This book focuses on the Pacific Basin, a vast region which can be considered a microcosm of the entire surface of the Earth and which has suffered from being marginalized in most accounts of Earth-surface processes and phenomena. In this book, the Pacific Basin includes the Pacific Ocean and Islands and also the Pacific Rim which is divided into the subregions of Antarctica, South America, Central America, North America, Beringia, East Asia and Australasia.

Professor Nunn begins by outlining the distant origins of the modern Pacific Basin more then 1000 million years ago, then traces its development through the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic into the Cenozoic Era. During this time - the last 66 million years - the history of environmental change becomes progressively better known. For the last 1.8 million years (the Quaternary period), the Earth's climate has oscillated between warm and cool, producing synchronous environmental changes throughout most of the Pacific Basin. The importance of volcanism and tectonics (land-level movements) - for which the Pacific Basin is well known - as causes of environmental change are explained in detail.

The effects of human activities on most Pacific Basin environments began to be registered only during the Holocene - the last 12,000 years - culminating in the environmental crisis which currently afflicts many parts of this region. While the role of humans in altering Pacific Basin environments is discussed in detail, considerable attention is also given to the ways in which environmental change caused changes to human lifestyles which had far-reaching consequences.