From Angkor Wat to Agent Orange, Southeast Asia An Environmental History tells the story of some of the most dramatic effects humans have had on the natural and developed environment anywhere in the world and examines the ways in which environmental factors have helped shape the culture, politics, and societies of the region. Ever since the first humanlike creatures arrived some 80,000 years ago, Southeast Asia's varied and challenging environment has helped shape the course of human destiny. From the importance of its spices to 17th-century Europeans to the jungle canopies that sheltered Communist insurgents throughout much of the 20th century, the region's environment has often proven decisive in human affairs. Packed with key facts and analysis, Southeast Asia provides an expert guide to the complex interplay between human societies and the environment from Burma to the Philippines and from Vietnam to Indonesia. How has the environment helped shape politics, trade, and religion? What are the likely consequences of ongoing deforestation for Southeast Asia's people and animals? Part of ABC-CLIO's Nature and Human Societies series, this work charts the region's environmental history from prehistory to modern times and is essential reading for students and experts alike.

Throughout all ages, the activities of mankind have weighed heavily upon the environment. In turn, changes in that environment have favoured the rise of certain social groups and limited the actions of others. Despite this, environmental history has remained a 'blind spot' for most social and economic historians. This is to be regretted, as the various and unequal effects of environmental change often explain the strengths and weaknesses of certain social groups, irrespective of their being defined along the lines of class, gender and ethnicity. This volume brings together the expertise of social and environmental historians in an effort to assess the extent to which transnational agents changed socioecological space as a consequence of globalization since the Late Middle Ages.

For centuries, reports of man-eating tigers in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore have circulated, shrouded in myth and anecdote. This fascinating book documents the "big cat"-human relationship in this area during its 350-year colonial period, re-creating a world in which people feared tigers but often came into contact with them, because these fierce predators prefer habitats created by human interference. Peter Boomgaard shows how people and tigers adapted to each other's behavior, each transmitting this learning from one generation to the next. He discusses the origins of stories and rituals about tigers and explains how cultural biases of Europeans and class differences among indigenous populations affected attitudes toward the tigers. He provides figures on their populations in different eras and analyzes the factors contributing to their present status as an endangered species. Interweaving stories about Malay kings, colonial rulers, tiger charmers, and bounty hunters with facts about tigers and their way of life, the book is an engrossing combination of environmental and micro history.

This collection of essays demonstrate how flows of trade, cities, and kinship relations hang together, and how the study of one topic opens new vistas on the other two, revealing causal links that otherwise would have remained hidden.