Sustainability or Collapse: What Can We Learn from Integrating the History of Humans and the

Rest of Nature?
Robert Costanza, Lisa Graumlich, Will Steffen, Carole Crumley, John Dearing, Kathy Hibbard,
Rik Leemans, Charles Redman and David Schimel
Ambio, Vol. 36, No. 7 (Nov., 2007), pp. 522-527. Web. 16 March 2015.

Sustainability or Collapse: What Can We Learn from Intergrating the History of Humans
and the Rest of Nature? is an academic article written by multiple scholars from Springer and
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. This article is most likely directed at researchers who are
interested in human interactions with the environment and environmentalists. This article like the
name implies is about learning from human history and using said learned knowledge to get a
better look at human interactions as a whole. We need to learn from the past. For example, a full
understanding condition requires knowledge of the evolution of the roles of technology,
population, expansions, cultural mores, climate, disease, warfare in changing human attitude, and
responses through time(522). This is the basis for the purpose of writing the article and for why
it is necessary to learn from the past. The article goes into detail describing how learning from
the past can help to understand the changes to the human body as well as the changes to how the
environment changes along with the change to how humans interact with the environment.
I think the text falls in the medium level of difficulty. It has some words and topics that a
reader who lacks a well-rounded understanding of the topics will have to do a bit more extra
research to get a better understanding of what the authors are talking about. The article is
relatively applicable to my research because it has to do with learning from humanitys past. The
only downside is that it is mainly focused on an environmental approach looking at the past
where I want to focus more on technology and social interaction although this article may be

helpful to anyone who is looking to research anything to do with human interaction with the
environment.
Other quotes
Human societies respond to environmental (e.g., climate) signals through multiple
pathways, including collapse or failure, migration and creative inventions through
discovery (523).
More recent changes from the human-environment relationship, such as accelerated
globalization and global environmental change, have deep roots in humanitys
relationship with nature over the past millennium (523).

Anthony Smith.The Nation: Invented, Imagined, Reconstructed. Millennium Journal of

International Studies Vol. 20 no. 3.(1991)n.page.Web.16 March 2015.
This article was written about the development of nations and the ideas that went into a
nations creation. Imagery has always played a crucial role in politics and nowhere more so than
in our understanding of nationalism (353). The author starts off the introduction with that line. It
is a thought provoking line that makes have to look back and examine the development of
society and how it became the way it is or works the way it does. The author comes to the
conclusion that societies developed from stable slower societies into bigger more massive
societies that are more susceptible to fast pace change.
Analysis: This text was a bit difficult to read for me due to the more complicated words that he
used in his article. This article is relevant to my inquiry question because I also plan to talk a bit
about the social side of how humanity is learning from its past and how it has developed and
changed to become a bigger society that is filled with a multitude of improved ideas and
concepts such as having an economy that is not only reliant on government or private parties.
This article can also be helpful to anyone is has questions on developing societies or just the
beginnings of nationalism.
Interesting quotes
If nationalism is primarily a tool of political interest, than what of the nation?(354).
The nation becomes the construct of the modern and an historical invention on the part
of particular categories or classes of modern societies (353).
RYDEEN, JAMES E. "Learning From The Past." American School & University 80.9
(2008): 58. SPORTDiscus with Full Text. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.

Learning From the Past written by James E. Rydeen is focused mainly on improving
education by observing and improving teaching skills and processes. It also goes into the
architectural side of improving education by making classrooms more learner-centered.
Rydeen, an architect/facility planning specialist uses certain methods of observation and
improvement to make classrooms more helpful to students. The concept is that learner-centered
classrooms address the needs of individual students (58). These ideas are mainly directed at
people who are looking to build better learning environments for others.
Analysis: This text is easy to read and understand. The article is bit short but it gets the point
across about learning on how to improve things. This article is only of minor relevance to my
inquiry question due to the fact that it focused mainly on an architectural viewpoint to learning
from the past. This article may be of use to anyone who is looking for articles on improving
learning environments or ideas on architecturally based questions.
Interesting quotes
A classroom designed according to a specific teachers request may not function
effectively with a different teacher (58).