ABSTRACT
The concept of sustainability has often been used in a rather cavalier fashion: for example, to demonstrate philosophical points about all societies, without grounding the observations in historical time, or to contrast other societies with our own, thereby urging a political agenda through implied comparison. The concept of sustainability has rarely been advanced by such sweeping, and ahistorical, comparisons. In particular, there has been a woeful neglect of what sustainability might mean for other people, in other cultures, or in other times.
