Out of the Earth: Civilisation and the Life of the Soil

First UK edition, first printing (previously published in the USA).  x, 322pp.  Fawn cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering on spine.  8vo. Cloth just a tad pushed in at spine ends else volume is neat, clean, bright and tight throughout.  In its original dust wrapper, a little bumped at edges and moderately sunned over spine.

Starting with an account of how soil develops, Professor Hillel goes on to demonstrate how it is an essential yet finite resource and how soil affects the development of human society.  He demonstrates how many once flourishing societies have declined or disappeared wen they have mistreated the soil around them – the Sumerians, the great city of Petra and the Roman Empire among them.  In a stark warning for the present, he argues how we may be repeating the same mistakes.