Something New Under the Sun An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World

About this book

The definitive environmental history of the twentieth-century world, now updated for the twenty-first.

Humans have long transformed the planet, scratching its surface for stones and ores, planting and harvesting crops, and sparking fires for light and heat. But since the dawn of industrialisation and especially since 1950, our impact has accelerated sharply. Economic, technological, and demographic changes have driven rapid and ongoing shifts in patterns of pollution, human health, and rising sea levels and temperatures.

In his landmark publication Something New Under the Sun, acclaimed historian J. R. McNeill offered a new way to understand twentieth-century history: through environmental change. Threading lucid scientific explanations with captivating stories, McNeill's prize-winning history chronicles humanity's deepening imprint on the planet in an evenhanded account that seeks, above all, to explain. With updated data and stories, and new discussions of climate change and climate politics, Something New Under the Sun remains the definitive account of the most urgent topic of our time.

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Biography

J. R. McNeill is a professor of history at Georgetown University. The author of award-winning works in world and environmental history, he has served as president of the American Society for Environmental History and the American Historical Association. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Bathsheba Demuth is an environmental historian at Brown University, specialising in the United States and Russia, and in the history of energy and past climates. She has lived in and studied Arctic communities across Eurasia and North America.