences.

Professor Dove also sits on the advisory boards of Yale's Agrarian Studies Program, Council on South Asian Studies, Council on Southeast Asian Studies, and the International Affairs Council.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Culture and the Environment - A Relationship, September 9, 2009

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Carolina Wool - See all my reviews

This review is from: Environmental Anthropology: A Historical Reader (Blackwell Anthologies in Social and Cultural Anthropology) (Paperback)

This book was a part of my Environmental ANthropology Undergraduate course. Out of the three main books we used, this one stands as my favorite. It provides a wonderful variety of case studies and various points of view from all over the world. I highly recommend this book both for course work and for your own everyday knowledge.