This exciting new reader in environmental history provides a framework for understanding the relations between ecosystems and world-systems over time. Alf Hornborg, J. R. McNeill, and Joan Martinez-Alier have brought together a group of the prominent social scientists, historians, and geographical scientists to provide a historical overview of the ecological dimension of global economic processes. Readers are challenged to integrate studies of the Earth-system with studies of the world-system, and to reconceptualize the relations between human beings and their environment, as well as the challenges of global sustainability.

Contributions by: Stephen G. Bunker, William H. Fisher, Rafael A. Gassón, Stefan Giljum, N Thomas Håkansson, Josiah Heyman, J Donald Hughes, Andrew K. Jorgenson, Robert B. Marks, Joan Martinez -Alier, Jason W. Moore, Roldan Muradian, Janken Myrdal, James Rice, Joseph A. Tainter, Immanuel Wallerstein, Helga Weisz, Mats Widgren, Richard Wilk, Michael Williams