In his trilogy of environmental studies-World Ecological Degradation, The Recurring Dark Ages, and Ecological Futures-Sing Chew surveys 5,000 years of human history and finds a distinctive, recurring pattern: Civilizations that amass vast wealth do so by exhausting their environment, thus sowing the seeds of their collapse. Again and again, Chew observes, periods of over-accumulation are followed by extreme environmental degradation, the collapse of social systems, and a Dark Age. Today, at the beginning of the third millennium A.D., we are in the midst of a period of unprecedented accumulation, this time on a global scale, and we are experiencing worldwide environmental degradation, from the ozone layer to the rain forest. If past is prologue, Chew warns, then modern mankind may face a broad collapse of social systems and an unsettling future.
- ISBN10 0759112037
- ISBN13 9780759112032
- Publish Date 27 June 2008
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 25 November 2009
- Publish Country US
- Imprint AltaMira Press,U.S.
- Language English