The cities of West Africa's Middle Niger, only recently brought to the world's attention, make us rethink the 'whys' and the 'wheres' of ancient urbanism. They present the archaeologist with a novelty; a non-nucleated, clustered city-plan with no centralized, state-focused power. This book explores the emergence of these cities in the first millennium B.C. and the evolution of their hinterlands from the perspective of the self-organized landscape. Cities appeared in a series of profound transforms to the human-land relations and this book illustrates how each transform marked a leap in complexity.

Scientists and policymakers are beginning to understand in ever-increasing detail that environmental problems cannot be understood solely through the biophysical sciences. Environmental issues are fundamentally human issues and must be set in the context of social, political, cultural, and economic knowledge. The need both to understand how human beings in the past responded to climatic and other environmental changes and to synthesize the implications of these historical patterns for present-day sustainability spurred a conference of the world's leading scholars on the topic. The Way the Wind Blows is the rich result of that conference.Articles discuss the dynamics of climate, human perceptions of and responses to the environment, and issues of sustainability and resiliency. These themes are illustrated through discussions of human societies around the world and throughout history. (view table of contents)

Product Description: This book provides the first comprehensive history of the peoples of the Middle Niger written by an English-speaking scholar. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: "An important book at a time when the booming illicit trade in African antiquities and the despoiling of some of the continent’s prime archeological sites generate little concern in the art world." ―Foreign Affairs"This benchmark publication challenges all of us to be part of the solution...read more