Hamblin, Jacob D., ed., Roundtable Review of In the Shadow of Melting Glaciers: Climate Change and Andean Society by Mark Carey. H-Environment Roundtable Reviews 1, no. 4 (October 2011),
www.h‐net.org/~environ/roundtables/env‐roundtable‐1‐4.pdf.
Mark Carey identifies glacial retreat as a historical reality that has played a substantial role in the political, economic, and social dramas of South America. Carey’s book challenges us to think less like climate modelers and more like historians, anthropologists, and geographers. Understanding the true effects of climate change “requires knowledge of distinct societies,” he writes, along with their particular governments, institutions, scientific knowledge, religious values, and all the other trappings of life (p. 5). Doing so might seem like a daunting task, but Carey takes up the challenge with relish, and delivers an analysis of how disasters wrought by glacial retreat have refashioned both the natural and political landscapes of the Peruvian Andes in the twentieth century.
— Jacob D. Hamblin, “Introduction”
H-Environment’s Roundtable Book Reviews provide multiple perspectives on books and allow the authors the opportunity to respond. This unique dialogue can be a valuable insight into recent scholarship.
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