Scientists and policymakers are beginning to understand in ever-increasing detail that environmental problems cannot be understood solely through the biophysical sciences. Environmental issues are fundamentally human issues and must be set in the context of social, political, cultural, and economic knowledge. The need both to understand how human beings in the past responded to climatic and other environmental changes and to synthesize the implications of these historical patterns for present-day sustainability spurred a conference of the world's leading scholars on the topic. The Way the Wind Blows is the rich result of that conference. Articles discuss the dynamics of climate, human perceptions of and responses to the environment, and issues of sustainability and resiliency. These themes are illustrated through discussions of human societies around the world and throughout history.
Daugiau informacijos
Experts in a variety of disciplines in the natural and social sciences--including geology, climatology, history, and anthropology--consider such topics as the dynamics of climate, human perceptions of and responses to the environment, and issues of sustainability and resiliency.
List of Illustrations ix List of Tables xiii Notes on the Contributors xv Climate, History, and Human Action 1(44) Roderick J. McIntosh Joseph A. Tainter Susan Keech McIntosh Part 1 Climate, Environment, and Human Action Climate Variability During the Holocene: An Update 45(44) Robert B. Dunbar Complexity Theory and Sociocultural Change in the American Southwest 89(32) Jeffrey S. Dean Part 2 Social Memory Environmental Perception and Human Responses in History and Prehistory 121(20) Fekri Hassan Social Memory in Mande 141(40) Roderick J. McIntosh Memories, Abstractions, and Conceptualization of Ecological Crisis in the Mande World 181(12) Tereba Togola From Garden to Globe: Linking Time and Space with Meaning and Memory 193(16) Carole L. Crumley Chinese Attitudes Toward Climate 209(14) Cho-yun Hsu Part 3 Cultural Responses to Climate Change Three Rivers: Subregional Variations in Earth System Impacts in the Southwestern Maya Lowlands (Candelaria, Usumacinta, and Champoton Watersheds) 223(48) Joel D. Gunn William J. Folan The Lowland Maya Civilization: Historical Consciousness and Environment 271(30) David Freidel Justine Shaw Social Responses to Climate Change Among the Chumash Indians of South-Central California 301(30) John R. Johnson Part 4 History and Contemporary Affairs Global Change, History, and Sustainability 331(26) Joseph A. Tainter Land Degradation as a Socionatural Process 357(28) S. E. van der Leeuw Index 385
Roderick J. McIntosh is professor of anthropology at Rice University. Joseph A. Tainter is project leader of Cultural Heritage Research at the Rocky Mountain Research Station. Susan Keech McIntosh is professor of anthropology at Rice University and the director of Scientia: an institute for the history of science and culture.
