Economies and the Transformation of Landscape

The theme of this volume is change, specifically the dynamic relationship between physical landscapes and economic practices. The contributors to Economies and the Transformation of Landscape consider the relationship between the environment and human activity—from different perspectives and with regard to varied timescales—to arrive at various understandings of economical-ecological transformations and what they can reveal about human culture. While each chapter stands on its own, offering detailed insights into particular cases, the volume as a whole challenges us to think broadly, and reflexively, about how human action affects the environment and changes to the environment affect human action.

Scholarship has moved beyond viewing the external environment as composed of nature or culture. This collection of essays explores the complex dynamics of how we humans perceive, use, alter, and interact with the spaces around us., This volume examines anthropological, archaeological, historical, economic and ecological perspectives through the lens of the notion of “landscape” to investigate social and environmental transformations. Economies and the Transformation of Landscape provides an excellent exploration of evolving human interactions with the natural environment over deep temporal frames, of the consequences of economic decisions and rational strategies, and of the interaction of institutions at local, regional and global scales., Lisa Cliggett and Christopher Pool have assembled a first-rate collection of empirically rich and theoretically informed essays on the anthropology of landscapes and their transformations. Their excellent introduction is an informative 'read' in itself, and the book's diversity of topics, theories, and geographic regions nicely confirms just how far anthropologists have come in recent years in their understanding of landscapes and the forces that transform them., A provocative volume! Economies and the Transformations of Landscape offers a range of thoughtful perspectives that draw on diverse empirical records to probe the critical nexus between human ecology and economics.

Lisa Cliggett andChristopher Pool are in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kentucky.