The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.
March’s Book of the Month was selected by Andy Kernot, Subject Consultant for Geography, Social Policy & Intervention, Public Policy, and Internet Studies.
Humans versus nature
Daniel R. Headrick
Oxford University Press, 2020
This book examines the adversarial relationship between the human and natural worlds and how the unintended consequences of human actions threaten humanity and the Earth. It shows how this relationship has been in existence since the stone age and that the development of technologies in recent centuries has accelerated the human impact on the environment.
Book Overview
Daniel R. Headrick shows how environmental changes–epidemics, climate shocks, and volcanic eruptions–have moulded human societies and cultures, sometimes overwhelming them. At the same time, he traces the history of anthropogenic changes in the environment–species extinctions, global warming, deforestation, and resource depletion–back to the age of hunters and gatherers and the first farmers and herders. He shows how human interventions such as irrigation systems, over-fishing, and the Industrial Revolution have in turn harmed the very societies that initiated them. Throughout, Headrick examines how human-driven environmental changes are interwoven with larger global systems, dramatically reshaping the complex relationship between people and the natural world. In doing so, he roots the current environmental crisis in the deep past.
Reviews
“…the ultimate reference work on global environmental history.”
Eric L. Jones, University of Buckingham, EH.net
“Headrick’s book is the most comprehensive global environmental history in existence. It synthesizes vast knowledge from several scholarly disciplines into a coherent story of the 300,000-year human adventure on — and with — Earth. If one has time to read only one environmental history book, this should be the one.”
J.R. McNeill, author of Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World
“Humans versus Nature is a gift to students and teachers of environmental history: a single volume that captures the vast scope and scale of nature’s role in human history and humanity’s accelerating impact on the natural world.”
Sam White, author of A Cold Welcome: The Little Ice Age and Europe’s Encounter with North America
How can I access it?
We have two lending copies of this book. One is currently located on our New Books Display Area (around the corner from our Issue Desk) and the other copy can be found on our open shelves at shelfmark is GF75.HEA 2020.
What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.