A New Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Easter Island is one of the most remote, inhabited places on earth..." (more)
Key Phrases: first settled societies, second great transition, first great transition, United States, Third World, Near East (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

British historian Ponting provides a fascinating and comprehensive environmental perspective on the rise and fall of civilizations, including the Sumerians, the Egyptians, and the Mayans. Beginning with hunting-and-gathering societies, settled societies, and the industrialized societies of today, he describes how each has had greater effects on the environment than the last. Settled societies use more resources to support larger populations, often overextending the resources available. "Since the rise of settled societies . . . the majority of the world's population have lived in conditions of grinding poverty." Ponting's forecast for the future based on current population trends and available resources is equally bleak. "To feed the whole world on the diet enjoyed by the average American, using the same level of inputs into agriculture, would require all the world's current oil production and exhaust known reserves within not much more than a decade." A significant contribution that needs to be available and promoted in every public library.
- Mary J. Nickum, Fish and Wildlife Reference Svce., Bethesda, Md.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

A comprehensive assessment of humanity's assault on the environment across the centuries, by British historian Ponting (University College, Swansea). Examining the interaction between societies and their surroundings from the earliest hunter-gatherer groups on, Ponting describes the first great leap of civilization--the development of crops and agriculture--as the start of a systematic environmental transformation. As groups settled near their fields and as populations grew, the burden on the land increased, and at times the ecological pressure grew too great. Crop irrigation, the author says, led to increased salination and diminished yields, while a loss of forest cover brought erosion and the destruction of precious arable land. The Sumerian civilization in the Middle East and the Mayans of Central America, among others, fell victim to these limits to growth, with the collapse in some cases being precipitous. Other societies survived, however, to participate in the more recent great transition involving the use of fossil fuels for energy. With this step, Ponting says, environmental degradation increased exponentially through pollution at all stages of the industrialization process--and, in addition, the industrialized societies, by their exploitation of others less advanced, created the Third World, with its Pandora's Box of poverty, overpopulation, and other social ills that continue to worsen today. Ponting suggests no solutions, marking instead the devastating course of human progress and the ruins that serve as its milestones. Few colorful anecdotes, but an impressive accumulation of evidence culled from the annals of recorded history: a sobering view of a planet deeply in peril. (Maps and charts.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Rev Upd edition (December 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143038982
• ISBN-13: 978-0143038986
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #210,629 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent one-volume overview, November 30, 2000

By	"cine-curmudgeon" (Santa Cruz, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (Paperback)

If you are politically active in any sphere -- environmental, feminist, race, labour issues -- and as a result you do a lifetime of research and reading and discussion, you often feel a sense of despair when attempting to explain your point of view to anyone who hasn't covered the same ground. Waving a booklist several pages long doesn't seem like a good way to win hearts and minds. So you wish for a book you could recommend that would really provide the broad overview, the minimal foundation of your own understanding.

For the automobile critic it's probably "Asphalt Nation." For the media critic it might be "Manufacturing Consent". Environmental economists have various basic texts to draw on, but at present I nominate Ponting as the best compromise between accessibility and comprehensiveness.

In one fairly brief volume he manages to summarize the technological and economic history of the human race, the central importance of food production throughout that history, and the implications of prior human experience for today's human experience. Ponting's chapter on the age of European expansion might be the best concise survey essay on colonialism that I've read. That one chapter alone is worth the price of admission, and offers a capable answer to the frequently asked question "Why can't the Third World make capitalism work?"

Without ranting, without apparent passion, Ponting calmly documents the astonishingly consistent historical record of blundering, self-deception, short-sightedness, and deliberate criminality that has led the G7 nations to the peak of world power. He has been criticized by some readers for insufficient attention to political or social-justice issues, or for insufficient outrage at some of the crimes he documents. I find his detached narrative viewpoint to be a valuable attribute of the book; it calms the reader and makes it possible to read with interest what would otherwise be a bloodcurdling narrative, and a horribly depressing one.

If I had to give just one book to a person who asked "but what's wrong with GNP accounting," or "what do you mean, 'unsustainable'" or "what does overconsumption mean?" I think I would now, unhesitatingly, recommend Ponting. It is ideal as a text for any high-school or undergraduate level class in economic history. It is ideal as the founding volume of any curious person's libary of environmental literature. It makes a handy reference work for anyone looking for a relevant statistic about population, fish stocks, the conquest of the Americas, epidemic diseases, and a host of other topics.

Ponting punctures cherished myths with the casual unconcern of a writer whose only concern is fact. GHW is perhaps the single most powerful anti-smugness medication (in one compact dose) that I could prescribe for any G7 resident.

If you have only one chance to convince a dear friend that environmental issues are real and urgent; if you have only one title on environmental issues in your upcoming class booklist; if you want a handy, solid, one-volume reference for those maddening internet discussions; if you need to explain to an office mate just why you are not so keen on untested GMO releases; or if you just want a book that will cause lively discussion for your reading club -- I can heartily recommend Ponting. He has earned a place in the environmentalist canon. I feel the impulse to give lots of copies away to friends and colleagues, and what higher praise is there?

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars very good overview and introduction to the subject, February 3, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (Paperback)

Clive Ponting's book provides a very good introduction to the subject. It is well written and serves as an excellent starting point, introducing the important questions and providing thought provoking conclusions.

Comments that the book is inaccurate regarding Easter Island are illogical. As Ponting points out, the very first Europeans to arrive on the island found a society already devastated by the environmental degradation that it failed to prevent. The diseases inadvertantly spread to the Easter Islanders through this first European contact were not a primary cause of the downfall of the island civilization.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History from the Environment's Point of View, March 19, 2002

By	John D. Cofield - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (Paperback)

Clive Ponting's subtitle is slightly misleading, as this book is less about the history of civilization's collapse than a history of civilization's influence on the environment. This is a thorough and interesting study of how humans have changed or damaged their natural surroundings from the earliest hunter-gatherer days through the modern post-Industrial world. It seems that any modification of the environment has unintended and unexpected consequences down the road. Of course in the past few had the time or the vision to anticipate these consequences, and we are now living with the results of centuries of pollution, salinization, and general degradation. This is not a polemic but a well-argued study which asks us to consider whether our effect on the natural world has been more for good or ill. It is a good precursor to ideas later developed further in Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, among others.