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The Camphor Tree and the Elephant

Religion and Ecological Change in Maritime Southeast Asia

By Faizah Zakaria. Foreword by K. Sivaramakrishnan

What is the role of religion in shaping interactions and relations between the human and nonhuman in nature? Why are Muslim and Christian organizations generally not a potent force in Southeast Asian environmental movements? The...

Between the Tides in Washington and Oregon

Exploring Beaches and Tidepools

By Ryan P. Kelly, Terrie Klinger, and John J. Meyer

A spectacular variety of life flourishes between the ebb and flow of high and low tide. Anemones talk to each other through chemical signaling, clingfish grip rocks and resist the surging tide, and bioluminescent dinoflagellates—single-celled...

The Cultivated Forest

People and Woodlands in Asian History

By Ian M. Miller, Bradley Camp Davis, Brian Lander, John S. Lee

Forests have histories that need to be told. This examination of wood and woodlands in East and Southeast Asia brings together case studies from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Sumatra to explore continuities in the...

Oceanographers and the Cold War

Disciples of Marine Science

By Jacob Darwin Hamblin

Oceanographers and the Cold War is about patronage, politics, and the community of scientists. It is the first book to examine the study of the oceans during the Cold War era and explore the international...

Turning Land into Capital

Development and Dispossession in the Mekong Region

By Philip Hirsch, Kevin Woods, Natalia Scurrah, Michael B. Dwyer, K. Sivaramakrishnan

In Southeast Asia reversals of earlier agrarian reforms have rolled back "land-to-the-tiller" policies created in the wake of Cold War–era revolutions. This trend, marked by increased land concentration and the promotion of export-oriented agribusiness at...

Governing Water in India

Inequality, Reform, and the State

By Leela Fernandes

Intensifying droughts and competing pressures on water resources foreground water scarcity as an urgent concern of the global climate change crisis. In India, individual, industrial, and agricultural water demands exacerbate inequities of access and expose...

Upland Geopolitics

Postwar Laos and the Global Land Rush

By Michael B. Dwyer. Foreword by K. Sivaramakrishnan

In the twenty-first century, land deals in the Global South have become increasingly prevalent and controversial. Transnational access to arable land in impoverished "land-rich" countries in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia highlights the...

Spawning Modern Fish

Transnational Comparison in the Making of Japanese Salmon

By Heather Anne Swanson. Foreword by K. Sivaramakrishnan

Since the mid-nineteenth century, agricultural development and fisheries management in northern Japan have been profoundly shaped by how people within and beyond Japan have compared Hokkaido's landscapes to those of other places, as part of efforts...

Charged

A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future

By James Morton Turner. Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

To achieve fossil fuel independence, few technologies are more important than batteries. Used for powering zero-emission vehicles, storing electricity from solar panels and wind turbines, and revitalizing the electric grid, batteries are essential to scaling...

The River That Made Seattle

A Human and Natural History of the Duwamish

By BJ Cummings

With bountiful salmon and fertile plains, the Duwamish River has drawn people to its shores over the centuries for trading, transport, and sustenance. Chief Se’alth and his allies fished and lived in villages here and...

Communist Pigs

An Animal History of East Germany's Rise and Fall

By Thomas Fleischman. Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

The pig played a key role in the German Democratic Republic's attempts to create a modern, industrial food system built on communist principles. By the mid-1980s, East Germany produced more pork per capita than West...

Debating Malthus

A Documentary Reader on Population, Resources, and the Environment

By Robert J. Mayhew, Paul S. Sutter

For centuries, thinking about the earth's increasing human population has been tied to environmental ideas and political action. This highly teachable collection of contextualized primary sources allows students to follow European and North American discussions...

Underflows

Queer Trans Ecologies and River Justice

By Cleo Wölfle Hazard

Rivers host vibrant multispecies communities in their waters and along their banks, and, according to queer-trans-feminist river scientist Cleo Wölfle Hazard, their future vitality requires centering the values of justice, sovereignty, and dynamism. At the...

Misreading the Bengal Delta

Climate Change, Development, and Livelihoods in Coastal​ Bangladesh

By Camelia Dewan. Foreword by K. Sivaramakrishnan

Perilously close to sea level and vulnerable to floods, erosion, and cyclones, Bangladesh is one of the top recipients of development aid earmarked for climate change adaptation. Yet to what extent do adaptation projects address...

Temples in the Cliffside

Buddhist Art in Sichuan

By Sonya S. Lee

At sixty-two meters the Leshan Buddha in southwest China is the world’s tallest premodern statue. Carved out of a riverside cliff in the eighth century, it has evolved from a religious center to a UNESCO...

Making Livable Worlds

Afro-Puerto Rican Women Building Environmental Justice

By Hilda Lloréns

When Hurricanes Irma and María made landfall in Puerto Rico in September 2017, their destructive force further devastated an archipelago already pummeled by economic austerity, political upheaval, and environmental calamities. To navigate these multiple ongoing...

Urban Cascadia and the Pursuit of Environmental Justice

By Nik Janos, Corina McKendry

In Portland’s harbor, environmental justice groups challenge the EPA for a more thorough cleanup of the Willamette River. Near Olympia, the Puyallup assert their tribal sovereignty and treaty rights to fish. Seattle housing activists demand...

Wetlands in a Dry Land

More-Than-Human Histories of Australia's Murray-Darling Basin

By Emily O'Gorman. Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

In the name of agriculture, urban growth, and disease control, humans have drained, filled, or otherwise destroyed nearly 87 percent of the world’s wetlands over the past three centuries. Unintended consequences include biodiversity loss, poor...

Timber and Forestry in Qing China 

Sustaining the Market

By Meng Zhang

In the Qing period (1644–1912), China's population tripled, and the flurry of new development generated unprecedented demand for timber. Standard environmental histories have often depicted this as an era of reckless deforestation, akin to the...

Consuming Ivory

Mercantile Legacies of East Africa and New England

By Alexandra Celia Kelly. Foreword by K. Sivaramakrishnan

The economic prosperity of two nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century New England towns rested on factories that manufactured piano keys, billiard balls, combs, and other items made of ivory imported from East Africa. Yet while towns like...