Madhav Gadgil

This Fissured Land, first published in 1992, presents an interpretative history ecological history of the Indian subcontinent. It offers a theory of ecological prudence and profligacy, testing this theory across the wide sweep of South Asian history. The book especially focuses on the use and abuse of forest resources. In Part One, the authors present a general theory of ecological history. Part Two provides a fresh interpretative history of pre-modern India along with an ecological interpretation of the caste system. In Part Three, the authors draw upon a huge wealth of source material in their socio-ecological analysis of the modes of resource use introduced in India by the British. The Second Edition comes with a new Preface by the authors.

Environmental destruction is seen a matter of worldwide concern but as a Third World problem.Ecology and Equity explores the most ecologically complex country in the world. India's peoples range from technocrats to hunter-gathers and its environments from dense forest to wasteland. The bookanalyses the use and abuse of nature on the sub-continent to reveal the interconnections of social and environmental conflict on the global scale. The authors argue that the root of this conflict is competition within different social groups and between different economic interests for natural resources. Radical both in its critique of the causes of crisis in India and in its proposals for ecological reform, Ecology and Equity is essential reading for all concerned for the Third World's in the world.

Ecologist Madhav Gadgil and historian Ramachandra Guha offer fresh perspectives both on the ecological history of India and on theoretical issues of interest to environmental historians regardless of geographical specialization. Juxtaposing data from India with the ecological literature on lifestyles as diverse as those of modern Americans and Amazonian Indians, the authors analyze the social conflicts that have emerged over environmental exploitation and explore the impact of changing patterns of resource use on human societies. They present a socio-ecological analysis of the modes of resource use introduced to India by the British, and explore popular resistance to state environmental policies in both the colonial and post-colonial periods.