Overview

In this book, Sander Van der Leeuw examines how the modern world has been caught in a socio-economic dynamic that has generated the conundrum of sustainability. Combining the methods of social science and complex systems science, he explores how western, developed nations have globalized their world view and how that view has led to the sustainability challenges we are now facing. Its central theme is the co-evolution of cognition, demography, social organization, technology and environmental impact. Beginning with the earliest human societies, Van der Leeuw links the distant past with the present in order to demonstrate how the information and communications technology revolution is undermining many of the institutional pillars on which contemporary societies have been constructed. An original view of social evolution as the history of human information-processing, his book shows how the past offers insight into the present, and can help us deal with the future. This title is also available as Open Access.

Full Product Details

Author:   Sander van der Leeuw (Arizona State University)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 21.50cm , Height: 4.00cm , Length: 25.00cm
Weight:   0.700kg
ISBN:  

9781108498692

ISBN 10:   1108498698
Pages:   350
Publication Date:   13 February 2020
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

1. How this book came about, what it is, and what it is not; 2. Defining the challenge; 3. Science and society; 4. Transdisciplinary pro and contra; 5. The importance of a long-term perspective; 6. Looking forward into the future; 7. The complex (adaptive) systems approach; 8. Human socio-environmental coevolution; 9. Social systems as dissipative flow structures; 10. Solutions always cause problems; 11. Transitions in the organization of societies; 12. Novelty, invention, change; 13. The invention process and its implications for societal information processing; 14. Modeling socio-environmental transitions; 15. Rise of the West as a global flow structure; 16. Are we reaching a global societal tipping point?; 17. Not an ordinary tipping point; 18. Our fragmenting world; 19. Is there a way out?; 20. Green growth; 21. Conclusion.

Reviews

'... an unequivocally masterful and absolutely brilliant description of dynamically complex and correlated cultural milieus and environmental systems as a cautionary tale for the ages.' R. G. Mendoza, Choice

'… an unequivocally masterful and absolutely brilliant description of dynamically complex and correlated cultural milieus and environmental systems as a cautionary tale for the ages.' R. G. Mendoza, Choice

Author Information

Sander van der Leeuw is Foundation Professor in the Schools of Sustainability and Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. Trained as an archaeologist and historian, he specializes in long-term interactions between humans and their environments and pioneering the application of the Complex Adaptive Systems approach to socio-environmental challenges, technology, and innovation. Van der Leeuw is the author and editor of eighteen books. In 2012, he was awarded the prize for 'Champion of the Earth for Science and Innovation' by the United Nations Environment Program.

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