ABSTRACT

Power and social inequality shape patterns of land use and resource management. This book explores this relationship from different perspectives, illuminating the complexity of interactions between human societies and nature. Most of the contributors use the perspective of "political ecology" as a point of departure, recognizing that human relations to the environment and human social relations are not separate phenomena but inextricably intertwined. What makes this volume unique is that it sets this approach in a trans-disciplinary, global, and historical framework.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

Ecology and power

part I|141 pages

Theoretical perspectives on historical political ecology

chapter 1|10 pages

Accumulation

Land as a medium of domination

chapter 2|14 pages

Techno-fix

Ecological rifts and capital shifts

chapter 3|15 pages

Empire

The comparative study of imperialism

chapter 4|16 pages

Islands

Ecologically unequal exchange and landesque capital

chapter 5|15 pages

Guano

The global metabolic rift and the fertilizer trade

chapter 6|14 pages

Fleece

Imperial metabolism in the pre-Columbian Andes

chapter 7|11 pages

Slaves

Inequality and sustainable agriculture in pre-colonial West Africa

chapter 8|16 pages

Steam

Nineteenth-century mechanization and the power of capital

chapter 9|19 pages

Ivory

Socio-ecological consequences of the East African ivory trade

chapter 10|9 pages

Lawns

Botanical garden design as colonial domination

part II|147 pages

Struggles over material resources in the modern world

chapter 11|13 pages

Footprints

The division of nations and nature

chapter 12|14 pages

Water

Irrigation and resilience in the Tanzanian highlands

chapter 13|12 pages

Meat

The new geopolitics of food

chapter 14|12 pages

Trees

Conflicts between pastoralists, loggers and conservationists in the Himalayas

chapter 15|11 pages

Grass

From local pastures to global energy markets in eastern Tanzania

chapter 16|11 pages

Forests

Capital accumulation, climate change and crises in Chile and Sweden

chapter 17|11 pages

Jatropha

A magic bullet filled with oil

chapter 18|11 pages

Atoms

Nuclear estrangement from Chernobyl to India

chapter 19|12 pages

Safflower

Liberalisation or participation in a Tanzanian village

chapter 20|12 pages

Land-claims

Racialized environmental struggles in Latin America

chapter 21|11 pages

Smoke

Cooking, coughing and collective action in Kenya

chapter 22|15 pages

Sugarcane

Agrofuels and conflicting land uses in Brazil