New Books in Environmental Studies

In Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves (Island Press, 2020), Dr. Samuel Myers and his co-authors illustrate the interconnectedness of human health and the health of our planet. In this interview, Dr. Myers’ passion is felt as he describes the expanding and evolving field of Planetary Health. We talk about the current state of the world from the perspective of experts across disciplines. This foundational knowledge sets the stages to explore threats to food production, ecological health, and humanity’s physical and mental health. Much like the final section in the book we discuss the abounding opportunities to create a healthier world. Those opportunities are fueled by various technologies from apps to precision agriculture. After listening to Dr. Myers and reading Planetary Health our future is as bright and beautiful as the cover of the book, if we lean into the knowledge produced by the field of Planetary Health. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Michael Stamm’s book Dead Tree Media: Manufacturing the Newspaper in Twentieth-Century North America (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018) begins with the simple but thought-provoking premise that, not too long ago, newspapers were almost exclusively physical objects made out of paper. This meant that producing a newspaper implied industrial production, mills, and a distribution system that could deliver daily-produced issues to individual consumers. But most of all, it meant trees. Lots and lots of trees. Newspapers acquired timber lands, chopped down trees, and managed international supply chains. A simple premise then opens up an entire world of industrial processes that might appear distant from us denizens of the digital age.In this highly innovative work of media history, Stamm, a Professor of history at Michigan State University, pulls readers into that world, guiding them through newspaper boardrooms in big American cities, lumber camps and company towns across Canada, and laboratories that were experimenting with newsprint waste so as to synthesize new products and squeeze ever more revenue out of the process (who knew that the parent company of the Chicago Tribune was one of the largest manufacturers of synthetic vanilla in the 1950s?). The book will interest communications scholars, media historians, historical scholars of political economy, and many others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

In Tornado God: American Religion and Violent Weather (Oxford UP, 2020), Peter J. Thuesen links the “numinous” religious experiences of Americans as they experienced the uniquely destructive weather phenomenon of the tornado. Thuesen shows how the weather has shaped theological dialogue in America since the colonial era. New England Congregational ministers such as Cotton Mather developed doctrines of providence as they grappled with the underlying meaning and randomness of violent weather events. Thuesen compellingly shows how, “in the tornado, Americans experience something that is at once culturally peculiar (the indigenous storm of the national imagination) and religiously primal (the sense of awe before an unpredictable and mysterious power).” These questions of providence and weather are not simply historical events, however; they continue to shape the cultural debates over climate change. Thuesen’s book explores the mystery of the weather, and how Americans have made sense of these extreme events beyond their control.Lane Davis is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate Program in Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University where he studies modern American religious history. You can follow him on Twitter @TheeLaneDavis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

In addition to battling poverty, malnutrition, and disease, African countries today find themselves also having to fend off the numerous perils of climate change. The African problem is unique— socioeconomic development is crucial, but that also shouldn’t come at the cost of environmental destruction.In this episode, Dr Robin Attfield, Professor Emeritus at the School of English, Communication and Philosophy at Cardiff University, talks about how Africa finds itself vulnerable to not only drought but also the flooding of its coastline, among other untoward environmental effects of climate change and civil war. And how it is in the best interest of African nations to develop in a climate-friendly manner.This discussion is based on his paper “Africa and Climate Change” published in Brill’s Utafiti: Journal of African Perspectives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

What if outer space is not outside the human environment but, rather, defines it? This is the unusual starting point of Valerie Olson’s Into the Extreme: U.S. Environmental Systems and Politics Beyond Earth (U Minnesota Press, 2018), revealing how outer space contributes to making what counts as the scope and scale of today’s natural and social environments. With unprecedented access to spaceflight worksites ranging from astronaut training programs to life science labs and architecture studios, Olson examines how U.S. experts work within the solar system as the container of life and as a vast site for new forms of technical and political environmental control.Olson’s book shifts our attention from space’s political geography to its political ecology, showing how scientists, physicians, and engineers across North America collaborate to build the conceptual and nuts-and-bolts systems that connect Earth to a specifically ecosystemic cosmos. This cosmos is being redefined as a competitive space for potential economic resources, social relations, and political strategies.Showing how contemporary U.S. environmental power is bound up with the production of national technical and scientific access to outer space, Into the Extreme brings important new insights to our understanding of modern environmental history and politics. At a time when the boundaries of global ecologies and economies extend far below and above Earth’s surface, Olson’s new analytic frameworks help us understand how varieties of outlying spaces are known, made, and organized as kinds of environments—whether terrestrial or beyond.John W. Traphagan is a professor in Department of Religious Studies and Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations at the University of Texas at Austin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

