The World System and the Earth System: Global Socio-Environmental Change and

Sustainability since the Neolithic by Alf Hornborg; Carole L. Crumley

Review by: David Helgren
Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 65, No. 1 (Spring, 2009), pp. 124-126
Published by: University of New Mexico
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124

JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL

RESEARCH

All in all, this volume is a worthy, if highly-technical, addition to the

impeccable, substantial, and timely series ofmonographs on theNeuch?tel sites.
Kudos toLeesch, her team, and theCantonal Museum!
Lawrence Guy Straus
University ofNew Mexico

The World
System and the Earth System: Global Socio-Environmental
and
Sustainability since the Neolithic. Alf Hornborg and Carole L.
Change
eds.
Walnut
Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2007, 416 pp. $75.00, cloth;
Crumley,
$34.95, paper.
This is one of two volumes recounting a conference titled "World System History
and Global Environmental Change" held in Lund, Sweden, in September 2003.
Included here are twenty-one papers following a summative introduction by Alf
Hornborg. Clearly the intentwas tobring togethera wide spectrum of perspectives
on relations between human societies and their biophysical environments. The
individual contributions come from several academic tribes and thus include
diverse methodologies at multiple temporal and spatial scales. In addition, the
degree of polish varies. Some were given full embellishment before or after the

conference; others read more closely to the verbal presentations. The relatively
long delay to publication led many contributors to publish expansions of their
presentations elsewhere. Nonetheless, the combined narrative and bibliography
provide lasting value and a possible point of departure for a graduate seminar.
Hornborg and Crumley divide the presentations into three sets. The first
has six contributions and is titled "Modeling Socioecological
Systems: General
historical
defends
Carole
ecology at multiple
systemic
Crumley
Perspectives."
on
reflects
Frank
scales.
Oldfield
and
developing
synergistic
spatial
temporal
outlines
how
he
realms.
cultural
and
between
Importantly,
biophysical
linkages
the emerging anxieties over futureglobal environmental changes are challenging
both the social and biophysical sciences. In particular, scientific findings
should be reproducible, but predictions of the future cannot be verified until

then. Simultaneously predictions are being used to develop policy and

management goals. Yet without a robust scientific foundation, how
choose wise policies for limited current resources? Oldfield also points
the changing cultures of scientists and science are stressing the whole

enforce
can we

out that

system
of scientific endeavor. For example, social scientists traditionally avoid making
have
predictions about the biophysical world. Meanwhile biophysical scientists
a new tradition of sailing merrily intopredictions about the cultural world. Also
in this first set of articles, Thomas Hall and Peter Turchin raise thematter of
across great world regions
apparently coeval, population-political expansions
over the past 1,400 years. Such large-scale rhythms are both evocative as well
Journal

of Anthropological

Research,

vol. 65, 2009

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BOOK REVIEWS

125

as methodologically challenging. Another article of interest in this first set

is by Jonathan Friedman, who points out societies tend to collapse, or at least
substantially reorganize, before their ecological limits are reached. And social
issuesmay be as importantas biophysical change. He points out thatNew Orleans
was a reasonably functioning river-ocean port in thenineteenth century.However
the twentieth-centurycultural template thatbuilt a sprawling city on this deltaic
landscape was dysfunctional?and much warned about long before Hurricane

Katrina in 2005.

The second set of articles, titled"Case Studies inSocio-environmental Change

in Prehistory," has eight entries. All focus on apparent coincidences between
cultural and environmental changes; however, the diversity inmethodological or

conceptual strategies is substantial. George Modelski asks whether the recurring

"dark ages" in the past 4,500 years were reversing societal reorganizations
after periods of cultural exuberance or the result of unmet challenges of natural
environmental change, or both. And human-environment interactions in the
same region at the same times can be profitably examined from quite different

perspectives. For example, Betty Meggars

emphasizes her perspective that
Amazonian populations have always been limited by low soil fertilityacross wide
areas. In contrast,Alf Hornborg looks at the rich archaeological opportunities
along the narrow, fertile floodplains of northern South America, where he finds
successful raised fields and "Arawak" trading networks.
The final set of articles asks, "Is theWorld System Sustainable? Attempts
toward an Integrated Socioecological
Perspective." Its seven articles vary

