New Books in Environmental Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
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1026
Seth Archer, “Sharks Upon the Land: Colonialism...
In Sharks Upon the Land: Colonialism, Indigenous Health, and Culture in Hawai’i, 1778-1855 (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Utah State University Assistant Professor of History Seth Archer traces the cultural impact of disease and health problems in...
85 min
1027
G. Mitman, M. Armiero and R. S. Emmett (eds.), ...
Future Remains: A Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene (University of Chicago Press, 2018) curates fifteen objects that might serve as evidence of a future past. From a jar of sand to a painting of a goanna,
32 min
1028
Joanna Dyl, “Seismic City: An Environmental His...
In Seismic City: An Environmental History of San Francisco’s 1906 Earthquake (University of Washington Press, 2017), Joanna Dyl documents the course and effects of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake and subsequent fire that destroyed significant portions of ...
74 min
1029
Jim Clifford, “West Ham and the River Lea: A So...
In West Ham and the River Lea: A Social and Environmental History of London’s Industrialized Marshlands, 1839-1914 (University of British Columbia Press, 2017), Jim Clifford brings together histories of water and river systems, urban history,
75 min
1030
Michelle Perro and Vincanne Adams, “What’s Maki...
Pediatrician and integrative medicine practitioner Michelle Perro, MD, has been treating an increasing number of children with complex chronic illnesses that do not fit into our usual diagnostic boxes. She has spent years treating and disentangling why...
86 min
1031
William D. Bryan, “The Price of Permanence: Nat...
Southern capitalists of the postbellum era have been called many things, but never conservationists. Until now. Environmental historian William D. Bryan has written a brilliantly disorienting reassessment of the South’s economic development in the peri...
54 min
1032
Sumana Roy, “How I Became a Tree” (Aleph, 2017)
Sumana Roy‘s first book How I Became a Tree (Aleph, 2017) is impossible to classify. Part-philosophical tract, part-memoir and part-literary criticism, the book is a record of her explorations in “tree-time.” Intrigued by the balance,
58 min
1033
Casey Walsh, “Virtuous Waters: Mineral Springs,...
Water politics have long figured prominently in Mexico, and scholars have addressed such critical topics as irrigation, dam and canal building, and resource management, but few have examined how everyday people think about and use the waters in the dai...
55 min
1034
Courtney Fullilove, “The Profit of the Earth: T...
The Profit of the Earth: The Global Seeds of American Agriculture (University of Chicago Press, 2017) examines the social and political history of how agricultural knowledge was created in the 19th century. Over the course of the 19th century,
35 min
1035
Joëlle Gergis, “Sunburnt Country: The History a...
In her new book, Sunburnt Country: The History and Future of Climate Change in Australia (Melbourne University Press, 2018), Joëlle Gergis, a climate scientist and writer from the University of Melbourne, explores the long history of Australia’s climat...
14 min
1036
John Mackay, “The Bonanza King: John Mackay and...
John Mackay’s life began humbly, immigrating as a child from an impoverished Irish household to New York City where he worked selling newspapers in the streets. Within four decades, he was a stakeholder in one of the wealthiest precious metal strikes i...
62 min
1037
Norah MacKendrick, “Better Safe Than Sorry: How...
Consumers today have a lot of choices. Whether in stores or online, people are inundated by an abundance of options for what to buy. At the same time, the products we consume seem to have more and more ingredients, additives,
69 min
1038
Eric Winsberg, “Philosophy and Climate Science”...
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that there is a warming trend in the global climate that is attributable to human activity, with an expected increase in global temperature (given current trends) of 1.5- 4.
65 min
1039
Darren Speece, “Defending Giants: The Redwood W...
Northern California’s giant redwoods are among the state’s most recognizable natural wonders. These massive trees were also under threat of clear-cut logging for much of the twentieth century, writes Darren Frederick Speece in Defending Giants: The Red...
74 min
1040
Keith M. Woodhouse, “The Ecocentrists: A Histor...
Environmentalists often talk like revolutionaries but agitate like reformers. But however moderate its tactics, environmentalism has led Americans to questions rarely asked: Is economic growth necessary? Must individual freedom and democracy be paramou...
65 min
1041
Jeff Koelher, “Where the Wild Coffee Grows: The...
Is life without coffee possible? Before you answer, first admit that you know almost nothing about the plant that you depend on to deliver you conscious into your day. You will learn from Jeff Koehler’s wide-ranging history Where the Wild Coffee Grows:...
45 min
1042
Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey, “Waste of a Natio...
Is India facing a waste crisis? As its population, cities and consumption grow what are the implications for the health, well being and everyday lives of Indians? In Waste of a Nation: Growth and Garbage in India (Harvard University Press, 2018),
48 min
1043
Peter Sahlins, “1668: The Year of the Animal in...
Peter Sahlins’s 1668: The Year of the Animal in France (Zone Books, 2017) is a captivating look at the role of animals in court and salon culture in the first decades of Louis XIV’s reign in France. Focusing on the years in and around 1668,
51 min
1044
Brian James Leech, “The City That Ate Itself: B...
The plight of today’s coal miners has gained significant attention in recent U.S. politics. As coal mining practices and technologies change in the United States, coal miners face job reductions, but their futures are wrapped up in broader national que...
67 min
1045
Andrew Needham, “Power Lines: Phoenix and the M...
Researching and writing about infrastructure is a tall task. Infrastructure’s vastness, complexity, and, if it’s functioning, invisibility can defy narratives. Andrew Needham, however, succeeds beautifully. His book,
65 min
1046
Melanie A. Kiechle, “Smell Detectives: An Olfac...
Melanie Kiechle‘s Smell Detectives: An Olfactory History of Nineteenth-Century Urban America (University of Washington Press, 2017) takes us into the cellars, rivers, gutters and similar smelly recesses of American cities in the 19th century.
55 min
1047
Andre Magnan, “When Wheat Was King: The Rise an...
In When Wheat Was King: The Rise and Fall of the Canada-UK Grain Trade (University of British Columbia Press, 2016), André Magnan connects the cultivation of wheat on the Canadian prairies to the consumption of bread in Britain.
59 min
1048
Ann K. Ferrell, “Burley: Kentucky Tobacco in a ...
Ann K. Ferrell is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Folk Studies program at Western Kentucky University, and also Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of American Folklore. Her first book, Burley: Kentucky Tobacco in a New Century (University of...
65 min
1049
Anna Zeide, “Canned: The Rise and Fall of Consu...
Most everything Americans eat today comes out of cans. Some of it emerges from the iconic steel cylinders and much of the rest from the mammoth processed food empire the canning industry pioneered. Historian Anna Zeide,
50 min
1050
Steven Gray, “Steam Power and Sea Power: Coal, ...
In Steam Power and Sea Power: Coal, the Royal Navy, and the British Empire, c. 1870-1914 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), Steven Gray examines the pivotal role of coal in the Royal Navy, during the short-lived but crucial “age of steam.
67 min