By Bret Wallach
This compelling ebook deals a clean point of view on how the wildlife has been imagined, outfitted on, and reworked by way of people all through heritage and worldwide. insurance levels from the earliest societies to preindustrial China and India, from the emergence in Europe of the fashionable international to the modern worldwide economic climate. the point of interest is on what the locations now we have created say approximately us: our trust platforms and the methods we make a dwelling. additionally explored are the social and environmental outcomes of human actions, and the way conflicts over the that means of development are mirrored in today's city, rural, and suburban landscapes. Written in a hugely attractive kind, this excellent undergraduate-level human geography textual content is illustrated with over 25 maps and 70 photographs.
Note: Many extra images regarding the topics addressed within the publication, and a hyperlink to updates keyed to every bankruptcy, can be found on the author's web site (www.greatmirror.com.)
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Extra info for Understanding the Cultural Landscape
Example text
Although each peasant had his own strips in each of the fields, 40 I. ANTHROPOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS In Haryana, the state immediately west of Delhi, a farmer works hard to position his plow. each field was planted homogeneously. It was not a system that welcomed innovation, but it was stable. It survived until fallows were bypassed with the introduction of soil-enriching legumes and imported or manufactured fertilizer. The Chinese added the use of human waste—the standard euphemism is nightsoil. Even today, as China modernizes as an extraordinary rate, men collect buckets of soupy human excreta from public latrines and carry it to the fields.
The turkey, meanwhile, is an American bird, but in the confusion surrounding its introduction to Europe the idea took hold that it had come from the mysterious East, which is why we call it the turkey. ” The French followed the Turks, perhaps because they mistakenly assumed that the Turks knew what they were talking about. Then there’s the South American guinea pig, mistakenly named as though it came from West Africa. DIFFUSION We’ve already touched on how grain from the western side of the Fertile Crescent moved to the eastern side and was incorporated into mixed farming.
One stretches from India eastward to southern China: it is the home of the water buffalo and zebu cattle, as well as one home of the pig, dog, cat, and chicken. A second hearth is central Asia, from the Ukraine through to the Gobi: This is the home of Taurus cattle (the parent of the breeds raised today) and the yak, plus one home of goats, sheep, horses, and camels. A third is the Middle East, one home of pigs, cats, dogs, horses, goats, and sheep. The last and least important hearth is Mesoamerica and the Andes, from which come llamas, guinea pigs, and, most important to world agriculture today, turkeys.