This book is an overview of human history in relationship to the natural environment, from origins to the present, with case studies of different societies in each period

J. Donald Hughes is John Evans Distinguished Professor of History, University of Denver. Author of What is Environmental History? (Polity, 2006), The Mediterranean: An Environmental History (ABC-CLIO, 2005), and Pan's Travail: Environmental Problems of the Ancient Greeks and Romans (Johns Hopkins, 1994), he is a founding member of the American and European Societies for Environmental History and past editor of Environmental History

1. Introduction: History and Ecology 2. Primal Harmony 3. The Great Divorce of Culture and Nature 4. Ideas and Impacts 5. The Middle Ages 6. The Transformation of the Biosphere 7. Exploitation and Conservation 8. Modern Environmental Problems 9. Present and Future 10. Conclusion