Environmental Change in Perspective: the Last 10,000 Years * Environmental Systems and Processes: Some Basic Principles * Hunters and Hunter-gatherers * The extinction of big game species in North America at the start of the holocene * Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and forests in Britain * Early Agricultural Societies * The origins and spread of agriculture in the Near East and Europe * The abandonment of the British uplands during the later Bronze Age * The eruption of Thera and its impact on Minoan civilization * Early Civilizations and Empires * The effects of agriculture in the Tigris-Euphrates basin: the first towns and civilizations * The collapse of the Maya civilization * The 'ruined' landscapes of the mediterranean: environmental deterioration in classical and later times * Medieval and Early-modern Societies * Viking-age Iceland and Greenland: medieval societies at the margins * The little Ice Age and its impact in Europe * The colonisation of the Atlantic and Caribbean islands * Modern Developed Societies * Tourism in the Alps * Drought on the American great plains * Trees, woodland and identity in the British landscape * The Modern Less-developed World * Sea-level change and vulnerable coastal areas * The dessication of the Aral sea * Hard engineering: the Three Gorges Dam in China * Postscript: Environmental Change and the Future