This magnificent history of the desert relates the human consequences of its relentless expansion. As a result of the past several thousand years, the Great Desert now stretches in almost unbroken continuity from Mauritania's Atlantic seaboard through the Middle East and Central Asia to the Great Wall of China. The author seeks to understand how the great civilizations in the original "green lands" of North Africa, Ancient Egypt, the Middle East, South Asia, and China responded and changed under the pressure of invaders fleeing growing environmental degradation in the surrounding deserts. In fascinating detail, Brian Griffith's cultural history of the deserts of Africa and Asia shows how the expanding wasteland fundamentally reshaped people's images of nature, women, politics, and religion.

Brian Griffith studied history at the University of Alberta. He now works as a freelance editor and writer.

Introduction: The Cultural Effects of Desertification * The End of the Green Sahara * Women's Place in the Desert * The Devil's Environment * Warlords and the Politics of Scarcity * Tribes without Nature in Common * Desertification and Culture in Egypt * South Asia's Desert and Forest Heritage * Ancient Europe's Encounter with the Desert * The Age of Desert Civilization in Europe * From the Book of Desert Wisdom to the Book of Nature * The Dominator Backlash in Modern Europe, and the Possible Ecological Age * Epilogue: This Place Will Never Become Desert

Introduction: The Cultural Effects of Desertification * The End of the Green Sahara * Women's Place in the Desert * The Devil's Environment * Warlords and the Politics of Scarcity * Tribes without Nature in Common * Desertification and Culture in Egypt * South Asia's Desert and Forest Heritage * Ancient Europe's Encounter with the Desert * The Age of Desert Civilization in Europe * From the Book of Desert Wisdom to the Book of Nature * The Dominator Backlash in Modern Europe, and the Possible Ecological Age * Epilogue: This Place Will Never Become Desert