AltaMira Press
Pages: 432
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Trim: 7½ x 10½
978-0-7591-2157-7 • Hardback • April 2012 • $189.00 • (£146.00)
978-0-7591-2158-4 • Paperback • April 2012 • $115.00 • (£88.00)
978-0-7591-2159-1 • eBook • April 2012 • $109.00 • (£84.00)
John H. Bodley is Regents Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University. He is the author of Cultural Anthropology, 5th edition (AltaMira Press, 2011), and Victims of Progress, 5th edition (AltaMira Press, 2008).
List of Figures and Tables
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Anthropological Perspectives on Contemporary Human Problems
Nature and Scope of the Problems
World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity, 1992
UN Millennium Goals
Crisis Awareness and Response
Significance of Culture Scale
Uniqueness of Tribal Societies and Cultures
“Original Affluent Society”
Elite-Directed Growth: The Human Problem
Distribution of Wealth and Power
The World’s Elite-Directors: View from the Top
Elite-Direction and the Global Media: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation
Too Big and Failing: Elite-Direction and the Global Financial Crisis
Chapter 2
Scale, Adaptation, and the Environmental Crisis
Cultural Transmission and Maladaptation
Scale and Cultural Evolution
Cultural Evolution and Adaptation
Nature and Scope of the Environmental Crisis
Biodiversity and the Death of the Tropical Rain Forests
Ecocide, Soviet Style
Environmental Crisis and Cultural Change
Beyond “The Limits to Growth”
Environmental Commissions: Global 2000 and Our Common Future
Roots of the Environmental Crisis
Capitalism and Ideological Roots
Unregulated Self-Interest and the Tragedy of the Commons
Land Degradation in the Mediterranean Region
Planetary Boundaries: Beyond the Earth’s Limits in the Anthropocene
Extinctions and Biodiversity: Human Nature or Culture Scale Crisis?
Tribal and Small-Scale Domestic Economies
Wealth in Tribal and Commercial Worlds
Biological Potential and Cultural Demand in the Pacific Northwest
Sociocultural Scale and the Environment
Ecological Footprints
Chapter 3
Natural Resources and the Culture of Consumption
Energy and Culture: Basic Considerations
Elite-Directors of the Energy Sector: The Power and Influence of Big Oil
Capitalism and the Culture of Consumption
History of Capitalism
European Origins of Capitalism
Culture of Overconsumption
Resource Consumption in America
Taking Stock
America’s Forests as Resources
Economics of Resource Depletion
Sustainable Development and the Steady-State Economy
Consumption Culture’s Environmental Cost: Western Coal
Elite Decision Makers and the Consumption Culture
Chapter 4
Malnutrition and the Evolution of Food Systems
Malthusian Dilemma
Evolution of Food Systems
Foraging and Subsistence Security
Shift to Farms and Gardens
Domestic Mode of Food Production
Technological Advances in Food Production
Politically Directed Food Systems
Commercialization of Grain: England, 1500–1700
Famine in the Modern World
Global Malnutrition
Persistence of Food Insecurity
Global Food Price Crisis of 2007–2008: Hunger and Land Grabs
Food Overconsumption
Political Economy of Hunger: Bangladesh
Chapter 5
Commercial Factory-Food Systems
Factory-Food Production
Factory Potatoes versus Swidden Sweet Potatoes
Commercialization of the American Food System, 1850–1890
Social Costs of the Food-Production System
Energy Costs of the Distribution System
Food Marketing
Food Quality and Market Scale
Factory-Processed Potato Chips versus Manioc Cakes
Fishing, Global Trade, and “Ghost Acres”
Limits of Food Production
Food Chain Clusters: ABCD Four and the Great Turkey Recall
Chapter 6
Population Problem
Maximum Global Population Estimates
Great Waves of Population Growth
Population Pressure, Carrying Capacity, and Optimum Population
Population Control among Foragers
Population Equilibrium in Aboriginal Australia
Neolithic Population Explosion
Population Control among Tribal Village Farmers
Island Population Problems
Case of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) “Collapse”
State Intervention and Population-Control Mechanisms
Policy Implications
Chapter 7
Poverty and Conflict
Violence and Insecurity in America
Social Order in the Tribal World
Importance of Social Equality
Conflict and Conflict Resolution
Leadership
Internal Order in Politically Centralized Societies
Cross-Cultural Perspectives on War
Scale of War and Violence in the Imperial and Commercial Worlds
Fiscal-Military State and Military-Industrial Complexes
Deadly Arsenals: The Nuclear Weapons Threat
Failing States and Social Disorder
Roots of the Security Crisis: Culture, Overpopulation, or Inequality?
Financialization Process and the Debt Crisis
Export Sugar, Starvation, and Infant Mortality in Brazil
State Terrorism and Investment Risk in Guatemala
Opulence and Deindustrialization in America
Los Angeles’s Informal Economy: The Costs of American Poverty and Homelessness
Chapter 8
The Future
Dilemma of Scale
Imagining the Global Future
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emissions Scenarios
American Intelligence Community Futures
Global Trends 2025: An American View of a Transformed World
Shell Oil’s Perspective on the Future
Shell Oil’s 2050 Scenario: Emissions-Trading Blueprints
Zero Carbon Britain 2030
Bolivia: A Plurinational Communitary State Solving Human Problems
Sustainable Global Futures
TERRA-2000 and Information Society
UN Global Environment Outlook 3 Global Futures
The Great Transition Initiative
Transforming the Corporation
Mondragón Cooperatives
Bhutan’s Middle Path
Toward a Sustainable Planetary Society
Scaling Down: The Small Nations Alternative
The United States, Happy Planets, and Billionaires
Transforming America
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
New to the 6th edition:
New concepts introduced: multi-dimensional poverty, Anthropocene and anthropogenic change, subsidiarity principle, non-linear change, planetary boundaries, precautionary principle, Great Acceleration, global market backbone, steady-state economy, right to food, food chain clusters, informal economy, TINA, carbon cap and trade regimes, embodied energy, the Uppsala Protocol, plurinational, food sovereignty
New case studies and sections: development in the Pacific Northwest and Bolivia; influence of the Big Five largest oil companies in the world; Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp and information domination; effects of land grabs and food price increases on hunger; financial corporations’ roles in the global financial collapse, giant corporations such as Cargill and ADM that dominate the world’s food supply; and informal economy, poverty and homelessness in Los Angeles.
End-of-chapter glossaries
Glossary
23 tables
48 figures and photos