Social Sustainability, Past and Future: Undoing Unintended Consequences for the Earth's Survival

Sander van der Leeuw

doi:10.1017/9781108595247

In this book, Sander Van der Leeuw examines how the modern world has been caught in a socio-economic dynamic that has generated the conundrum of sustainability. Combining the methods of social science and complex systems science, he explores how western, developed nations have globalized their world view and how that view has led to the sustainability challenges we are now facing. Its central theme is the co-evolution of cognition, demography, social organization, technology and environmental impact. Beginning with the earliest human societies, Van der Leeuw links the distant past with the present in order to demonstrate how the information and communications technology revolution is undermining many of the institutional pillars on which contemporary societies have been constructed. An original view of social evolution as the history of human information-processing, his book shows how the past offers insight into the present, and can help us deal with the future. This title is also available as Open Access.

‘… an unequivocally masterful and absolutely brilliant description of dynamically complex and correlated cultural milieus and environmental systems as a cautionary tale for the ages.’

R. G. Mendoza Source: Choice

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Contents

Social Sustainability, Past and Future
pp i-i
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New Directions in Sustainability and Society - Series page
pp ii-ii
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Social Sustainability, Past and Future - Title page
pp iii-iii
Undoing Unintended Consequences for the Earth’s Survival
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Copyright page
pp iv-iv
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Dedication
pp v-vi
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Contents
pp vii-xii
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Note on the Cover Art
pp vi-vi
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Preface
pp xiii-xvi
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Part I
pp 1-118
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1 - How This Book Came About, What It Is, and What It Is Not
pp 3-14
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2 - Defining the Challenge
pp 15-29
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3 - Science and Society
pp 30-49
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4 - Transdisciplinary For and Against
pp 50-66
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5 - The Importance of a Long-Term Perspective
pp 67-78
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6 - Looking Forward to the Future
pp 79-99
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7 - The Role of the Complex (Adaptive) Systems Approach
pp 100-118
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Part II
pp 119-284
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8 - An Outline of Human Socioenvironmental Coevolution
pp 121-143
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9 - Social Systems as Self-Organizing, Dissipative Information-Flow Structures
pp 144-156
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10 - Solutions Always Cause Problems
pp 157-179
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11 - Transitions in the Organization of Human Societies
pp 180-212
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12 - Novelty, Invention, Change
pp 213-236
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13 - An Illustration of the Invention Process and Its Implications for Societal Information Processing
pp 237-262
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14 - Modeling the Dynamics of Socioenvironmental Transitions
pp 263-284
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Part III
pp 285-463
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15 - The Rise of the West as a Globally Powered Flow Structure
pp 287-303
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16 - Are We Reaching a Global Societal “Tipping Point”?
pp 304-338
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17 - Not an Ordinary Tipping Point
pp 339-361
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18 - Our Fragmenting World
pp 362-388
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19 - Is There a Way Out?
pp 389-409
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Social Sustainability, Past and Future

Undoing Unintended Consequences for the Earth's Survival

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