Providing an overview of the ecological dimension of economic processes, this book presents a framework for understanding the relations between ecosystems and world systems. It also contains reflections by Immanuel Wallerstein, originator of the world-system concept, in which he talks about the various implications of global environmental change.

This exciting new reader in environmental history provides a framework for understanding the relations between ecosystems and world-systems over time. Alf Hornborg, J. R. McNeill, and Joan Martinez-Alier have brought together a group of the foremost writers from the social, historical, and geographical sciences to provide an overview of the ecological dimension of global, economic processes, with a long-term, historical perspective. Readers are challenged to integrate studies of the Earth-system with studies of the world-system, and to reconceptualize the relations between human beings and their environment, as well as the challenges of global sustainability.