The Garden of Their Dreams Desertification and Culture in World History

by Griffith, Brian

• ISBN13: 9781856497992
• ISBN10: 1856497992
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-08-18
• Publisher: Zed Books

Summary

This magnificent history of the desert relates the human consequences of its relentless expansion. As a result of the past several thousand years, the Great Desert now stretches in almost unbroken continuity from Mauritania's Atlantic seaboard through the Middle East and Central Asia to the Great Wall of China. The author seeks to understand how the great civilizations in the original "green lands" of North Africa, Ancient Egypt, the Middle East, South Asia, and China responded and changed under the pressure of invaders fleeing growing environmental degradation in the surrounding deserts. In fascinating detail, Brian Griffith's cultural history of the deserts of Africa and Asia shows how the expanding wasteland fundamentally reshaped people's images of nature, women, politics, and religion.

Author Biography

Brian Griffith studied history at the University of Alberta. He now works as a freelance editor and writer.

Table of Contents

Prologue	8	(2)
Cultural Consequences of Desertification	10	(8)
The Wasteland's Refugees	10	(1)
Social Costs of Environmental Destruction	11	(2)
The Different Histories of Major and Minor Deserts	13	(1)
The Desert's Wisdom for the Future	14	(4)
The End of the Green Sahara	18	(5)
Factors of Human Error	19	(2)
The Burden of Hope	21	(2)
Women's Place in the Desert	23	(21)
Women's Ways of Production Dry Up	23	(5)
Women's in a Herdsman's World	28	(1)
Women's Rights in Arid Lands	29	(10)
Costs of Devaluing Women	39	(2)
Women's Value in the Desert Market Economy	41	(2)
Problems of the Past or the Future?	43	(1)
The Devil's Environment	44	(15)
The Realm of Fear	45	(3)
Dead Earth and Holy Heaven	48	(3)
Anthropocentric Culture in an Inanimate World	51	(3)
Salvation in the God-forsaken Lands	54	(5)
Warlords and the Politics of Scar city	59	(18)
Virtues Appropriate to Scarcity	59	(3)
The Receding Agricultural Frontier	62	(1)
The Barbarians beyond the Walls	63	(4)
``Amazons'' and the Male Elite	67	(5)
Rulers of the Arid Zone	72	(5)
Tribes without Nature in Common	77	(26)
The Community as Everything	77	(5)
The True Social Contract	82	(19)
The Day of Judgment	101	(1)
The Common Earth in Other Lands	102	(1)
Desertification and Culture in Ancient Egypt	103	(23)
The Saharan Diaspora	104	(4)
Women of Old Egypt	108	(2)
The Nature Observatory	110	(5)
Creation and Enslavement of Agricultural Egypt	115	(6)
Erasure of Heretical Learning	121	(5)
South Asia's Desert and Forest Heritage	126	(41)
The Conquerors' Women	130	(5)
The Submersion of Dravidian Pakistan	135	(4)
The Aryan Waves	139	(6)
Resurgence of Aboriginal Religion	145	(3)
Hindustan's Shrinking Domain	148	(9)
South Asian Ecology in the Age of Development	157	(10)
The Impact of Desiccation on China	167	(44)
China's Heritage of Warlord Rulers	167	(8)
The Desert at the Barbarians' Backs	175	(3)
The Barbarians' Answers to Poverty	178	(3)
The Warlords' Women	181	(5)
Village China's Age of the Goddess	186	(4)
Partnership and Dominator Forms of Chinese Religion	190	(10)
Modern China's Assault on the Desert	200	(11)
Locusts and Desert Saints in North Africa	211	(30)
Morocco's Migrants from the Sahara	211	(4)
The Ancient Economy of North Africa	215	(2)
Rome's Breadbasket	217	(3)
The Island of Rebels	220	(5)
Political Evolution of Islamic North Africa	225	(11)
Possible Diversification of the Desert Economy	236	(5)
Ancient Europe's Encounters with Desert Civilizations	241	(39)
Desert Influence from Two Directions	241	(1)
The Backdrop of Old Europe	242	(3)
The Advancing Steppe and Its People	245	(6)
Indo-European Culture	251	(3)
The Forced Marriage of Gods and Goddesses in Greece	254	(9)
The Mediterranean's Great Military Empires	263	(17)
The Age of Desert Civilization in Europe	280	(31)
Climatic Factors in the Great Migrations	280	(1)
The Volkerwanderung	281	(4)
The Near Eastern Cultural Conquest of Europe	285	(12)
Europe's Women in a Desert Civilization	297	(14)
From the Book of Desert Wisdom to the Book of Nature	311	(20)
Fruitful Dilemmas of Medievals Christian Philosophy	311	(2)
The Recollection of Classical Thought	313	(3)
The Rebirth of Natural Science	316	(3)
The Crisis of Near Eastern-Style Authority	319	(4)
The Learning Economy	323	(8)
The Dominator Backlash in Modern Europe	331	(9)
The Resurgence of Aryan Identity	332	(5)
The Master Race	337	(3)
The Possible Ecological Age	340	(6)
Story 1: Nature's ``Dot Matrix'' in the American Desert	343	(2)
Story 2: Mama Ndolo's Women	345	(1)
Bibliography	346	(12)
Index	358