The Way the Wind Blows

This book not only represents the 'state of the art' of current discussions, but it also sets the agenda for future thinking and research on how humans produce and respond to climate change. . . . This book defines and occupies new ground...[and] will mark a turning point in the way scholars and students from a variety of disciplines study and understand the interaction of people and their environments.

Roderick J. McIntosh is professor of anthropology at Rice University. Joseph A. Tainter is project leader of Cultural Heritage Research at the Rocky Mountain Research Station. Susan Keech McIntosh is professor of anthropology at Rice University and the director of Scientia: an institute for the history of science and culture.

List of Illustrations List of Tables Notes on the Contributors 1. Climate, History, and Human Action, by Roderick J. McIntosh, Joseph A. Tainter, and Susan Keech Mc Intosh 1. Climate, Environment, and Human Action 2. Climate Variability During the Holocene: An Update, by Robert B. Dunbar 3. Complexity Theory and Sociocultural Change in the American Southwest, by Jeffrey S. Dean 2. Social Memory 4. Environmental Perception and Human Responses in History and Prehistory, by Fekri Hassan 5. Social Memory in Mande, by Roderick J. McIntosh 6. Memories, Abstractions, and Conceptualization of Ecological Crisis in the Mande World, by Tereba Togola 7. From Garden to Globe: Linking Time and Space with Meaning and Memory, by Carole L. Crumley 8. Chinese Attitudes Toward Climate, by Cho-yun Hsu 3. Cultural Responses to Climate Change 9. Three Rivers: Subregional Variations in Earth System Impacts in the Southwestern Maya Lowlands (Candelaria, Usumacinta, and Champoton Watersheds), by Joel D. Gunn and William J. Folan 10. The Lowland Maya Civilization: Historical Consciousness and Environment, by David Freidel and Justine Shaw 11. Social Responses to Climate Change Among the Chumash Indians of South Central California, by John R. Johnson 4. History and Contemporary Affairs 12. Global Change, History and Sustainability, by Joseph A. Tainter 13. Land Degradation as a Socionatural Process, by S.E. van der Leeuw and the ARCHAEOMEDES Research Team Index