In this modern era of global environmental crisis, Sing Chew provides a convincing analysis of a 5,000-year history of recurring human and environmental crises_a Dark Ages significant in defining the relationship between nature and culture. The author'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.

Deforestation, soil runoff, salination, pollution. While recurrent themes of the contemporary world, they are not new to us. In this broad sweeping review of the environmental impacts of human settlement and development worldwide over the past 5,000 years, Sing C. Chew shows that these processes are as old as civilization itself. With examples ranging from Ancient Mesopotamia to Malaya, Mycenaean Greece to Ming China, Chew shows that the processes of population growth, intensive resource accumulation, and urbanization in ancient and modern societies almost universally bring on ecological disaster, which often contributes to the decline and fall of that society. He then turns his eye to the development of the modern European world-system and its impact on the environment. Challenging us to change these long-term trends, Chew also traces the existence of environmental conservation ideas and movements over the span of 5,000 years. Can we do it? Look at Chew's evidence of the past five millennia and decide. Ideal for courses in environmental history, anthropology, and sociology, and world-systems theory.

Globalization is often discussed in terms of its ecological ramifications. Yet, while ecological imbalance is today one of the greatest threats to mankind, globalization is also a reality that is here to stay. The volume, therefore, seeks to address how globalizing and environmental interests can be reconciled. The essays in this volume state that globalization can work both in favour of and against the environment. The major issues discussed in this topical volume are, how globalization can be used to promote environmental reforms; the role of individuals, private organizations and governments in keeping environmental degradation in check and in promoting environmental reform; globalization and ecological inequality; women, the environment and globalization; changing nature of environmental movements; overpopulation and the ecology; the relation between the ecology and the economy; and the effects of global climate changes.

Ecological Futures, the final book in Sing C. Chew's trilogy on world ecological degradation, proposes that our own era exhibits ecological conditions similar to those of the past. The climate changes, environmental crises, mass population migrations, and socioeconomic disorganization we find in our globalized world also characterized the Late Bronze Age and the period following the fall of the Roman Empire. Given such historical parallels, can history tell us what to expect? Analyzing past trends, Chew identifies a set of long-term structural changes common to previous systemic crises and suggests possible outcomes. These "possible futures" include the collapse of systems, territories, informational technologies, and communities in an era of scarce resources, political reorganization, and globalization.

We live in a digitalized world that is experiencing environmental changes, scarcity of natural resources, global pandemics, mass migrations, and burgeoning global populations. In Ecology, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality, Sing C. Chew proposes that we meet these challenges by examining the connected global world we live in and by considering the advances that have been made in digitalization, miniaturization, dematerialization, artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented realities, and machine learning, which have increased our socioeconomic and political productivity. Chew outlines potential structural avenues to address these challenges, suggests pragmatic choices to ease living during these chaotic crisis conditions, and outlines solutions that will enable us to traverse systemic crises.

World System History is a component of Encyclopedia of Social Sciences and Humanities in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. The Theme on World System History presents the study of the history of the world system. World system history offers an array of tools with which to apprehend the future. This volume discuss the essential aspects such as World-Systems Analysis; Big History; Epistemology of World System History: Long-Term Processes and Cycles; One World System or Many: The Continuity Thesis in World System History; World Population History; States Systems and Universal Empires; The Silk Road: Afro-Eurasian Connectivity Across the Ages; Dark Ages in World System History; The Kondratieff Waves as Global Social Processes; Globalization in Historical Perspective; Emergence of a Global Polity; World Urbanization: The Role of Settlement Systems in Human Social Evolution; Democratization: The World-Wide Spread Of Democracy in The Modern Age; The Rise of Global Public Opinion; East Asia In the World System; Incorporating North America into the Eurasian World-System. This volume is aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College Students Educators, Professional Practitioners, Research Personnel and Policy Analysts, Managers, and Decision Makers, NGOs and GOs.

My Father's World is a memorial volume celebrating the life of Dr. Reuben G. Bullard and it focuses on the archaeology and history of the Mediterranean world. The essays in this volume are all written by former students of Dr. Bullard, and the diverse range of topics highlights his broad interests in geology, archaeology, and biblical studies. Bullard was a long time Professor of Geology and Archaeology at Cincinnati Christian University. He pioneered the field of Archaeological Geology in the 1960s at Tell Gezer.