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Title: Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World (Global Century Series) by J. R. McNeill, John Robert McNeill, Paul Kennedy ISBN: 0-393-32183-5 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: April, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.92 (13 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A unique history
Comment: In Something New Under the Sun, J.R. McNeill reconstructs the environmental history of the world over the past hundred years. His central theme is that the twentieth century was the first time in history when humanity could determine the health and success of every single species and ecosystem on Earth. He is equally interested in how and why humanity altered global ecology and the accidental byproducts of those actions. McNeil contends that we are gambling that we can sustain our fossil-fuel based civilization, which is ecologically destructive and dependent on the maintenance of a specific set of environmental conditions. McNeill illustrates this point by dividing all animals into two categories: rats (animals that adapt to changing environments) and sharks (animals that adapt to existing circumstances). He contends that many species survived for millennia using shark-like strategies, providing there was no ecological change. While McNeill observes that humanity has succeeded in large part by pursuing rat-like evolutionary strategies, he postulates that humanity's adoption of more shark-like development strategies in the twentieth century may be dangerous in the long run, given that these same strategies can produce rapid ecological change.
Despite these clear dangers, McNeill argues that shark-like development policies were rational given the political, economic and social conditions in the twentieth century. In particular, he demonstrates that this form of development was conducive to innovations and large-scale projects that produced immediate material and environmental benefits as well as unexpected, less immediately visible side effects. The tension produced by a tradeoff between improving the standard of living and environmental change is critical to McNeill's vision and appears repeatedly throughout the book. He limns this tradeoff clearly in his discussion of the transition from an economy dependent on horses/trains and coal/wood to one that uses petroleum and the automobile. (He labels this invention "a strong contender for the most socially and environmentally consequential technology of the twentieth century.") According to McNeill, the coal/wood and horse/train economy depleted trees rapidly and polluted the air and streets of cities with coal exhaust and dung. The new system, by contrast, did not threaten forests, produced cleaner air and did not clog the streets with animal waste. At the same, he shows that extracting petroleum decimated whole ecosystems and that the burning of petroleum produced harmful greenhouse gasses. Even within these systems, McNeill notes, there were winners and losers: in the Ruhr Valley unionized workers accepted pollution at high levels if it preserved their jobs, while housewives and farmers pushed to end pollution.
McNeill's strongest chapters deal with the environmental, social and material changes resulting from the advances in agriculture and public health in the twentieth century. The most important of these changes was the surge in human population-vividly illustrated by McNeill's estimate that 20 percent of all the humans who have ever lived were born after 1940. The environmental impact of new farming technologies (pesticides, tractors and collective farms) and dams, drainage of wetlands and other water control measures often meant to assist agriculture were also significant. As for public health, McNeill emphasizes the importance of advances in sewage treatment and vaccination in improving the life-expectancy of urban dwellers and insuring that more soldiers died in combat rather than of disease. He then ties these measures to cultural, economic and political conditions both within states and on the world stage. Here McNeill reveals one of his key insights: the close connection between ideology and the treatment of the environment in the twentieth century. Using this insight, he demonstrates that the human actions that most affected the earth's ecology-such as the construction of dams and policies promoting rapid economic growth-were justified in ideological terms and central to maintaining political legitimacy. McNeill is also correct to emphasize the new consciousness and governmental policies that the environmental movement produced worldwide after 1970.
McNeill's well-written book nicely harmonizes the environmental history of the earth over the last century and demonstrates the uniqueness of that history. The many visual aids are a boon to the reader since they make his arguments and the multitude of statistics he presents clearer. McNeill, however, only focuses on political changes at a macro level; he rarely provides specifics on the policies of individual governments. This is an important flaw given the role of governments over the past century in regulating and funding activities that produce ecological change. Nor is it clear to whom McNeill is writing. While he limits himself to academic sources, his writing style is informal and he does not provide the evaluation of sources usually included in academic works as long his book. Undoubtedly the absence of a bibliographical essay reflects the number and variety of sources necessary for a book on the history of the environment, but his decision not to include such an essay deprives his readers of the understanding they deserve of the sources McNeill cites. The book's biography has a number of important omissions as well. One wonders why McNeill did not cite Roger Owen in the book's discussion of cotton in nineteenth-century Egypt or Charles Davies when discussing Los Angeles
Rating: 4
Summary: The 20th Century: Prodigal or Profligate?
