Binding: Hardcover
Description: Humanity is by many measures the biggest success story in the animal kingdom; but what are the costs of this triumph? Over its three million years of existence the human species has continuously modified nature and drained its resources. In Cataclysms Laurent Testot provides the full tally offering a comprehensive environmental history of humanity's unmatched and perhaps irreversible influence on the world. Testot explores the interconnected histories of human evolution and planetary deterioration arguing that our development from naked apes to Homo sapiens has entailed wide - scale environmental harm. Testot makes the case that humans have usually been catastrophic for the planet "hyperpredators" responsible for mass extinctions deforestation global warming ocean acidification and unchecked pollution as well as the slaughter of our own species. Organized chronologically around seven technological revolutions Cataclysms unspools the intertwined saga of humanity and our environment from our shy beginnings in Africa to today's domination of the planet revealing how we have blown past any limits along the way - - whether by exploding our own population numbers domesticating countless other species or harnessing energy from fossils. Testot's book while sweeping is light and approachable telling the stories - - sometimes rambunctious sometimes appalling - - of how a glorified monkey transformed its own environment beyond all recognition. In order to begin reversing our environmental disaster we must have a better understanding of our own past and the incalculable environmental costs incurred at every stage of human innovation. Cataclysms offers that understanding and the hope that we can now begin to reform our relationship to the Earth.
Title: Cataclysms An Environmental History Of Humanity
Author(s): Testot Laurent
Publisher: The University Of Chicago Press
Barcode: 9780226609126
Pages: 480 Pages
Publication Date: 11/9/2020
Category: Natural History