from environmentalist exhortations to society-environment model building to

defending preferred academic taxonomies. Two reports remind us of the threatsof
globalization. Thomas Malm reflects on the preservation of economic resiliency
in the Pacific, where he finds the assessment of carrying capacity both variable
and mutable, so environmental "crisis points" are culturally relative. Similarly
Alfred Crosby recounts the global history of epidemics, wherein societies now
and thenpay dearly for spatially intensified connectivity.
With its amusing collection of perspectives on gauging culture-environment

relationships, thisvolume points out how much work remains. Five directions for
improvement are obvious. First, the fundamental interdisciplinary grammar and
vocabulary need precision. Concepts such as "landscape sensitivity," "adaptive
capacity," "social vulnerability," "world system evolution," and "risk and
resilience" need consistent, measurable definition. Second, social scientists, in
particular, need to clarify linkages between climate change and societal change.
Climate is actually composed of a suite of measurable variables, including
temperature,precipitation, and seasonality, linked in some way to soil and biotic
patterns. Is a set of unambiguous cultural variables available to connect to such
environmental variables in a systemic fashion? Third, spatial and temporal scales
matter profoundly inassessing the relationships between culture and environment.
Is it appropriate to link cultural processes inferred from an
archaeological site
with a regional concept of climate? Can one really ascribe one day of
garbage
in a midden to the environmental adaptations of thewhole Neolithic? Fourth,
collections of anecdotal data, no matter how abundant and pleasing, generate
Journal

of Anthropological

Research,

vol.

65, 2009

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126

JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL

RESEARCH

neither social science nor biophysical science. And fifth,developing management

plans for a better human-environmental future is viable through modeling.
However, the biophysical models of the present and near futureare much more

complete than the decidedly primitivemodels of cultural patterns and adaptations.

Social scientists appear to be far, far behind.
David Helgren
Geography Department
San Jose State University

Civilizing Climate: Social Responses to Climate Change in theAncient Near

East. Arlene Miller Rosen. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007, 184 pp.
$72.00, cloth; $32.95, paper.
is a masterful example of how difficult it is to carry out true
interdisciplinary research. Rosen examines the complex interrelationship of
humans to their environment in the face of changing climatic conditions and
shows the fallacy of being a strong advocate of either environmental or cultural
determinism. Despite a title implying a broad focus on theNear East, Rosen

This volume

instead emphasizes the southern Levant from the Terminal Pleistocene through
the Holocene. This volume will be of considerable interest to a wide range of
scholars and tomore general readers interested in the nuances of how climate
change affects, but does not determine, culture.
In Chapter 1, Rosen states that she "attempts to examine the interactive
relationship between ancientNear Eastern societies and theirenvironments, taking
into consideration social organization, technology, and political and economic
factors, as well as human perceptions of nature and environmental change" (p.
4). This chapter sets up Rosen's theoretical perspective, one at odds with often
simplisticmodels viewing the interactions of culture and environmental'stress in

which the latteroften "wins." Instead, Rosen's focus is that cultures have many
ways of dealing with environmental shifts,and thatwhen they are unsuccessful, a
failure of the social or political system is often to blame. Chapter 1 also addresses
scale in environmental change and perceptions of nature and environmental
a group's level
change, and how these are culturally variable, often based on

of complexity. Finally, an important observation is that archaeologists often

pay little attention to societies that have survived severe environmental stress,
thatmight be
preferring instead to focus on failures and collapses (something
called the "Jared Diamond" syndrome, although this does not do justice to his

often compelling arguments).

Chapter 2 is a useful primer on tools used in reconstructingpast climates. Since
direct climatic data are not generally available, Rosen provides a discussion of proxy
data. These include three broad categories: historical accounts, paleoecological
data (e.g., pollen and fauna), and geological data (e.g., sedimentation rates, stream
Journal

of Anthropological

Research,

vol.

65, 2009

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