Comment: "The human race, without intending anything of the sort, has undertaken a gigantic uncontrolled experiment on the earth. In time, I think, this will appear as the most important aspect of twentieth-century history, more so than World War II, the communist enterprise, the rise of mass literacy, the spread of democracy, or the growing emancipation of women." (J. R. McNeill)
Over the past few years there have been a spate of histories of the 20th century. Most of them have been written from traditional, often Eurocentric, historical perspectives that focus upon political history set in the context of socioeconomic development and ideological and military conflict. J. R. McNeill's *Something New Under the Sun* replaces the political narrative, usually found at the center of histories, with an environmental one. It invites readers to reevaluate the legacy of the 20th century.
By any measure, the 20th century is, as McNeill characterizes it, "a prodigal century." In terms of growth of population, economic development, and energy production and consumption, it is a case of 'quantity having a quality of its own.' On the one hand, it is a triumph of the human species. (McNeill suggests readers consider that over the past 4 billion years of human history, 20% of all human life-years took place in the 20th century.) On the other hand, this prodigal century - this triumph of human ingenuity - has also exacted an unprecedented environmental cost. It is this trade-off that McNeill's book explores.
McNeill's approach is interdisciplinary, and the book is divided into two sections. The first section is organized around transformations to the lithosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere, and the resulting pollution and resource depletion. Each topic includes a (very) brief conceptual introduction, case studies from around the world, (black and white) photos, maps, and tables. This section also includes the best example of unintentional environmental consequences. McNeill introduces Thomas Midgely, the inventor of leaded gasoline and Freon, "[who] had more impact on the atmosphere than any other organism in earth history."
In the second section, McNeill introduces the 'engines of change" - 1) population growth, migration, and urbanization, 2) energy, technology, and economic growth, and 3) politics and environmental awareness. The pulses of 'coketowns' and 'motowns' take place amidst the tumultuous social, economic, and political events of the 20th century. Environmental awareness doesn't take root until the 70's - a critical period for women as well. (His examples of Rachel Carson and Wangari Maathai were well chosen - and gendered.) In his epilogue (So What?), McNeill's history portends an environmental crunch, a change of circumstances - a dilemma unlike the world has witnessed so far.
"With our new powers we banished some historical constraints on health and population, food production, energy use, and consumption generally. Few who know anything about life with these constraints regret their passing. But in banishing them we invited other constraints in the form of the planet's capacity to absorb wastes, by-products, and impacts of our actions. The latter constraints had pinched occasionally in the past, but only locally. By the end of the twentieth century, they seemed to restrict our options globally. Our negotiations with these constraints will shape the future as our struggles against them shaped our past." (J. R. McNeill)
*Something New Under The Sun* is written in a popular style well suited to both non-fiction readers and students. Readers of environmental historians like William Cronon, William McNeill, or Alfred Crosby will certainly find McNeill's book interesting. Personally I think that McNeill's global perspective of the 20th century will stand the test of time.
Rating: 5
Summary: So What?
Comment: I have a read a few good histories but, in terms of relevance, this one takes the cake. No other single-bound volume (that I know of) captures the sweeping changes humanity has wrought in the physical environment. Indeed, of all other life, homo sapiens alone has distinguished itself as a global geo-physical force. You will also notice that this history is less controversial than most, as J. R. McNeil takes a strictly empirical, scientific approach. Very explicitly, McNeil lays out how humanity's emphasis on unrestrained, fast-paced industrialization has cost millions of lives, driven many species to extinction, and utterly altered the stability of the biosphere. Without a doubt, unless more people gain the kind of perspective this book provides, we will surely witness continued destruction well into this century as well. After reading this book, whatever "So what?" attitude you may have had about the environment will have dissipated completely.
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Title: The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History by John Robert McNeill, William Hardy McNeill ISBN: 039305179X Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: February, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations by Clive Ponting ISBN: 0140176608 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1993 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Ecological Imperialism : The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 by Alfred W. Crosby ISBN: 0521456908 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 25 June, 1993 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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Title: The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. by Kenneth Pomeranz ISBN: 0691090106 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 03 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: State of the World 2003 by Worldwatch Institute, The Worldwatch Institute ISBN: 0393323862 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: January, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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