Includes bibliographical references (pages 651-782) and index.
Contents:
Part I : Essentials. Potosí : rich in metals ; Sugar : the new organic ; The Canal du Midi : the great mobilization ; Sustainable forestry : the state of the woodlands ; Shipbreaking in Chittagong : leftovers -- Part II : Appropriations. The land title : to own a place ; Breadfruit : food choices ; Guano : the fertility business ; Whaling : resources at sea ; United Fruit : the great corporate banana -- Part III : Irreversible. The dodo : species that perish ; The boll weevil : the nemesis of monoculture ; The little Grand Canyon : the perils of erosion ; Cane toads :immigrants on the march ; Saudi Arabia : the state of resources -- Part IV : Technology takes command. London smog : in the age of coal ; The water closet : producing cleanliness ; Chicago's slaughterhouses : animals on the line ; Synthetic nitrogen : farming on steroids ; Air-conditioning : engineering the climate -- Part V : Ruptures. Cholera : the nature of disease ; Baedeker : guidance for seekers ; Gandhi's salt : to change the world ; The 1970 Tokyo Resolution : international conventions ; The 1976 Tangshan earthquake : somewhat natural disasters -- Part VI : The final reserves. Kruger National Park : reserved nature ; Eucalyptus : supertrees ; Hybrid corn : breeding ambitions ; Aswan Dam : damming and developing ; The rice-eating rubber tree : speaking of dependence -- Part VII : The age of catastrophe. Holodomor : The politics of hunger ; The Pontine Marshes : fighting for space ; The chemurgy movement : the business of biofuels ; Autobahn : The endsieg of automobilism ; The pine roots campaign : the totality of war -- Part VIII : The great entrenchment. Battery chicken : the industrialized animal ; Lucky Dragon No. 5 : atoms without limits ; DDT : learning from a book ; Torrey Canyon : coping with technological failure ; Plastic gags : ephemeralia -- Coda : the pandemic -- Themess we're in : an inconclusive conclusion.
Summary:
"Environmental challenges are defining the twenty-first century. To fully understand ongoing debates about our current crises--climate change, loss of biological diversity, pollution, extinction, resource woes--means revisiting their origins, in all their complexity. With this ambitious, highly original contribution to the environmental history of global modernity, Frank Uekötter considers the many ways humans have had an impact on their physical environment throughout history. Ours is not a one-way trajectory to sudden collapse, he argues, but rather death by a thousand cuts. The many paths we've forged to arrive in our current predicament, from agriculture to industry to infrastructure, must be considered collectively if we are to stay afloat in what Uekötter describes as a vortex: a powerful metaphor for the flow of history, capturing the momentum and the many crosscurrents that swept people and environments along. His book invites us to look at environmental challenges from multiple perspectives, including all the twists and turns that have helped to create the mess we find ourselves in. Uekötter has written a world history for an age where things are falling apart: where we know what lies ahead and are equipped with the right tools--technological and otherwise--and plenty of experience to deal with environmental challenges, but somehow fail to get our affairs in order."-- Provided by publisher
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.