Published: 1 February 2011
ISBN: 9781409000723
Imprint: Vintage Digital
Format: EBook
Pages: 464

Categories:

The environment

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A New Green History Of The World

The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations

Clive Ponting

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Clive Ponting's bestselling study of man's despoliation of the planet - now completely revised and updated.

Like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, Clive Ponting's book studies the relationship between the environment and human history. It examines world civilisations from Sumeria to ancient Egypt, from Easter Island to the Roman Empire and it argues that human beings have repeatedly built societies that have grown and prospered by exploiting the Earth's resources, only to expand to the point where those resources could no longer sustain the societies' populations and cause subsequent collapse.

This new edition of Clive Ponting's international bestseller has been revised, expanded and updated. It provides not only a compelling story of how we have damaged the environment for thousands of years but also an up-to-the-minute assessment of the crisis facing the world today - and the problems that have to be addressed in the search for solutions.

Published: 1 February 2011
ISBN: 9781409000723
Imprint: Vintage Digital
Format: EBook
Pages: 464

Categories:

The environment

Share…

About the author

Clive Ponting

Clive Ponting is a Reader in the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Wales, Swansea. His Green History of the World was an international bestseller, and his revisionist biography of Churchill raised a storm of controversy. He is the author of Armageddon, an analysis of the Second World War, The Pimlico History of the Twentieth Century, World History: A New Perspective and Thirteen Days: The Road to the First World War.

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Praise for A New Green History Of The World

An ambitious and thought-provoking attempt to rewrite history from an ecological standpoint
Independent

If there is a single book on the subject to engage the enthusiast, silence the cynic and enlighten the ignoramus, this is it
Observer

Large, ambitious and often enthralling, it is a successful attempt to look at the unfolding of world history from an entirely new perspective
Literary Review

Pioneering...a book good enough to rival the best American products in the field... Clive Ponting has embraced a daunting task with commendable success
Times Literary Supplement

Ponting's re-evaluation of history is an important antidote to mental troglodytism. It also makes a welcome change from the scatter-gun apocalypse-mongering which has become standard fare in green literature. With luck and foresight, and more books like this, we may yet learn our lesson
Independent on Sunday