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Offers a global perspective, identifying four historical processes that accelerated environmental change from c. 1500 to 1800: intensified human land use along settlement frontiers; biological invasions; commercial hunting of wildlife; and problems of energy scarcity. These phenomena are considered in a series of case studies, whether of a particular location or an activity like the fur trade or cod fishing. The emphasis throughout is on how humans altered the balance of the natural world, whether by clearing forests or draining wetlands, transporting bacteria, insects, and livestock; hunting species to extinction, or reshaping landscapes.

From reviews:

"The Unending Frontier brings into focus the staggering environmental changes that came with the creation of the early modern world economy. John Richards assembles material from all around the world into a crisp and coherent picture of the meaning of global markets for the biosphere in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. This is a work of the first importance for environmental history, for economic history, and for world history."--John R. McNeill, author of Something New under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World
"A landmark book. Richards moves deftly among various ways of thinking about the early modern environment--national case studies, studies of particular industries, and reflections on increasing global interconnections--so that we get not only a wealth of important data and stories, but multiple perspectives on the topic as a whole. Both the breadth and the depth of the project are inspiring: people will learn new things about environmental change, even in their regions of specialization. But the biggest payoff is in the way Richards weaves environmental change into more familiar early modern stories of global trade, colonialism, technological change, and, above all, state formation. None of these topics will ever look quite the same again."--Kenneth Pomeranz, author of The Great Divergence: Europe, China, and the Making of the Modern World Economy