The invention of sustainability : nature and destiny, c. 1500-1870 / Paul Warde.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Warde, Paul, author.

Contributor:

Harry E. Humphreys Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human ecology.

History.

Sustainable development.

Europe.

Sustainable development--Europe--History.

Sustainability--Europe--History.

Sustainability.

Human ecology--Europe--History.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

x, 407 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Summary:

The issue of sustainability, and the idea that economic growth and development might destroy its own foundations, is one of the defining political problems of our era. This study traces the emergence of this idea, and demonstrates how sustainability was closely linked to hopes for growth, and the destiny of expanding European states, from the sixteenth century. Weaving together aspirations for power, for economic development and agricultural improvement, and ideas about forestry, climate, the sciences of the soil and of life itself, this book sets out how new knowledge and metrics led people to imagine both new horizons for progress, but also the possibility of collapse. In the nineteenth century, anxieties about sustainability, often driven by science, proliferated in debates about contemporary and historical empires and the American frontier. The fear of progress undoing itself confronted society with finding ways to live with and manage nature.

Contents:

Introduction

Living from the land, c.1500-1620

Governing the woods, c.1500-1700

Ambition and experiment, c.1590-1740

Paths to sustained growth, c.1650-1760

Nature translated, c.1670-1830

Theories of circulation, c.1740-1800

Political economies of nature, c.1760-1840

History and destiny, c.1700-1870

Conclusion: ends and beginnings

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Harry E. Humphreys Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781107151147

1107151147

OCLC:

1019930080

Publisher Number:

40028340747