Customer Reviews

Holocene: An Environmental History

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Most advances in human understanding currently come from a conjunction of specialisms: archaeology uses nuclear physics. This textbook is built on clear accounts of the joints between geology and palaeontology, human anthropology and global climate change - and much more. But it is more than that. Roberts has crafted a textbook to be used by any entrant to the field. He is lucid. He offers logical cause and effect yet is clear about contradiction. Anyone interested in the era will enjoy the contributions from many disciplines integrated in an enthusiastic whole. If you are interested, go for it.

I am by no means an expert on climatology or paleoclimatology. An actuary by trade, I enjoy reading books about evolution and prehistory. When I saw this book, I figured it would be good for a type of background reading to help me more fully understand what went on during the Holocene and how it affected humans.

While it did not really make that connection, I did find it pretty interesting. He explains the different techniques of dating and why you would use them. It is facinating that the experts can determine so much information about the local environment over, say, a meter long core sample from the bottom of a lake. It didn't get too technical until the last chapter where he was discussing the impact of pollution on the environment.

The last chapter sums up nicely the major developments of the last 11,000 years and also discusses why viewing nature as a static entity is not the proper way for conservationalists to look at it. All and all a good read for those interested in weather and the transformation of the earth.

As an undergraduate student at prescott College, I conducted an independent study in Quaternary Ecology in general and of the American Southwest in particular. I came across this book while browsing the shelves at another college library. I was looking for a few texts to give me a good basic background on paleoecology, and after scanning this one, requested that our school library purchase it. When it arrived, I was informed, and I immediately appropriated it for my exclusive use. This book, together with Delcourt's and Delcourt's book, Quaternary Ecology: a paleoecological perspective would make a good text for a college environmental studies course. That is how I used it. Now I want to own a copy.

very pleased with the book - excellent condition, basically new. but it took a really long time to get here.