All rights reserved. Copyright © 1996 by Johns Hopkins University Press. Cover illustration: Satyr or Pan as an Atlas-type figure, first century BC. Marble. H 43.2 cm. Collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California.
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Hughes, J. Donald. Pan’s Travail: Environmental Problems of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
The environmental history of ancient civilizations is an underrepresented topic. This book examines the environmental history of the classical period and argues that the decline of ancient civilizations resulted in part from exploitation of the natural world. Focusing on Greece and Rome, as well as areas subject to their influences, Hughes offers a detailed look at the impact of humans and their technologies on the ecology of the Mediterranean basin. He also compares the ancient world’s environmental problems to those of other eras and discusses attitudes toward nature expressed in Greek and Latin literature. (Based Johns Hopkins University Press website text).
J. Donald Hughes is professor of history at the University of Denver.