Landesque Capital

"Landesque Capital: The Historical Ecology of Enduring Landscape Modifications is a timely and important edited volume investigating the theoretical concept of landesque capital while relying on a global cross-cultural set of empirical studies. ... The volume provides a much needed bottom-up global perspective on sustainable food production systems as described by editors N. Thomas Hakansson and Mats Widgren. While this book is not about sustainability, the contributions are central to any discussion of global sustainability because they shine critical light on regional landscape perspectives, culture, and land use." --Timothy Murtha, Environment and Society "This book, representing fresh work from several academic disciplines, on case studies from several continents, brings readers up to date with the current debates on the concept of 'landesque capital.' It shows convincingly how the features of an agrarian landscape -- terraces, irrigation ditches, and so forth -- are embedded both in social systems and in nature simultaneously. The book realizes the potential of historical ecology to illuminate both past and present, both locally and globally." --J.R. McNeill, Georgetown University "Landesque Capital is a delightful, diverse and invaluable book offering a detailed analysis of investment by rural people in their land to meet economic, cultural and spiritual needs. The book tests and demonstrates the value of the concept of landesque capital in theory and in practice, through case studies of landscape and agricultural history from Sweden to Solomon Islands, via Africa, Asia and Latin America. This is scholarship of a high order: theoretically sharp, empirically deep and highly relevant in a world searching for sustainability." --Bill Adams, University of Cambridge "If a diverse group of scholars representing a variety of allied disciplines and working in assorted regions and time periods finds it a (productive and stimulating) challenge to unify their approaches to enduring landscape modifications, this is testament to the difficulty of simultaneously grappling with the conceptual and methodological challenges posed by palimpsest landscapes; the interplay of practice, process, and product; and an insidious but useful Cartesian nature-culture separation. The editors and contributors are to be commended for tackling this knotty problem." --Journal of Anthropological Research "Hakansson and Widgren consider well landesque capital, an underused concept critical for scholars studying the political economy and ecology of traditional societies. They show how an approach deriving broadly from landesque capital is vital to issues of sustainability and control." --Dr. Timothy Earle, Northwestern University

Edited by Hkansson, N Thomas; Widgren, Mats