Earth Science, Supercontinents, and Pre-Human History! Congratulations to Dr. Pratik Chakrabarti (NEH Cullen Chair in History & Medicine) on publication of his new co-edited book, (University of Pittsburgh Press).
This volume explores the ancient landmass of Gondwanaland, which began to break up two hundred million years ago into what would become present-day Africa, Antarctica, Australasia, South America, and South Asia鈥攁 prehuman 鈥淕lobal South鈥� connected territorially across the southern hemisphere. Named by European geologists in the nineteenth century after the Gondwana region in central India, Gondwanaland has spawned rich and unexpected histories in which the supercontinent has been mythologized and reinvented in response to contemporary geopolitical circumstances. Bridging history, geography, and the geosciences, this volume analyzes the multidimensional interpretations of Gondwanaland in the modern world, tracing its diverse resonances and legacies in politics, science, culture, and the environment across five continents. By reassembling Gondwanaland into a hemispheric history of the southern Earth, this collection considers how deep geological pasts continue to inform geographical and political imaginaries into the present.
The book has already received high praise. Dr. Jim Secord (Emeritus Professor of the University of Cambridge) comments, 鈥淔rom South Africa to central India, from Argentinian Patagonia to the Australian Outback, Gondwanaland recreates an ancient supercontinent as a lived reality uniting past and present. This landmark volume provides a new vision of the history of the earth sciences and moves it to the center of global history.鈥