Human Shore
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€29.99
A01=John R. Gillis
africa
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
american coasts
Author_John R. Gillis
automatic-update
bays
beach
boat
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBG
Category=NHB
cities
civilization
climate change
coast
coastal
context
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
discovery
eden
empire
environmentalism
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
exploration
Format=BB
Format_Hardback
global warming
historical
history
human society
humanity
Language_English
living locations
mass movement
natural environment
ocean
PA=Available
population
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
resorts
sail
sailor
sea
seaside
ship
softlaunch
sustainable
understanding
united states of america
usa
water
Product details
- ISBN 9780226922232
- Format: Hardback
- Weight: 482g
- Dimensions: 17 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 17 Oct 2012
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Since before recorded history, people have congregated near water. But as growing populations around the globe continue to flow toward the coasts on an unprecedented scale and climate change raises water levels, our relationship to the sea has begun to take on new and potentially catastrophic dimensions. The latest generation of coastal dwellers lives largely in ignorance of the history of those who came before them, the natural environment, and the need to live sustainably on the world's shores. Humanity has forgotten how to live with the oceans. In "The Human Shore", a magisterial account of 100,000 years of seaside civilization, John R. Gillis recovers the coastal experience from its origins among the people who dwelled along the African shore to the bustle and glitz of today's megacities and beach resorts. He takes readers from discussion of the possible coastal location of the Garden of Eden to the ancient communities that have existed along beaches, bays, and bayous since the beginning of human society to the crucial role played by coasts during the age of discovery and empire.
An account of the mass movement of whole populations to the coasts in the last half-century brings the story of coastal life into the present. Along the way, Gillis addresses humankind's changing relationship to the sea from an environmental perspective, laying out the history of the making and remaking of coastal landscapes-the creation of ports, the draining of wetlands, the introduction and extinction of marine animals, and the invention of the beach - while giving us a global understanding of our relationship to the water. Learned and deeply personal, "The Human Shore" is more than a history: it is the story of a space that has been central to the attitudes, plans, and existence of those who live and dream at land's end.
John R. Gillis is the author of Islands of the Mind; A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values; and Commemorations. A professor of history emeritus at Rutgers University, he now divides his time between two coasts: Northern California and Maine.
