Abstract

THOMAS, Julia Adeney. Economic History in the Anthropocene: Four Models. Desacatos [online]. 2017, n.54, pp.28-39. ISSN 2448-5144.

Under the global threat of the Anthropocene, environmental history and economic history are coming together to understand our predicament. This new field of “eco economic history” traces the ecological impact of the startling rise in global economic productivity over the last two centuries. No longer is nature treated as an externality and damage to non-renewable resources discounted. I identify four basic eco-economic models emerging in this literature. The one I call retro modernist returns us to a Euro-centered world for both the problem’s origins and its remedies. Three more convincing models, double-layered modernity, parallel modernities, and multi-scalar approaches, expand our understanding of how we arrived at this catastrophic juncture and what we might do about it.

Keywords : Anthropocene; climate change; economic history; environmental history; Asia; Japan; China; Africa; development.