“In Mesoamerica, timekeeping provided the stimulus that accounting gave to the Middle East. Like contemporary astrologers, the Olmec, Maya, and Zapotec believed that celestial phenomena like the phases of the moon and Venus affect daily life. To measure and predict… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“A milpa is a field, usually but not always recently cleared, in which farmers plant a dozen crops at once, including maize, avocados, multiple… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“In the classic successional course, each suite of plants replaces its predecessor, until the arrival of the final, “climax” ecosystem, usually tall forest.” — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
In 1491 the Inka ruled the greatest empire on earth. Bigger than Ming Dynasty China, bigger than Ivan the Great’s expanding Russia, bigger than Songhay in the Sahel or powerful Great Zimbabwe in the West Africa tablelands, bigger than the cresting Ottoman Empire, bigger than the Triple Alliance (as the Aztec empire is more precisely known), bigger by far than… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share
The Paris pact was correctly described by its opponents - greens and anti-greens alike - as toothless. But it was also the first time… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“Drought indeed stressed the system, but the societal disintegration in the south was due not to surpassing inherent ecological limits but the political failure… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“The Maya collapsed because they overshot the carrying capacity of their environment. They exhausted their resource base, began to die of starvation and thirst,… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
Prediction is a mug's game, but taking the side of water polluters has not been a winning political strategy for 50 years. Presidents Reagan,… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
The queue of activists, interest groups, and ordinary people wringing their hands over what a President Donald Trump might do in office is long,… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“The varieties are not like islands, carefully apart,” Perales explained. “They are more like gentle hills in a landscape—you see them, they are clearly… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“export of food from Ireland during the famine: 430,000 tons of grain in 1846 and 1847, the two worst years. “The Almighty indeed sent… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“all states can be parceled into four types: pluralist, in which the state is seen by its people as having moral legitimacy; populist, in which government is viewed as an expression of the people’s will; “great beast,” in which the rulers’ power depends on using force to keep the populace cowed; and “great fraud,” in which the elite uses smoke… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share
The way I think of it, economics and ecology occupy two intellectual silos, isolated from each other. Even when they do take each other… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
