The Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World
"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 |
Contents
LIST OF MAPS
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LIST OF TABLES
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PREFACE
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Introduction
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1 |
The Early Modern World
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17 |
Climate and Early Modern World Environmental History
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58 |
Pioneer Settlement on Taiwan
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89 |
Internal Frontiers and Intensified Land Use in China
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112 |
The Columbian Exchange The West Indies
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309 |
Ranching Mining and Settlement Frontiers in Colonial Mexico
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334 |
Sugar and Cattle in Portuguese Brazil
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377 |
Landscapes of Sugar in the Antilles
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412 |
Furs and Deerskins in Eastern North America
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463 |
The Hunt for Furs in Siberia
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517 |
Cod and the New World Fisheries
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547 |
Whales and Walruses in the Northern Oceans
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574 |
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Common terms and phrases
agricultural Ainus America animals annual Arctic Atlantic average Barbados beaver became bowhead Bowhead Whale Brazil brazilwood British Cambridge University Press Cape cattle China Chinese coal coast coastal colonial colonists crops cultivation cultural daimyo deer deerskins Dutch early modern ecological economic edited eighteenth century England English environmental Europe European export fish fishery forest French frontier fur trade grazing hectares herds History human hundred hunters hunting Ibid imperial Indian island Japan Japanese Khoikhois killed kilograms land landscape Little Ice Age livestock maize Matsumae domain meters metric tons Mexico migration million Mughal North northern numbers officials peasants percent period planters plants population Portuguese production Qing regime region Reykjavík rice River Russian sable settlement settlers seventeenth century sheep ships shogun Siberia sixteenth century slaves Society soil Spanish species Spitsbergen square kilometers sugar Tainos Taiwan Tatar thousand timber Tokugawa towns trees trekboers village whale World