In Colombia, decades of social and armed conflict and the US-led war on drugs have created a seemingly untenable situation for scientists and rural communities as they attempt to care for forests and grow non-illicit crops. In her new book Vital Decomposition: Soil Practitioners and Life Politics (Duke University Press, 2020), Kristina M. Lyons presents an ethnography of human-soil relations. By following the practical engagements of soil scientists and peasants across labs, forests, and farms, the book attends to the struggles and collaborations between multiple actors over the meanings of peace, productivity, rural development, and sustainability in contemporary Colombia.Alejandro Ponce de Leon is a Ph.D candidate at the University of California, Davis. He works, learns, and thinks in the Science and Technology Studies program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Kristin J. Jacobson In her new book, <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9780820356990" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>The American Adrenaline Narrative</em></a> (University of Georgia Press), Kristin Jacobson considers the nature of perilous outdoor adventure tales, their gendered biases, and how they simultaneously promote and hinder ecological sustainability.To explore these themes, Jacobson defines and compares adrenaline narratives by a range of American authors published after the first Earth Day in 1970, a time frame selected as a watershed moment for the contemporary American environmental movement. The forty-plus years since that day also mark the rise in the popularity and marketing of many things as "extreme," including sports, jobs, travel, beverages, gum, makeovers, laundry detergent, and even the environmental movement itself.Jacobson maps the American eco-imagination via adrenaline narratives, surveying a range of popular and lesser-known primary texts by American authors, including best-sellers such as Jon Krakauer's <em>Into Thin Air</em> and Aron Ralston's <em>Between a Rock and a Hard Place</em>. She also covers lesser-known novels as well as stories found in all types of media ranging from magazines, feature-length and short films, television shows, amateur videos, social media posts, advertising, and blogs.Jacobson argues for recognizing adrenaline narratives as a distinctive genre because, unlike traditional nature, travel, and sports writing, adrenaline narratives sustain heightened risk or the element of the "extreme" within a natural setting. Additionally, these narratives provide important insight into the American environmental imagination's connection to masculinity and adventure––knowledge that helps us grasp the current climate crisis and see how narrative understanding provides a needed intervention.<a href="https://blogs.stockton.edu/kristinjjacobson/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kristin Jacobson</a> is a professor of American literature, American Studies, and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Stockton University in New Jersey. She completed her Ph.D. at Penn State, her M.A. at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and her B.A. at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI.<hr /><em><a href="https://ulaval.academia.edu/CarrieLynnEvans" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Carrie Lynn Evans</a> is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City.</em><iframe frameborder="0" height="200" scrolling="no" src="https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=LIT6642972270" width="100%"></iframe> Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Water and diplomatic historian Dan MacFarlane has written a fascinating book on a fundamental debate in environmental history: What is a natural landscape? Fixing Niagara Falls: Environment, Energy, and Engineers at the World’s Most Famous Waterfall (UBC Press, 2020) argues that one of the world's most famous natural attractions is not wholly natural but is an engineered landscape. Though the falls have been altered, it's designers seemingly found a balance between preserving its wonder and utilizing its power, MacFarlane argues.The first people to record their reactions to the falls in North America were fascinated by its beauty and power. By the end of the nineteenth century, the falls had drawn the attention of both Canadian and American industrialist who saw in its majesty a great potential for energy generation. Since the falls is located on the border, it provoked conflict and negotiations between these two countries over how much water could be drawn upon by each. Utilizing the falls for power generation provoked another conflict over the extent to which power generation might hinder the natural beauty of this thriving tourist attraction. These two conflicts—one about power the other about natural appeal— would continue into the twenty-first century.The book unravels the details of these conflicts while at the same time drawing the readers' attention to the often unseen changes being made in, around, and behind the falls. Some of the most interesting parts of the book are those that explain technocrats' debates over, and explorations into, how water reduction might change the natural look of the falls. Exposing these engineered elements of Niagara encourages readers to reimagine this popular natural attraction, and others like it.Jason L. Newton is a post-doctoral fellow in the history of capitalism and the environment at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His book manuscript, Cutover Capitalism: The Industrialization of the Northern Forest, 1850-1950, is a history of the changing types of labor performed by people, trees, and the landscape in the American Northeast as that area industrialized. He has also published on nature, race, and immigration. He teaches classes on capitalism and the environment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Crows can be found almost everywhere that people are, from tropical islands to deserts and arctic forests, from densely populated cities to suburbs and farms. Across these diverse landscapes, many species of crow are doing well: their intelligent and adaptive ways of life have allowed them to thrive amid human-driven transformations. Indeed, crows are frequently disliked for their success, seen as pests, threats, and scavengers on the detritus of human life. But among the vast variety of crows, there are also critically endangered species that are barely hanging on to existence, some of them the subjects of passionate conservation efforts.The Wake of Crows: Living and Dying in Shared Worlds (Columbia UP, 2019) is an exploration of the entangled lives of humans and crows. Focusing on five key sites, Thom van Dooren asks how we might live well with crows in a changing world. He explores contemporary possibilities for shared life emerging in the context of ongoing processes of globalization, colonization, urbanization, and climate change. Moving among these diverse contexts, this book tells stories of extermination and extinction alongside fragile efforts to better understand and make room for other species. Grounded in the careful work of paying attention to particular crows and their people, The Wake of Crows is an effort to imagine and put into practice a multispecies ethics. In so doing, van Dooren explores some of the possibilities that still exist for living and dying well on this damaged planet.Thom van Dooren is associate professor at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction (Columbia, 2014) and coeditor of Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death, and Generations (Columbia, 2017).Mark Molloy is the reviews editor at MAKE: A Literary Magazine.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

