Product Description
A look at the history of change brought about by and affecting the lives of homo sapiens. Discusses the interdependence of man and nature, contending that adaptability to change and the ability to explore alternatives to the main sources of needed resources will be the key to the survival of mankind. Softcover. DLC: Human ecology--History--20th century.

Amazon.com Review
J.R. McNeill, a professor of history at Georgetown University, visits the annals of the past century only to return to the present with bad news: in that 100-year span, he writes, the industrialized and developing nations of the world have wrought damage to nearly every part of the globe. That much seems obvious to even the most casual reader, but what emerges, and forcefully, from McNeill's pages is just how extensive that damage has been. For example, he writes, "soil degradation in one form or another now affects one-third of the world's land surface," larger by far than the world's cultivated areas. Things are worse in some places than in others; McNeill observes that Africa is "the only continent where food production per capita declined after 1960," due to the loss of productive soil. McNeill's litany continues: the air in most of the world's cities is perilously unhealthy; the drinking water across much of the planet is growing ever more polluted; the human species is increasingly locked "in a rigid and uneasy bond with modern agriculture," which trades the promise of abundant food for the use of carcinogenic pesticides and fossil fuels.

The environmental changes of the last century, McNeill closes by saying, are on an unprecedented scale, so much so that we can scarcely begin to fathom their implications. We can, however, start to think about them, and McNeill's book is a helpful primer. --Gregory McNamee

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 23 reviews)

Review for Something New Under the Sun

J.R. McNeill, author of Something New Under the Sun, states "it is nearly impossible to see what is happening until it is inconveniently late to do something about it" (358). In his book, McNeill discusses the major changes to the environment, which occurred throughout the twentieth century. Focusing on the four spheres--lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere--McNeill acknowledges that although we may not be in the midst of an environmental crisis, the current means by which humans are living are not ecologically sustainable. He also claims that there are many consequences for some of the environmental changes that have occurred. Throughout the book there is an overarching theme that humans are a main cause of many of the environmental problems of the twentieth century, and as humans, we are the only ones with the knowledge and power to fix it.

McNeill begins his book by concentrating on the lithosphere, the earth's outer shell of rock, and its transformations in the past century. The pedosphere, which is the soil, essentially earth's skin, is located between the lithosphere and atmosphere. According to McNeill, the erosion of soil is primarily caused by humans and ultimately harms them because humans get "97 percent of their food from vanishing soils" (49).

The next sphere, the atmosphere is the "thin gaseous envelope that surrounds the earth" (51). In the early twentieth century, coal combustion, which came from industries and dwellings, primarily caused air pollution, the main topic associated with the atmosphere. Since the development of the automobile road traffic has been the largest source of air pollution worldwide. McNeill also considers the proposed laws and regulations, which have been implemented regarding air pollution. He claims that laws relating to air pollution are difficult to enforce, because "economic development took precedence over other concerns" (83). In addition to air pollution, McNeill covers climate change and its causes as well as the stratosphere.

From the atmosphere, McNeill moves on to the hydrosphere focusing on water use and water pollution in the twentieth century. Water has always been primarily used for irrigation; however people today use water much more frequently than in the past. After the development of new organic chemicals, water pollution started becoming severe, having a dramatic impact on lakes and rivers and killing "tens of millions of people in the twentieth century" (147). Although there are safe water provisions, they focus more on protecting the big cities, not entire countries. Cleaning up polluted rivers and lakes can sometimes be an easy task; nonetheless most times it is difficult, especially in poorer countries. One can only hope that oceans do not get polluted because if they do, it will be almost impossible to reverse the damage.

Lastly, McNeill concentrates on the biosphere. In this section, agriculture is a major issue, along with discussions on deforestation, the decline of whales and fish in oceans, and bioinvasions. Although the consequences of many of these things have yet to occur, McNeill predicts them to be extremely severe and expects humans to find a solution to these problems, in spite of the fact that he is unsure of the different aspects of such a solution.

Overall, Something New Under the Sun provides a well structured and organized critique of many of the environmental changes, which occurred throughout the twentieth century. McNeill does an excellent job in organizing his information, carefully dividing up his sections and clearly stating his opinions and own viewpoints. One positive component of the book is that he applies his concepts to the context of cities and countries so the reader can view the problem from a smaller scale and multiple angles. For instance, when McNeill wrote about water pollution he focused on the Ganges River in India and the measures taken to contend with the pollution of that specific river. This helps the reader comprehend the concepts better as opposed to if they were to be told in a general synopsis of the current circumstances.

