Issues and Concepts in Historical Ecology

Advance praise: 'Historical ecology has become a master methodology of our time, part of the new holism. This volume explains the how and the why of it. Not only does it offer a critical synthesis with relevant examples, but also a prospectus for likely future developments and applications. The authors bring a wealth of complementary experience and expertise to their task, drawing on different backgrounds to delineate a field of research that is intrinsically and necessarily multi-disciplinary and collaborative. Readers are carefully led through the theoretical connections between an assemblage of intertwined concepts of current and increasing intellectual significance - the Anthropocene and landscape domestication, complexity, memory and local environmental knowledge, shifting baseline syndrome, biocultural diversity, niche construction and co-evolution. Together, these have progressively undermined older 'functionalist' and 'adaptionist' assumptions about how socio-ecological systems really work in the twenty-first century.' Roy Ellen, Centre for Biocultural Diversity, University of Kent Advance praise: 'Crumley, Westin, Lennartsson et al. have made a monumental contribution in this book to interdisciplinary studies bridging nature and society. They have made a significant advance in the framework known as historical ecology, and they show the relevance of the past to our future, by rich examples from throughout the world to illustrate the value of this framework. Drawing from anthropology, geology, archeology, ecology, paleoecology, geography, landscape and heritage management and history, the framework addresses both local and earth system scale dynamics. A major advance in our ways of knowing our planet.' Emilio F. Moran, Michigan State University