Bookshelf
The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change
In The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change, Dorceta Taylor ’85, Ph.D. ’91, examines the development of urban environments and urban environmentalism in the United States over four centuries. Taylor focuses on the evolution of the city, the emergence of elite reformers, the framing of environmental problems and the responses to perceived breakdowns in social order. She demonstrates how social inequalities repeatedly informed the adjudication of questions related to health, safety and land access and use. While many accounts of environmental history begin and end with wildlife and wilderness, Taylor shows that the city offers important clues to understanding the evolution of American environmental activism. The book is published by Duke University Press. To purchase a copy, visit www.amazon.com or www.indiebound.com to locate an independent bookseller.
Insectopedia
In Insectopedia, Hugh Raffles, D.F.E.S. ’99, probes the vast insect world from A to Z. It is loaded with facts—some profound, others curious and still others uproariously funny. The book is also part personal memoir, part scientific detective story and part cultural study. He travels the Amazon, visits Chernobyl and enters laboratories and sidewalk cafes in search of insects and the ideas and cultures they inspire. Insects stir eerie fascination: they are beautiful, disgusting, important and annoying. To some they are tasty. To others they are a source of sexual fetish. Insects become windows into our culture, science, health—even our psyche. The more we learn of insects, the more we come to face—and sometimes even challenge—our own views of the world. The book is published by Pantheon. To purchase a copy, visit www.amazon.com or www.indiebound.com to locate an independent bookseller.
How the West Was Warmed: Responding to Climate Change in the Rockies
In How the West Was Warmed: Responding to Climate Change in the Rockies, Beth Conover ’94 edits a collection of essays written by 40 veteran journalists, scientists, naturalists and policymakers on climate change’s impact on water use, tourism, urban farming, food production, religion and media coverage. No other issue in our time, Conover asserts, has required such a fundamental reaccounting of the energy we use to maintain almost everything that Americans take for granted. Contributors include Tim Sullivan ’90, Kirk Johnson, who holds a Ph.D. in geology and paleobotany from Yale, and Florence Williams, a Yale College graduate. To purchase a copy, visit www.amazon.com or www.indiebound.com to locate an independent bookseller.
Dreaming the Biosphere: The Theater of All Possibilities
In Dreaming the Biosphere: The Theater of All Possibilities, Rebecca Reider ’05 writes of an epic dream to change the world and “mend the rift between humans and nature.” In 1984 a handful of dreamers bought a piece of Arizona desert to create a self-reliant utopia focused on ecological work, study and their experimental theater troupe, the Theater of All Possibilities. Eight “biospherians” locked themselves inside a giant greenhouse-like world for two years to live in harmony with their wilderness, grow their own food and recycle all their air, water and waste; however, the communal spirit dissolved into conflict, and the facility ultimately was seized by U.S. marshals. The book is published by University of New Mexico Press. To purchase a copy, visit www.amazon.com or www.indiebound.com to locate an independent bookseller.
Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America
In Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America, Eric Jay Dolin ’88 traces the dramatic rise and fall of the American fur industry from the early 1600s to the dawn of the conservation movement in the late 1800s. He shows how the fur trade, driven by the demands of fashion, sparked controversy, fostered economic competition and fueled wars among the European powers. The trade in beaver, buffalo, sea otter and other animal skins spurred the exploration and settlement of the vast American continent while it alternately enriched and gravely damaged the lives of America’s native peoples. The book will be published by W.W. Norton in July. To purchase a copy, visit books.wwnorton.com or www.indiebound.com to locate an independent bookseller.
An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World
In An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World, Anders Halverson, Ph.D. ’05, chronicles the discovery of rainbow trout and its artificial propagation and introduction to every state in America and across the world and explains why it is being simultaneously eradicated and stocked throughout the country. Sometimes vilified for its devastating impact on native fauna, sometimes glorified as the pre-eminent sport fish, the rainbow trout
symbolizes more than a century of America’s often contradictory philosophies about the natural world. The book is published by Yale University Press. To purchase a copy, visit yalepress.yale.edu or www.indiebound.com to locate an independent bookseller.
