The Recurring Dark Ages: Ecological Stress, Climate Changes, and System Transformation [Paperback]

In this modern era of global environmental crisis, Sing Chew provides a convincing analysis of the recurring human and environmental crises identified as Dark Ages. In this, his second of a three-volume series concerning world ecological degradation, Chew reviews the past 5,000-year history of structural conditions and processes that define the relationship between nature and culture. Chew's message about the coming Dark Ages, as human communities continue to reorganize to meet the contingencies of ecological scarcity and climate changes, is a must-read for those concerned with human interactions and environmental changes, including environmental anthropologists and historians, world historians, geographers, archaeologists, and environmental scientists.Sing C. Chew is research scientist in the Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology, UFZ Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig-Halle, Leipzig, Germany; professor of sociology at Humboldt State University, Arcata, California; and founding editor of the interdisciplinary journal, Nature and Culture.

Dr. Chew's long awaited sequel toWorld Ecological Degradationprovides the reader with new insights on the contemporary environmental crisis by providing a broad, long-range perspective on the interactions between natural changes and cultural changes. Interdisciplinary in scope, rich in theory and data,The Recurring Dark Ageshelps the reader understand globalization in historical perspective. Bill Devall, author, Deep Ecology and Living Richly in an Age of Limits

Sing Chew offers groundbreaking insights for anyone seeking help in understanding the uneven course of the history of human culture in the context of nature. By a fine analysis of the times often discounted in world histories, Sing Chew provides a masterful new way of seeing the import of the interaction of human societies and the forces of the natural world. J Donald Hughes, University of Denver, and editor, The Face of the Ealó)