The Future of Nature ─ Documents of Global Change

This anthology provides an historical overview of the scientific ideas behind environmental prediction and how, as predictions about environmental change have been taken more seriously and widely, they have affected politics, policy, and public perception. Through an array of texts and commentaries that examine the themes of progress, population, environment, biodiversity and sustainability from a global perspective, it explores the meaning of the future in the twenty-first century. Providing access and reference points to the origins and development of key disciplines and methods, it will encourage policy makers, professionals, and students to reflect on the roots of their own theories and practices.

Libby Robin is Professor of environmental history in the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University and a senior research fellow at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra. Sverker Sorlin is Professor of environmental history at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, and co-founder of the KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory. Paul Warde is Reader in environmental and economic history at the University of East Anglia, an associate lecturer at the University of Cambridge, and associate research fellow at the Centre for History and Economics at Cambridge.