The Unending Frontier by John F Richards

The Unending Frontier by John F Richards

This work identifies four broadly shared historical processes that speeded environmental change from roughly 1500 to 1800 CE: intensified human land use along settlement frontiers; biological invasions; commercial hunting of wildlife; and problems of energy scarcity.

“Richards steers a calm course between these extremes [of the catastrophic and the celebratory view of environmental history], but it is as clear from his choice of examples as from his language that he inclines more to the celebratory than the apocalyptic view. . . Richards advances beyond a purely Eurocentric approach to the dynamics of change and presents the frontier as an evolving, interactive process influenced by both human and non-human factors. That is no mean achievement.” * Times Literary Supplement *
“Richards has an economical way of surveying vast amounts of evidence which makes it an easy and rewarding read.” -- Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, * History Today *

“This is a major work of world and environmental history that experts and nonexperts will be consulting and quoting for years to come.”

* American Historical Review *

“This is more than a good textbook for a world history course. . . . It is a work that should be required reading for all early modernists, because it makes the strongest case to date for the importance of environmental history to the broader field.”

* Journal of Modern History *
“An excellent addition to the literature of world environmental history and a valuable aid to teaching.” * International History Review *

“Richards’s book is an admirable success and an intellectual adventure. Completely dependable in its scholarship, it undoubtedly will be one of the few that environmental historians place on a shelf within reach for ready consultation. . . . All in all, this work is a masterpiece that will stand the test of time.”

* Environmental History *

John F. Richards is Professor of History at Duke University. He is the author of The Mughal Empire (1993) and Mughal Administration in Golconda (1975) and the editor of Land, Property and the Environment (2001). He is coeditor of World Deforestation in the Twentieth Century (1988) and Global Deforestation and the Nineteenth-Century World Economy (1983).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780520230750
ISBN 10	0520230752
Title	The Unending Frontier
Author	John F Richards
Series	California World History Library
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	University of California Press
Year published	2003-05-15
Number of pages	696
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.