Global Environments through the Quaternary

When Andrew Goudie started to write the first edition of Environmental Change in the hot dry, summer of 1976, he was conscious that a revolution was already taking place in our knowledge of past environmental changes, but the literature was still relatively modest in amount and there had been very few attempts to synthesise the new knowledge that had been gained by the study of ocean floor sediments, innovative dating technologies, and improved methods for environmental reconstruction. Moreover, environmental change was still regarded by many as a rather esoteric field of research.

Since that time, progress has been enormous, new approaches have been developed, a suite of journals devoted to the Quaternary has appeared, and so it is very challenging to keep up with the avalanche of literature and the proliferation of ideas. At the start of the twenty first century one author could no longer hope to cover the range of material required. However, it is precisely because of the rapid changes in the field that students needed to have a modern synthesis.

For that reason, Andrew approached Adrian Parker and David Anderson to help him produce Global Environments through the Quaternary. They were able to bring new experience and new expertise to the project, partly through their technical competence, partly through the particular time-scales they had investigated, partly because of the geographical regions in which they had worked and partly because of their range of teaching experience.

This new book has some similarities with that first published in 1977 ¿ not least its desire to be international in scope and broad ranging in terms of the time-scales treated and the environmental phenomena covered. However, it is completely different in physical format and precious little material has survived from the first edition. It is a hugely exciting field to be in.

David Anderson, Andrew Goudie and Adrian Parker
April 2007

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