Customer Reviews

The Gardens of Their Dreams: Desertification and Culture in World History

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I admit that when I first came across this book I wasn't quite sure about the significance of the subject matter, or, indeed, if Id'be interested. It was my pleasure to discover, however, an entirely new approach to explain social and espcieally environmnetal degradation. The author interestingly shows how women are the first to suffer from environmental degradation. He uses the examples of lands facing - or that have faced - important desertification processes to show how a liberal society where men and women share more or less equal status can shift to favor the dominance of males. Students of ancient Egypt will be very interested to know there is a chapter on how desertification affected socio-cultural processes (and stagnation) in Egypt. There are chapters on China, North Africa and Europe some also touch on the effects that desertification has on racism and the strengthening of racial identities - namely aryan. It may all look imprpbable in thsi brief description that does little justice to the volume; however, it is surprising to find that there is a logical and sensical approach that allows for a very interesting,timely and satisfying read.

This book covers over 10,000 years of social, economic and environmental changes. It shows how our destruction of nature has changed society over time. The stories it tells are powerful and well written. I think it's a great book for anybody who really likes history and wants a peaceful and healthy environment in the future.

This book is eye opening as to the role of wate in shaping cultures throughout the time of recorded history. The interactions between the types of societies, the role of women, and future planning makes amazing logical sense. We are running out of time as water becomes scarcer and deserts become more pre-imminent. This scholarly work should be a classic but will more than likely languish on shelves.

I was surprised how much is packed in this book. It mixes the history of religions, empires, migrations of people, with big movements of environmental destruction and healing. Somehow it all fits into one huge story of people's efforts to live on our planet. Sometimes it's so detailed I had to put it down for awhile, but then I got curious about all the questions it raises. I never thought that making deserts could generate so many waves across the world, or turning the land green again could change life so much.

According to Griffith, we have been slowly denuding the land and turning it into desert for several thousand years. The places where civilization began in the Middle East were degraded first, and a circle of largely man-made desertification has spread outward ever since. As we've depleted nature, people in the affected areas often moved away in waves of migration toward greener areas. And where people degraded their environment, there have been big impacts on their culture and way of life. Griffith describes how environmental destruction has affected things like politics, religion, or economics. It's a very colorful, expansive book, and makes you realize how old a lot of our modern problems are. It also makes solving these problems seem quite possible, since many groups of people are having some good success. I found it a dense book that's packed with information on many countries in many periods of history. It took me a long time to read, but was well worth it.

This book tries to explore what happened in the past when people have turned their land into a desert. How has that affected society, politics, women, religion, etc? To answer, Griffith gives many stories from Africa, the Middle East, India, China, or Europe. One thing he looks at closely is the fate of women in areas where the land became unproductive. And in this he gives one of the most convincing explanations of of why inequality developed between men and women in certain parts of the world. To balance this Griffith tells inspiring stories of how local people have struggled to heal their environment and recover the benefits of a healthy countryside.

This book describes many impacts of environment destruction in many countries like Egypt, India, China and Arabia. But the best thing is its explanation of how this has affected women. The parts on the ancient Middle East offer important insights for understanding what happened to the women's roles in history.