Bob Kates’ Reader in Sustainability Science and Technology

Kates, Robert W., ed. 2010. Bob Kates’ Reader in Sustainability Science and Technology. CID Working Paper No. 213. Center for International Development, Harvard University. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, December 2010.

Harvard Prof. William Clark writes, " The Reader is several things.  First, Bob offers an intellectual structure for the field of sustainability science, including the basic science of human-environment systems, the challenges of sustainable development that motivate that science, and the applications to specific problems that show its utility.   This is not the only structure possible, but it is a deep and powerful one that many of us who “test piloted” the Reader have found to be enormously useful in ordering our own thinking.  Second, Kates has populated his map of sustainability science with a carefully selected set of individual readings, most published during the last decade but also including some of the classics that constitute the foundations of the field.  Finally, he has provided invaluable context and connections through his narrative introductions to his structuring of the field and his commentaries on the individual papers he has selected.  The result is an original creation of great value and wisdom from which all interested in the field of sustainability science will benefit for years to come."