Another positive aspect of Something New Under the Sun is the fact that it ties together very nicely. Many times, McNeill will refer to something discussed in a previous chapter. This is very beneficial to the reader, because it shows that what they previously read about actually matters in the context of the entire book. For example, he frequently relates pollution to past statements. Although he specifically discusses pollution in his section on the atmosphere, McNeill reverts back to it in almost every chapter. This helps the reader understand the drastic nature of the problem

One minor problem with the book is the amount of detail regarding many of the topics. While reading Something New Under the Sun I was sometimes overwhelmed by the quantity of detail included. The in-depth qualitative analysis made it difficult to summarize the book concisely. Although some specifics are helpful in understanding the information, too much detail can ultimately end up confusing the reader, which was sometimes the case in this book.

Anyone interested in today's environment and its changes should think about reading Something New Under the Sun. This book takes a specific look at how humans have altered the environment in the past 100 years and the measures that need to be taken to change it in the future. Although McNeill can't pinpoint exactly what can be done to change what has happened, he does have a few potentially effective ideas that could prove to be successful. He declares that every person can make a difference, and he asks everyone to look at what has happened in the past, because we can use the past to change the future.

December 05, 2008

Something New Under the Sun

I like the book because of the historical perspective on the detrimental effects of the environment with selected topics, although I am preferring my other book which tells the stories of different places on the what the effects of the environment has had over the years of human civilization. Still, both are quite good...
October 10, 2008

Excellent

This is a must read for people interested in either history, the environment, or people. It is well written and provides an excellent view about the history of the twentieth century that most people do not usually know about. Everyone should read it.
November 29, 2007

Where we went astray and what we might do about it

Boom. This is a biggie. Yowzah! If you want a clear view of our specie's impact on our world there is no better place to start than here. J.R. McNeill offers a balanced and comprehensive look at the century which changed everything, and his title, contradicting Ecclesiastes' assertion that nothing is new, says it all. The core idea here is that in the last century humanity moved beyond affect of local systems to dominance of the biosphere. We are everywhere. McNeill covers our impact on all of the life on our planet, from his prologue discussion of economy, population and energy, to his deeper analysis of soil, air, water and the whole of living systems. He offers clear views of the demographic and technologic forces which have shaped our modern world. Most illuminating of all are the complicated ways in which each change we have wrought has brought both destruction and remediation. Oil, the number one eco-villain in recent history, particularly when pumped through internal combustion engines, has also cleaned up city air enormously when it replaced coal and wood for heating and power generation. It also eliminated the need to remove 10-15,000 horse carcasses from average large cities each year and saved the great whales from extinction. Nuclear energy, an utter failure economically and with wastes which will be our generation's longest lasting heirloom, at least doesn't pollute the air. Population growth has had enormous impact on environmental damage, but less than I would have estimated as a percentage, and in some places it has even permitted improvements impossible without many hands. We are, in his words, the "rogue primate" which became smart enough to threaten every other life form on the planet, from smallpox virus to blue whales. Our success has paradoxically been very good for the viruses that cause the common cold and for rabbits. From the general to the specific, whole systems to individual tools (automobile, chain saw) McNeill has achieved a grasp of how and what we did, and tells the story masterfully. For readers who took up my recommendation of A GREEN HISTORY OF THE WORLD (Clive Ponting, St. Martin's Press, 1991), this one is better (and Ponting's work is one of McNeill's sources). Bingo.
November 27, 2007

One of a kind book on environmental history

I wrote my economics undergraduate thesis on development and environmental management back in 1976-77, and surely I would have enjoyed and valued to have Professor McNeill's book in my hands in those years.

His book is remarkable in many ways. It is a well written book, extraordinarly documented and well supported with eye opening statistical tables and illustrations. His material is useful for graduate and undergraduate students alike, and also for wider audiences interested on reviewing a different approach on history's complexities.

As the book front page indicates, the author centers his work on the 20th century's humankind events, termed by himself as the most influential on the process of ecology's evolution.

The book is very well organized so the reader keeps information organized in a properly way. At the end, Professor McNeill leaves many questions open that will be ample material enough to study in the years to come. Among those questions is the one concerned with society's will to deal seriously with environmental crises that have accumulated on the latest decades. We can have a readily answer to that subject if political leaders continue to privilege the narrow view of economic growth, instead of considering to seriously discuss the implementation of more integral strategies that would deliver environmental friendly sustainable economic development at the end.

Without question I recommend this book.

June 04, 2007

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Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by Jared Diamond

A New Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations
by Clive Ponting

Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (Studies in Environment and History)
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The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-first Century (World Social Change)
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Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
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