How native people--from the Miwoks of Yosemite to the Maasai of eastern Africa--have been displaced from their lands in the name of conservation. Since 1900, more than 108,000 officially protected conservation areas have been established worldwide, largely at the urging of five international conservation organizations. About half of these areas were occupied or regularly used by indigenous peop…
Volatility in commodity prices has been accompanied by perpetual renegotiation of contracts between private investors in natural resource production and the governments of states with mineral and energy wealth. When prices skyrocket, governments want a larger share of revenues, sometimes to the point of nationalization or expropriation; when prices fall, larger state participation becomes a bur…
"The ambition of this book is to examine in close detail the whole range of epistemological, political and ethical uncertainties that are being raised by big data in our time"--OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.
Based on papers given at the 2000 conference held in Bloomington, Indiana.Globalization, population growth, and resource depletion are drawing increased attention to the importance of common resources such as forests, water resources, and fisheries. It is critical that these resources be governed in an equitable and sustainable way. The Commons in the New Millennium presents cutting-edge resear…
To understand the Information Age one must understand the concept of information as a resource. Like other basic resources, such as energy and materials, information resources are building blocks of society. But unlike energy and materials, they are far more abundant and versatile. Information resources include computers, telecommunications, the mass media, and financial services, all created o…
Water lies at the intersection of landscape and infrastructure, crossing between visible and invisible domains of urban space, in the tanks and buckets of the global South and the vast subterranean technological networks of the global North. In this book, Matthew Gandy considers the cultural and material significance of water through the experiences of six cities: Paris, Berlin, Lagos, Mumbai, …
"The future is not what it used to be because we can no longer rely on the comforting assumption that it will resemble the past. Past abundance of fuel, for example, does not imply unending abundance. Infinite growth on a finite planet is not possible. In this book, J?org Friedrichs argues that industrial society itself is transitory, and he examines the prospects for our civilization's coming …
In the 20th century, science and technology became central to territorial transformation and in turn to state building. This was no less true for the Francoist regime. Engineers were not just working 'under' the dictatorship, but became active participants within it. This book traces concrete material objects in their way from laboratories onto the Spanish landscape. The material history of the…
Political scientists have long been concerned about the tension between institutional fragmentation and policy coordination in the U.S. bureaucracy. The literature is rife with examples of agencies competing with each other or asserting their independence, while cooperation is relatively rare. This is of particular importance in policy areas such as biodiversity, where species, habitats, and ec…
Extensively updated and expanded edition of the author's Energy in world history (Boulder : Westview Press, 1994).Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy …