ABSTRACT
In Chapter 6 we introduced the idea that the capitalist world economy experiences waves of growth and decline and that each new growth period is driven by economic and social restructuring. Chapter 7 covered the last ‘short wave’ in the world economy, which entered decline in the 1970s. The 1980s witnessed a new wave of growth that involved such dramatic economic and social restructuring that it has led to claims of a new, postmodern historical era. It is this latest restructuring of the social and biophysical world that forms the focus of this chapter. In summarizing the key transformations since the 1980s, we concentrate on the historical changes in the productive use of nature and the political and cultural responses to this momentous remapping of spatial relations. The chapter finishes on a philosophical note, considering the implications of postmodern theories of knowledge for our approach to learning about environments.
