Agricultural History Review, Volume 68 Part 2 (2020), p. 319

Reinventing sustainability is a vibrant, fascinating, and above all optimistic exploration of past successes in human relationships with local environments. The book takes a truly multidisciplinary perspective, with a substantial bibliography drawing upon literature from archaeology to urban planning, anthropology to water management, and agronomy to politics. The author’s work falls primarily at the crossover of environmental sciences and archaeology, but owes a great deal to scholarship in an impressive range of disciplines. Taking a wide view of the problems of climate change and population growth, Erika Guttmann-Bond draws examples from across the globe, and works on a time scale from the origins of farming, 11,000 years ago, right up to the present day, to argue that the technology and knowledge needed to improve countryside management already exists. Archaeology, she argues, holds the key to sustainable future land management and design, which are both beneficial to the environment and cost-effective.

The book is richly illustrated and accessibly written, introducing the reader to the key disciplines of archaeology and anthropology in a way that is understandable for the non-specialist. It includes inset boxes to explain key terms and ideas, and gives brief but readily understandable explanations of how archaeologists find information and come to conclusions in their research. The work makes a convincing case for drawing on multiple disciplines to fully understand the big issues we as a society face today, and for the use of archaeology in particular. Guttmann-Bond acknowledges the impact of Rachel Carson’s Silent spring in raising awareness of the problems associated with industrialized agriculture. However, reading as a historian, a more detailed explanation of where the work sits within the wider literature of the disciplines it incorporates would be appreciated.

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to ‘Learning from the past’. The book’s focus on farming as a means to positive change as well as a cause of negative environmental impacts is welcome, and acknowledges the multifaceted nature of this complex and often controversial interrelationship. The author uses this relationship to frame the following discussion, and provides an interesting introduction to archaeological methodologies and the science of climate change. These sections provide a firm foundation from which to understand the numerous case studies given in the following chapters, without drifting too far from the focus of the book as a whole.

Chapters 2 and 3 cover two contrasting environments; ‘Wetlands and wetland agriculture’ and ‘Farming the desert.’ These chapters reveal one of the key themes of the past, present, and future with regard to environmental management, to which the book returns frequently: water. The examples of past management practices are drawn from across the world, showcasing the truly global scope of the book. Accounts of archaeological methods and discoveries, supported by a robust bank of statistics, are brought to life by a liberal scattering of first-hand accounts of different landscapes from history, as well as by the lively style of the author. This allows a great deal of ground to be covered, including the impact of cultural norms on local governance of water resources and the way communities use their landscapes, beginning to add an anthropological element to the discussion of physical evidence and agricultural processes.

Guttmann-Bond uses chapter 4 (‘Food security’) to set up the second half of the book, which highlights practical suggestions for the future. In this and the following two chapters, she advocates the utilization of some aspects of early technology alongside new discoveries in agroecology, science, and architecture to create a more sustainable future. Chapter 4 tackles the impact of the industrial farming techniques introduced during the ‘Green Revolution’ of the 1960s and 1970s, which is posited as a point of disruption to the traditional, sustainable systems of the past in terms of environmental management and cultural heritage. The theme of culture, interwoven with archaeological and biological evidence, is one of the great strengths of this book, reinforcing the broad, multidisciplinary nature of Guttmann-Bond’s insights into the nature of sustainability.

Chapter 5 (‘Saving the soil’), follows on from the questions of diminishing soil quality under industrialized agriculture addressed in the previous chapter. It makes a particularly interesting case for an appreciation of the soil as a valuable resource in and of itself, in addition to being a crucial source for knowledge about the past. It reflects the author’s clear passion for the earth, and the number of clearly explained illustrations devoted to bringing this much-maligned substance to life, including soil samples under a microscope, are, once again, extremely useful for readers who do not have a background in archaeology or soil science.

Vernacular architecture is the theme for chapter 6. Here, the ingenious solutions found by past cultures to the everyday problems of living in urban spaces in harsh or potentially volatile localities are explored. The chapter addresses issues of comfort as well as of safety, looking at means of providing cooling ventilation and retaining warmth as well as resilience in the face of disaster events. This is something of a departure from the largely agricultural focus of the preceding chapters, and serves to highlight the influence of anthropology on the book as a whole, and the influence of cultural factors on the implementation of the suggested solutions to the environmental problems of the present and future.

In the final chapter, ‘The Tao of environmental management,’ the threads of this geographically and temporally wide-ranging, multidisciplinary study are brought together. This chapter is written from a more theoretical perspective, highlighting E. O. Wilson’s concept of ‘biophilia’: the need for humans to ‘affiliate’ with other living organisms, and, crucially, the notion of symbiosis. Despite the bleak future sketched out in the subsections on oil, and biodiversity and climate change, the book ends on an optimistic note, citing the progress made by the environmental movement since the 1970s.

Guttmann-Bond succeeds admirably and persuasively in her ambition to offer practical solutions from the past to modern environmental management issues. At each stage, convincing connections are made between present problems and past solutions, but the author is careful to restate, several times, that she is not advocating for the rejection of science and innovation. But rather for an approach to current environmental issues based in a thorough understanding of past successes, and an adaptation of traditional practices to provide both environmental benefits and cost-effective modern agricultural techniques. Reinventing sustain ability is an engaging collection of case studies which show how archaeological research can inform future sustainability in agriculture and human lifestyles. It will undoubtedly serve as a jumping-off point for future research and future innovation.