Reddit mentions of A New Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations

Barbara Tuchman was brilliant writer of history.

Albert Camus was a brilliant absurdist philosopher and novelist.

Jared Diamond has written some brilliant books at the intersection of anthropology and ecology. Another good book in this genre is Clive Ponting's A New Green History of the World.

Gwynne Dyer is an acclaimed military historian turned journalist on international affairs who has written a number of very engaging books on warfare and politics. His most recent book Climate Wars is the ONE book I would recommend to someone, if so limited, on the subject as it embodies both a wonderful synopsis of the science juxtaposed against the harsh realpolitiks and potential fates of humankind that may unfold unless we can manage to tackle the matter seriously, soon. Another great book on climate change is Bill McKibben's Deep Economy.

For social activists interested in ending world hunger and abject poverty, I can recommend: Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom; Nobel Prize winning micro-financier Muhammad Yunus' Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism; UN MDG famed economist Jeffrey Sach's End Of Poverty; and Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea

For anyone of Scottish heritage, I heartily recommend Arthur Hermann's How The Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It

For naval history buffs: Robert K. Massie's Dreadnought.

Last, but not least: Robert Pirsig's classic Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Enjoy!

I read this in my Social Environmental History class. [A New Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations] (http://www.amazon.com/New-Green-History-World-Civilizations/dp/0143038982/ref=dp_ob_title_bk) by Clive Ponting.

Really opened my mind on how civilizations’ overexpansion and the exhaustion of available natural resources have been contributing factors in the collapse of all great cultures/civilizations in history. By the end you understand the relationship with the environment issues today that is linked to our past human history and the exploitation of the land around us that have radically changed the environment.

Well I don't know any famous articles that reference it ( I normally don't pay much attention to that myself)

but it was the text book for my first year environmental geography class at the University of Toronto, Canada. The professor for that class has since retired but I believed his personal research was mainly in environmentally sustainable agriculture in semi-arid grasslands.

And if you are looking for information on collapse, sustainability and peak oil, then Ponting's Green history of the world is exactly what you want.

Here is a link to Amazon's new edition (with updated facts) and if you click look inside you can read part of the introduction and look at the index to see what it discuses.