CONTENTS

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. THE CALIFORNIA WORLD HISTORY LIBRARY ii
3. CONTENTS vii
4. FIGURES, MAPS, AND TABLES ix
5. PREFACE xi
6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv
7. Part one: Overview
8. 1. Introduction: World History and Environmental History 3
9. 2. The Big Story: Human History, Energy Regimes, and the Environment 33
10. 3. Toward a Global System of Property Rights in Land 54
11. Part two. Rivers, regions, and developmentalism
12. 4. The Transformation of the Middle Eastern Environment, 1500 b.c.e.–2000 c.e. 81
13. 5. The Transformation of China’s Environment, 1500–2000 118
14. 6. The Rhine as a World River 165
15. 7. Continuity and Transformation: Colonial Rice Frontiers and Their Environmental Impact on the Great River Deltas of Mainland Southeast Asia 191
16. Part three. Landscapes, conquests, communities, and the politics of knowledge
17. 8. Beyond the Colonial Paradigm: African History and Environmental History in Large-Scale Perspective 211
18. 9. Environmental Histories of India: Of States, Landscapes, and Ecologies 229
19. 10. Latin American Environmental History: A Shifting Old/New Field 255
20. 11. The Predatory Tribute-Taking State: A Framework for Understanding Russian Environmental History 276
21. Select Bibliography 317
22. List of Contributors 337
23. Index 339