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Roses from Kenya

Labor, Environment, and the Global Trade in Cut Flowers

By Megan A. Styles. Foreword by K. Sivaramakrishnan

Kenya supplies more than 35 percent of the fresh-cut roses and other flowers sold annually in the European Union. This industry—which employs at least 90,000 workers, most of whom are women—is lucrative but enduringly controversial....

The Snow Leopard and the Goat

Politics of Conservation in the Western Himalayas

By Shafqat Hussain. Foreword by K. Sivaramakrishnan

Following the downgrading of the snow leopard’s status from “endangered” to “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2017, debate has renewed about the actual number of snow leopards in the wild...

Fire

A Brief History

By Stephen J. Pyne

Over vast expanses of time, fire and humanity have interacted to expand the domain of each, transforming the earth and what it means to be human. In this concise yet wide-ranging book, Stephen J. Pyne—named...

Seismic City

An Environmental History of San Francisco's 1906 Earthquake

By Joanna L. Dyl. Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

On April 18, 1906, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook the San Francisco region, igniting fires that burned half the city. The disaster in all its elements — earthquake, fires, and recovery — profoundly disrupted the urban...

The Political Economy of Resource Regulation

An International and Comparative History, 1850–2015

By Andreas R. D. Sanders, Pal Thonstad Sandvik, Espen Storli

Industrialist John Paul Getty famously quipped, “The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights.” Throughout history, natural resources have been sources of wealth and power and catalysts for war and peace. The...

Defending Giants

The Redwood Wars and the Transformation of American Environmental Politics

By Darren Frederick Speece. Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

Giant redwoods are American icons, paragons of grandeur, exceptionalism, and endurance. They are also symbols of conflict and negotiation, remnants of environmental battles over the limits of industrialization, profiteering, and globalization.

Since the middle of...

Razor Clams

Buried Treasure of the Pacific Northwest

By David Berger

In this lively history and celebration of the Pacific razor clam, David Berger shares with us his love affair with the glossy, gold-colored Siliqua patula and gets into the nitty-gritty of how to dig, clean,...

Caring for Glaciers

Land, Animals, and Humanity in the Himalayas

By Karine Gagné. Foreword by K. Sivaramakrishnan

Regional geopolitical processes have turned the Himalayan region of Ladakh, in northwest India, into a strategic border area with an increasing military presence that has decentered the traditional agropastoralist economy. This in turn has led...

Levelling the Lake

Transboundary Resourse Management in the Lake of the Woods Watershed

By Jamie Benidickson

Levelling the Lake explores a century and a half of social, economic, and legal arrangements through which the resources and environment of the Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake watershed have been both harnessed...

Racial Ecologies

By Leilani Nishime, Kim D. Hester Williams

From the Flint water crisis to the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy, environmental threats and degradation disproportionately affect communities of color, with often dire consequences for people’s lives and health. Racial Ecologies explores activist strategies and...

Made Modern

Science and Technology in Canadian History

By Edward Jones-Imhotep, Tina Adcock

Science and technology have shaped not only economic empires and industrial landscapes, but also the identities, anxieties, and understandings of people living in modern times. Made Modern draws together leading scholars from a wide range...

Building Reuse

Sustainability, Preservation, and the Value of Design

By Kathryn Rogers Merlino

In Building Reuse: Sustainability, Preservation, and the Value of Design, Kathryn Rogers Merlino makes an impassioned case that truly sustainable design requires reusing and reimagining existing buildings. The construction and operation of buildings is responsible...

Environmental Justice in Postwar America

A Documentary Reader

By Christopher W. Wells, Paul S. Sutter

In the decades after World War II, the American economy entered a period of prolonged growth that created unprecedented affluence—but these developments came at the cost of a host of new environmental problems. Unsurprisingly, a...

Olympic National Park

A Natural History

By Tim McNulty

Renowned for its old-growth rain forest, wilderness coast, and glaciated peaks, Olympic National Park is a living laboratory for ecological renewal, especially as the historic Elwha River basin regenerates in the wake of dam removal....

Bringing Whales Ashore

Oceans and the Environment of Early Modern Japan

By Jakobina K. Arch. Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

Today, Japan defends its controversial whaling expeditions by invoking tradition—but what was the historical reality? In examining the techniques and impacts of whaling during the Tokugawa period (1603–1868), Jakobina Arch shows that the organized, shore-based...

Cultivating Nature

The Conservation of a Valencian Working Landscape

By Sarah R. Hamilton. Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

The watery terrain of the Albufera Natural Park, an area ten kilometers south of Valencia that is widely regarded as the birthplace of paella, has long been prized by residents and visitors alike. Since the...

Fish Wars and Trout Travesties

Saving Southern Alberta's Coldwater Streams in the 1920s

By George Colpitts

Today, efforts at environmental protection commonly take the form of “top-down” measures, in which overarching plans, usually based on scientific reports, are implemented through environmental legislation, which is then enforced at the local level. Fish...

Cities That Think like Planets

Complexity, Resilience, and Innovation in Hybrid Ecosystems

By Marina Alberti

As human activity and environmental change come to be increasingly recognized as intertwined phenomena on a rapidly urbanizing planet, the field of urban ecology has risen to offer useful ways of thinking about coupled human...

The Organic Profit

Rodale and the Making of Marketplace Environmentalism

By Andrew N. Case. Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

From green-lifestyle mavens who endorse products on social media to natural health activists sponsored by organic food companies, the marketplace for advice about how to live life naturally is better stocked than ever. Where did...

The Rebirth of Bodh Gaya

Buddhism and the Making of a World Heritage Site

By David Geary

This multilayered historical ethnography of Bodh Gaya — the place of Buddha’s enlightenment in the north Indian state of Bihar — explores the spatial politics surrounding the transformation of the Mahabodhi Temple Complex into a...