Series foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Preface -- Adaptations across millennia : Northern Europeans of the paleolithic and mesolithic eras -- From the first Europeans through the long reign of the Neanderthals -- Modern humans in Europe : new tool kits and survival strategies -- Northern Europe after the ice : humans encounter a new environment -- Early agrarian civilization : from the European Neolithic through the Roman era -- Why Europeans accepted the risks of agriculture -- Colonization or acculturation : explaining how agriculture spread -- The Neolithic "mind" and the effects of early farming -- Bronze, iron, and agrarian society -- Northern Europe on the periphery : the environmental logic of the Roman Empire -- Medieval christendom in God's creation : environmental continuities, coevolutions, and changes -- Contexts : power, wealth, and minds -- Humans and ecosystems in medieval Europe : case studies in coevolution -- Ecologies of change : natural forces and human environmental impacts in medieval history.

Denying Malthus : demographic, economic, and environmental developments from 1500 to 1800 -- Demography -- An environment under stress -- The little ice age -- Forestry and deforestation -- Wildlife -- Mining -- Fishing -- Erosion -- Agricultural revolution -- Ghost acreage, or enlarging the ecological footprint -- Urban pollution -- Disaster management -- The knowledge revolution -- Denying Malthus -- New regimes of production and pollution in the Industrial Age -- Modern agriculture : intensification and specialization -- England's industrial breakthrough : marginality and the deforestation hypothesis -- Sullied land and air : the immediate environmental effects of industry -- Urban waters and wastes -- Industry's rivers and forests -- Early efforts to conserve and preserve : the roles of leisure and science -- Conservation in the era of World War and economic crisis.

Consumer revolution and green reaction : economics, ecology, and environmentalism since World War II -- Postwar growth and degradation -- Fluctuations in fisheries -- The latest revolution in agriculture : hyperproductivity -- Sustainable subsistence : the Saami in postwar Europe -- Vanishing agrarian landscapes and the contradictions of tourism -- Environmentalism : from grassroots activism to the formation of Green Parties -- Forming the future : sustainable agriculture, hybridity, and the elusive European wilderness -- Case studies -- Case studies : Fuel resources and wastelands in the Netherlands around 1800 -- Introduction -- Low-peat digging, lake formation, and drainage in the province of Utrecht -- Deforestation and afforestation in the Veluwe -- Conclusions -- Case study : The German Green Party -- The work of a generation -- The early years : grassroots democracy and ideological schism -- The Red-Green government -- Significance of the Greens.

Case study : From nature conversation to sustainable development : the Scandinavian experience -- Scandinavian conservation and the German model -- Depression, war, and affluence -- Launching sustainable development -- Chronology -- Glossary -- Bibliographic essay -- Index -- About the authors.