La Batea is an unconventional book. A collaboration between anthropologist Elizabeth Ferry and her photographer brother Stephen, it combines text and images to paint a picture of the lives of small-scale miners in Colombia in a unique and powerful way. Moreover, the book is physically designed to pull the reader into the topic. Cardboard covers, a specially-chosen paper, and carefully designed chosen fonts provide a unique experience which is topped off by the small piece of gold embedded in the cover.In this episode of the podcast, Alex Golub talks with Stephen and Elizabeth Ferry about the design, photography, and text of this book. They also talk about the Kickstarter they ran to create the book, and their decision to produce both Spanish and English language versions that were affordable for local communities. Other questions include: What is it like to write a book with your sibling? How elemental a human experience is mining?La Batea is available in English from Red Hook Publications and in Spanish from Icono Editorial.Stephen Ferry is a non-fiction photographer who covers social and political change, human rights, and the environment. His books include I Am Rich Potosí: The Mountain that Eats Men (Monacelli, 1999) and Violentology: A Manual of the Colombian Conflict (Umbrage/Icono, 2012). He has received grants and fellowships from the National Geographic Expeditions Council, the Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation, among others.Elizabeth Ferry is a professor of anthropology at Brandeis University, with interests in value, materiality, mining, and finance, and with fieldwork emphases in Mexico, Colombia, and the United States. Her books include Not Ours Alone: Patrimony, Value and Collectivity in Contemporary Mexico (Columbia University Press, 2005) and Minerals, Collecting and Value Across the U.S.-Mexican Border (Indiana University Press, 2013).Alex Golub is a professor of anthropology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He studies gold mining in Papua New Guinea and is the author of the open access article "Mining" in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies