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Earth Rising
David Oates
Oregon State University Press, 1989

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Ecofeminism
edited by Greta Gaard
Temple University Press, 1993

Drawing on the insights of ecology, feminism, and socialism, ecofeminism's basic premise is that the ideology that authorizes oppression based on race, class, gender, sexuality, physical abilities, and species is the same ideology that sanctions the oppression of nature. In this collection of essays, feminist scholars and activists discuss the relationships among human begins, the natural environment, and nonhuman animals. They reject the nature/culture dualism of patriarchal thought and locate animals and humans within nature. The goal of these twelve articles is to contribute to the evolving dialogue among feminists, ecofeminists, animal liberationists, deep ecologists, and social ecologists in an effort to create a sustainable lifestyle for all inhabitants of the earth.

Among the issues addressed are the conflicts between Green politics and ecofeminism, various applications of ecofeminist theory, the relationship of animal liberation to ecofeminism, harmful implications of the romanticized woman-nature association in Western culture, and cultural limitations of ecofeminism.


In the series Ethics and Action, edited by Tom Regan.
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Ecohumanism and the Ecological Culture
The Educational Legacy of Lewis Mumford and Ian McHarg
William J. Cohen
Temple University Press, 2019

Lewis Mumford, one of the most respected public intellectuals of the twentieth century, speaking at a conference on the future environments of North America, said, “In order to secure human survival we must transition from a technological culture to an ecological culture.” In Ecohumanism and the Ecological Culture, William Cohen shows how Mumford’s conception of an educational philosophy was enacted by Mumford’s mentee, Ian McHarg, the renowned landscape architect and regional planner at the University of Pennsylvania. McHarg advanced a new way to achieve an ecological culture―through an educational curriculum based on fusing ecohumanism to the planning and design disciplines. 

Cohen explores Mumford’s important vision of ecohumanism—a synthesis of natural systems ecology with the myriad dimensions of human systems, or human ecology―and how McHarg actually formulated and made that vision happen. He considers the emergence of alternative energy systems and new approaches to planning and community development to achieve these goals.

The ecohumanism graduate curriculum should become the basis to train the next generation of planners and designers to lead us into the ecological culture, thereby securing the educational legacy of both Lewis Mumford and Ian McHarg.

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The Ecological Design and Planning Reader
Forster O. Ndubisi
Island Press, 2014
From Henry David Thoreau to Rachel Carson, writers have long examined the effects of industrialization and its potential to permanently alter the world around them. Today, as we experience rapid global urbanization, pressures on the natural environment to accommodate our daily needs for food, work, shelter, and recreation are greatly intensified. Concerted efforts to balance human use with ecological concerns are needed now more than ever.

A rich body of literature on the effect of human actions on the natural environment provides a window into what we now refer to as ecological design and planning. The study and practice of ecological design and planning provide a promising way to manage change in the landscape so that human actions are more in tune with natural processes. In The Ecological Design and Planning Reader Professor Ndubisi offers refreshing insights into key themes that shape the theory and practice of ecological design and planning. He has assembled, synthesized, and framed selected seminal published scholarly works in the field from the past one hundred and fifty years——ranging from Ebenezer Howard’s Garden Cities of To-morrow to Anne Whiston Spirn’s, “Ecological Urbanism: A Framework for the Design of Resilient Cities.” The reader ends with a hopeful look forward, which suggests an agenda for future research and analysis in ecological design and planning.

This is the first volume to bring together classic and contemporary writings on the history, evolution, theory, methods, and exemplary practice of ecological design and planning. The collection provides students, scholars, researchers, and practitioners with a solid foundation for understanding the relationship between human systems and our natural environment.
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Ecological Design, Tenth Anniversary Edition
Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan
Island Press, 2007
Ecological Design is a landmark volume that helped usher in an exciting new era in green design and sustainability planning. Since its initial publication in 1996, the book has been critically important in sparking dialogue and triggering collaboration across spatial scales and design professions in pursuit of buildings, products, and landscapes with radically decreased environmental impacts. This 10th anniversary edition makes the work available to a new generation of practitioners and thinkers concerned with moving our society onto a more sustainable path.
Using examples from architecture, industrial ecology, sustainable agriculture, ecological wastewater treatment, and many other fields, Ecological Design provides a framework for integrating human design with living systems. Drawing on complex systems, ecology, and early examples of green building and design, the book challenges us to go further, creating buildings, infrastructures, and landscapes that are truly restorative rather than merely diminishing the rate at which things are getting worse.
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Ecologies of a Storied Planet in the Anthropocene
Serpil Oppermann
West Virginia University Press, 2023
A more-than-human approach to planetary survival, from a leading environmental humanist.

Ecologies of a Storied Planet in the Anthropocene is a tour de force. With transdisciplinarity and theoretical lucidity, it rethinks the Anthropocene from a material ecocritical perspective, envisioning innovative modes of knowledge for deeper understandings of Anthropocene ecologies. Focusing on nonhuman agencies, Serpil Oppermann shows in fascinating detail how to better imagine an ecological future on our storied planet that has suffered enormously from an anthropocentric mindset.
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Ecology and the Environment
Perspectives from the Humanities
Donald K. Swearer
Harvard University Press, 2009

The scientific, political, and economic policy debates about the global environmental crisis have tended to ignore its historical, ethical, religious, and aesthetic dimensions. This book redresses that omission by highlighting these humanistic components that are integral to the fabric of our ecological understanding and, consequentially, essential to a broad, multidisciplinary approach to environmental studies and public policy initiatives.

In this slim volume, seven world-class scholars discuss the wide range of perspectives that the fields of literature, history, religion, philosophy, environmental ethics, and anthropology bring to the natural environment and our place in it. The preface summarizes the development of the religion and ecology movement; the editor’s critical introduction highlights the essays’ major themes. Bringing insights from the humanities to bear on ecological concerns, this volume will appeal to a wide audience in the humanities and environmental studies, policy makers, and the general public. The book represents a continuation of the Center for the Study of World Religions’ highly regarded Religions of the World and Ecology series.

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Ecology and the Sacred
Engaging the Anthropology of Roy A. Rappaport
Ellen Messer and Michael Lambek, Editors
University of Michigan Press, 2001
Ecology and the Sacred commemorates and advances the anthropology of Roy A. (Skip) Rappaport. Rappaport was an original and visionary thinker whose writings, like these essays, encompass ecological theory and method; ritual, the sacred, and the cybernetics of the holy; the structural study of social maladaptation or "the anthropology of trouble"; and a policy-engaged anthropology that addresses social complexity and structural disorders in modern contexts. The contributors, who are leaders in anthropological studies of the environment and of religion, address themes emerging from Rappaport's pioneering ethnography of Papua New Guinea through his engagement with contemporary social problems. In addition to presenting significant new ethnographic data and sharp critical perspectives, the collection demonstrates the essential holism of anthropology as represented by Rappaport's contributions and legacy.
At a time when anthropology is fractured by debates over whether it is a science or a humanistic tradition, theoretical or applied, this festschrift testifies that a unified anthropology is both possible and necessary for the understanding of humanity and global transformations. The volume will be of interest not only to anthropologists, but to geographers, sociologists, scholars in science-studies, historians, and experts and practitioners in religious studies, as well.
Ellen Messer is Visiting Associate Professor, Tufts University. Michael Lambek is Professor of Anthropology, University of Toronto.
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An Ecology of Happiness
Eric Lambin
University of Chicago Press, 2012
We know that our gas-guzzling cars are warming the planet, the pesticides and fertilizers from farms are turning rivers toxic, and the earth has run out of space for the mountains of unrecycled waste our daily consumption has left in its wake. We’ve heard copious accounts of our impact—as humans, as a society—on the natural world. But this is not a one-sided relationship. Lost in these dire and scolding accounts has been the impact on us and our well-being. You sense it while walking on a sandy beach, or in a wild, woody forest, or when you catch sight of wildlife, or even while gardening in your backyard. Could it be that the natural environment is an essential part of our happiness? Yes, says Eric Lambin emphatically in An Ecology of Happiness. Using a very different strategy in addressing environmental concerns, he asks us to consider that there may be no better reason to value and protect the health of the planet than for our own personal well-being.

In this clever and wide-ranging work, Lambin draws on new scientific evidence in the fields of geography, political ecology, environmental psychology, urban studies, and disease ecology, among others, to answer such questions as: To what extent do we need nature for our well-being? How does environmental degradation affect our happiness? What can be done to protect the environment and increase our well-being at the same time? Drawing on case studies from Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America, Lambin makes a persuasive case for the strong link between healthy ecosystems and happy humans. 

Unique in its scope and evenhanded synthesis of research from many fields, An Ecology of Happiness offers a compelling human-centered argument that is impossible to overlook when we marvel at murmurations of starlings or seek out the most brilliant fall foliage: nature makes our steps a little lighter and our eyes a little brighter. What better reason to protect an ecosystem or save a species than for our own pleasure?

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The Ecology of Others
Philippe Descola
Prickly Paradigm Press, 2013

Since the end of the nineteenth century, the division between nature and culture has been fundamental to Western thought. In this groundbreaking work, renowned anthropologist Philippe Descola seeks to break down this divide, arguing for a departure from the anthropocentric model and its rigid dualistic conception of nature and culture as distinct phenomena. In its stead, Descola proposes a radical new worldview, in which beings and objects, human and nonhuman, are understood through the complex relationships that they possess with one another. 

The Ecology of Others presents a compelling challenge to anthropologists, ecologists, and environmental studies scholars to rethink the way we conceive of humans, objects, and the environment. Thought-provoking and engagingly written, it will be required reading for all those interested in moving beyond the moving beyond the confines of this fascinating debate.
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The Ecology of Pastoralism
P. Nick Kardulias
University Press of Colorado, 2015

In The Ecology of Pastoralism, diverse contributions from archaeologists and ethnographers address pastoralism’s significant impact on humanity’s basic subsistence and survival, focusing on the network of social, political, and religious institutions existing within various societies dependent on animal husbandry.

Pastoral peoples, both past and present, have organized their relationships with certain animals to maximize their ability to survive and adapt to a wide range of conditions over time. Contributors show that despite differences in landscape, environment, and administrative and political structures, these societies share a major characteristic—high flexibility. Based partially on the adaptability of various domestic animals to difficult environments and partially on the ability of people to establish networks allowing them to accommodate political, social, and economic needs, this flexibility is key to the survival of complex pastoral systems and serves as the connection among the varied cultures in the volume.

In The Ecology of Pastoralism, a variety of case studies from a broad geographic sampling uses archaeological and contemporary data and offers a new perspective on the study of pastoralism, making this volume a valuable contribution to current research in the area.

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Ecospeak
Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America
M. Jimmie Killingsworth and Jacqueline S. Palmer
Southern Illinois University Press, 1992

In this book, M. Jimmie Killingsworth and Jacqueline S. Palmer have a twofold purpose: to analyze the patterns of rhetoric used in written discourse about environmental politics and to make a practical contribution to the art of rhetorical criticism through the study of rhetoric in use.

The language, professional objectivity, and research programs of scientists insulate these best-informed citizens in enclaves of specialization, limiting access to crucial information and hindering effective reformative action. Science, the authors stress, is not merely a database to rely upon but a view of the world that must be broadened in order to affect social morality. Science-based activism must arise to ensure the care and future of the environment.

Killingsworth and Palmer argue that for grassroots activism to be tied to this globally conscious philosophy, a rhetoric of sustainability must be cultivated.

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The Ecosystem Approach in Anthropology
From Concept to Practice
Emilio F. Moran, Editor
University of Michigan Press, 1990
A reassessment of the ecosystem concept for anthropology
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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
A Framework For Assessment
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Island Press, 2003

Ecosystems and Human Well-being is the first product of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a four-year international work program designed to meet the needs of decision-makers for scientific information on the links between ecosystem change and human well-being. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and will provide information requested by governments, through four international conventions, as well as meeting needs within the private sector and civil society. Ecosystems and Human Well-being offers an overview of the assessment, describing the conceptual framework that is being used, defining its scope and providing a baseline of understanding that all participants need to move forward.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment focuses on how humans have altered ecosystems, and how changes in ecosystems have affected human well-being. The assessment also evaluates how ecosystem changes may affect people in future decades and what responses can be adopted at local, national, or global scales to improve ecosystem management and thereby contribute to human well-being and poverty alleviation. The assessment was launched by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in June 2001, and the primary assessment reports will be released by Island Press in 2005.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment series is an invaluable new resource for professionals and policy-makers concerned with international development, environmental science, environmental policy, and related fields. It will help both in choosing among existing options and in identifying new approaches for achieving integrated management of land, water, and living resources while strengthening regional, national, and local capacities. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment series will also improve policy and decision-making at all levels by increasing collaboration between natural and social scientists, and between scientists and policy-makers. Ecosystems and Human Well-being is an essential introduction to the program.


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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
A Manual for Assessment Practitioners
Neville Ash, Hernán Blanco, Claire Brown, Keisha Garcia, Thomas Henrichs, Nicolas Lucas, Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne, R. David Simpson, Robert Scholes, Thomas P. Tomich, Bhaskar Vira, Monika Zurek
Island Press, 2010
Designed by a partnership of UN agencies, international scientific organizations, and development agencies, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is the most extensive study ever of the linkages between the world’s ecosystems and human well-being. The goal of the MA is to establish the scientific basis for actions needed to enhance the contribution of ecosystems to human well-being without undermining their long-term productivity. With contributions by more than 500 scientists from 70 countries, the MA has proven to be one of the most important conservation initiatives ever undertaken, and the ecosystem services paradigm on which it is based provides the standard for practice. This manual supplies the specific tools that practitioners of the paradigm need in order to extend their work into the future.  
 
The manual is a stand-alone “how to” guide to conducting assessments of the impacts on humans of ecosystem changes. In addition, assessment practitioners who are looking for guidance on particular aspects of the assessment process will find individual chapters of this manual to be useful in advancing their understanding of best practices in ecosystem assessment. The manual builds on the experiences and lessons learned from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment global and sub-global assessment initiatives, with chapters written by well-known participants in those initiatives. It also includes insights and experiences gained from a wider range of ecosystem service-focused assessment activities since the completion of the MA in 2005.
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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
Current State and Trends: Findings of the Condition and Trends Working Group
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Island Press, 2005
Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively in the last 50 years than in any comparable period of human history. We have done this to meet the growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber, and fuel. While changes to ecosystems have enhanced the well-being of billions of people, they have also caused a substantial and largely irreversible loss in diversity of life on Earth, and have strained the capacity of ecosystems to continue providing critical services. Among the findings: Approximately 60% of the services that support life on Earth are being degraded or used unsustainably. The harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years. Only four ecosystem services have been enhanced in the last 50 years: crops, livestock, aquaculture, and the sequestration of carbon. The capacity of ecosystems to neutralize pollutants, protect us from natural disasters, and control the outbreaks of pests and diseases is declining significantly. Terrestrial and freshwater systems are reaching the limits of their ability to absorb nitrogen. Harvesting of fish and other resources from coastal and marine systems is compromising their ability to deliver food in the future. Richly illustrated with maps and graphs, Current State and Trends presents an assessment of Earth's ability to provide twenty-four distinct services essential to human well-being. These include food, fiber, and other materials; the regulation of the climate and fresh water systems; underlying support systems such as nutrient cycling; and the fulfillment of cultural, spiritual, and aesthetic values. The volume pays particular attention to the current health of key ecosystems, including inland waters, forests, oceans, croplands, and dryland systems, among others. It will be an indispensable reference for scientists, environmentalists, agency professionals, and students.
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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
Multiscale Assessments: Findings of the Sub-Global Assessments Working Group
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Island Press, 2005
One of the major innovations of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is the incorporation of local and regional assessmentsù33 in allùin a global portrait of the planetÆs health. It is the first global assessment of ecosystems to include not only a diversity of ecosystems, but to draw on a wide range of cultural orientations and intellectual traditions, including those of indigenous peoples. The Sub-global Assessments Working Group integrated information from multiple sources and found that biophysical factors such as land-use change, climate change and variability, pollution, and invasive species have a significant effect on human well-being across cultures. For example, in places where there are no other social safety nets, diminished human well-being tends to increase immediate dependence on ecosystem services, which can damage the capacity of those local ecosystems, which in turn appears to increase the probability of natural disaster or conflict. Representing the baseline and framework for ongoing assessments of ecosystem and human well-being on a variety of scales around the world, Multiscale Assessments provides students, researchers, and policy-makers with the most comprehensive methodology for assessing ecosystems at local, national, and regional scales.
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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
Our Human Planet: Summary for Decision Makers
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Island Press, 2005
Our Human Planet summarizes the findings of the four working groups and serves as a reference guide to the four main volumes in the MA series. It presents the key findings of each of the working groups, providing an overview of the framework used by the assessment, and will serve as a guide for assessment, planning, and management for the future.
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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
Policy Responses: Findings of the Responses Working Group
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Island Press, 2005
With the knowledge of possible outcomes, what kind of actions should we take? The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment scored 74 response options for dealing with declines in ecosystem services and biodiversity, and managing drivers such as climate change and nutrient loading. This third volume in the MA series analyzes the track record of past policies and the potential of new ones. The challenge of reversing the degradation of ecosystems while meeting increasing demands for their services can be met only with significant policy and institutional changes. However, a difficult set of obstacles stand in the way. Policy makers must keep in mind that there are both trade-offs and synergies between human well-being, ecosystems, and ecosystem services, and that decisions regarding these tradeoffs are difficult and often contentious. The Responses volume ultimately establishes which policy options have the greatest chance to overcome the obstacles and generate positive outcomes. It will serve as an invaluable guide to the creation of stronger policy frameworks for the future.
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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
Scenarios: Findings of the Scenarios Working Group
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Island Press, 2005
Scenarios are an invaluable tool for analyzing complex systems and understanding possible outcomes. This second volume of the MA series explores the implications of four different approaches for managing ecosystem services in the face of growing human demand for them: The Global Orchestration approach, in which we emphasize equity, economic growth, and public goods, reacting to ecosystem problems when they reach critical stages. Order from Strength, which emphasizes security and economic growth. Adapting Mosaic, which emphasizes proactive management of ecosystems, local adaptation, and flexible governance. TechnoGarden, a globalized approach with an emphasis on green technology and a proactive approach to managing ecosystems. The Scenarios volume will help decision-makers and managers identify development paths that better maintain the resilience of ecosystems, and can reduce the risk of damage to human well-being and the environment.
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Ecoviews
Snakes, Snails, and Environmental Tales
Whit Gibbons and Anne R. Gibbons
University of Alabama Press, 1998
The authors offer a fun-to-read perspective on natural history, ecology as a field of study, and the current environmental issues that face our communities and the world.

This lively and entertaining book provides a fascinating and thought-provoking look at the ecology of animals, plants, and their habitats and promotes awareness of pressing environmental issues. The eight informative chapters deliver effective environmental messages and supply compelling insight into the natural world and the ecologists who investigate its many mysteries.

From a concerned ecological stance, the authors show that human relationship with other organisms and the environment is always complex and can be exhilarating, inspiring, humorous, and irritating, depending on perspectives and circumstances. Writing truly to inform and delight, they give a captivating variety of examples from the natural world in hopes of making readers of all ages more compassionate, more tolerant, and more sensitive to other living organisms and their interrelationships. The book celebrates the intrinsic worth of all plants and animals in order to motivate people in a unified effort to preserve the Earth's rich array of life forms. The preservation of the integrity of our planet's biodiversity is, the authors illustrate, critical to our own survival.
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Ecoviews Too
Ecology for All Seasons
Whit Gibbons and Anne R. Gibbons
University of Alabama Press, 2017
Ecoviews Too examines various human attitudes toward wildlife and the environment, focusing on seasonal occurrences and natural adaptations, in an engaging and informative manner.

Whit Gibbons and Anne R. Gibbons’s Ecoviews Too: Ecology for All Seasons is based on the popular weekly column “Ecoviews,” published by numerous newspapers for more than thirty years. A follow-up to Ecoviews: Snakes, Snails and Environmental Tales, this lively and entertaining book provides a fascinating and thought-provoking look at the ecology of animals, plants, and their habitats, and promotes awareness of pressing environmental issues.
 
Because nature, in all its myriad and amazing manifestations, can be enjoyed all year round, this collection is conveniently divided into four sections paralleling the seasons and tracking the adaptations and responses of wildlife to the relentless changes that occur at any location over time. The ecological vignettes focus on seasonal happenings in the cycle of life. The authors not only draw parallels between the natural world and human activities but also highlight unique behaviors of various plant and animal species. They often use humor to get across their message regarding the need to protect our native species and the habitats they depend on for survival.
 
An intriguing and captivating publication, Ecoviews Too is comprised of fifty informative essays that address ecological topics such as camouflage and mimicry, hibernation and estivation, the human need to encounter scary animals, the mysteries of plant dormancy in winter, the comeback of the wild turkey coinciding with the decline of bobwhites, the chemistry behind the color change in fall leaves, and the top ten environmental problems facing the world today. Educating, entertaining, and delighting a general audience, especially those with an interest in nature, Ecoviews Too provides a useful resource for students and scientists alike.
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Eden on the Charles
The Making of Boston
Michael Rawson
Harvard University Press, 2014

Drinking a glass of tap water, strolling in a park, hopping a train for the suburbs: some aspects of city life are so familiar that we don’t think twice about them. But such simple actions are structured by complex relationships with our natural world. The contours of these relationships—social, cultural, political, economic, and legal—were established during America’s first great period of urbanization in the nineteenth century, and Boston, one of the earliest cities in America, often led the nation in designing them. A richly textured cultural and social history of the development of nineteenth-century Boston, this book provides a new environmental perspective on the creation of America’s first cities.

Eden on the Charles explores how Bostonians channeled country lakes through miles of pipeline to provide clean water; dredged the ocean to deepen the harbor; filled tidal flats and covered the peninsula with houses, shops, and factories; and created a metropolitan system of parks and greenways, facilitating the conversion of fields into suburbs. The book shows how, in Boston, different class and ethnic groups brought rival ideas of nature and competing visions of a “city upon a hill” to the process of urbanization—and were forced to conform their goals to the realities of Boston’s distinctive natural setting. The outcomes of their battles for control over the city’s development were ultimately recorded in the very fabric of Boston itself. In Boston’s history, we find the seeds of the environmental relationships that—for better or worse—have defined urban America to this day.

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The Empire That Would Not Die
The Paradox of Eastern Roman Survival, 640–740
John Haldon
Harvard University Press, 2016

The eastern Roman Empire was the largest state in western Eurasia in the sixth century. Only a century later, it was a fraction of its former size. Surrounded by enemies, ravaged by warfare and disease, the empire seemed destined to collapse. Yet it did not die. In this holistic analysis, John Haldon elucidates the factors that allowed the eastern Roman Empire to survive against all odds into the eighth century.

By 700 CE the empire had lost three-quarters of its territory to the Islamic caliphate. But the rugged geography of its remaining territories in Anatolia and the Aegean was strategically advantageous, preventing enemies from permanently occupying imperial towns and cities while leaving them vulnerable to Roman counterattacks. The more the empire shrank, the more it became centered around the capital of Constantinople, whose ability to withstand siege after siege proved decisive. Changes in climate also played a role, permitting shifts in agricultural production that benefitted the imperial economy.

At the same time, the crisis confronting the empire forced the imperial court, the provincial ruling classes, and the church closer together. State and church together embodied a sacralized empire that held the emperor, not the patriarch, as Christendom’s symbolic head. Despite its territorial losses, the empire suffered no serious political rupture. What remained became the heartland of a medieval Christian Roman state, with a powerful political theology that predicted the emperor would eventually prevail against God’s enemies and establish Orthodox Christianity’s world dominion.

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Empirical Ecocriticism
Environmental Narratives for Social Change
Matthew Schneider-Mayerson
University of Minnesota Press, 2023

A groundbreaking book that combines the environmental humanities and social sciences to study the impact of environmental stories

There is a growing consensus that environmental narratives can help catalyze the social change necessary to address today’s environmental crises; however, surprisingly little is known about their impact and effectiveness. In Empirical Ecocriticism, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Alexa Weik von Mossner, W. P. Malecki, and Frank Hakemulder combine an environmental humanities perspective with empirical methods derived from the social sciences to study the influence of environmental stories on our affects, attitudes, and actions.

 

Empirical Ecocriticism provides an approachable introduction to this growing field’s main methods and demonstrates their potential through case studies on topics ranging from the impact of climate fiction on readers’ willingness to engage in activism to the political empowerment that results from participating in environmental theater. Part manifesto, part toolkit, part proof of concept, and part dialogue, this introductory volume is divided into three sections: methods, case studies, and reflections. International in scope, it points toward a novel and fruitful synthesis of the environmental humanities and social sciences.

 

Contributors: Matthew Ballew, Yale U; Helena Bilandzic, U of Augsburg; Rebecca Dirksen, Indiana U; Greg Garrard, UBC Okanagan; Matthew H. Goldberg, Yale U; Abel Gustafson, U of Cincinnati; David I. Hanauer, Indiana U of Pennsylvania; Ursula K. Heise, UCLA; Jeremy Jimenez, SUNY Cortland; Anthony Leiserowitz, Yale U; David M. Markowitz, U of Oregon; Marcus Mayorga; Jessica Gall Myrick, Penn State U; Mary Beth Oliver, Penn State U; Yan Pang, Point Park U; Mark Pedelty, U of Minnesota; Seth A. Rosenthal, Yale U; Elja Roy, U of Memphis; Nicolai Skiveren, Aarhus U; Paul Slovic, U of Oregon; Scott Slovic, U of Idaho; Nicolette Sopcak, U of Alberta; Paul Sopcak, MacEwan U; Sara Warner, Cornell U.

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Empty Spaces
perspectives on emptiness in modern history
Edited by Courtney J. Campbell, Allegra Giovine, and Jennifer Keating
University of London Press, 2019
How is emptiness made and what historical purpose does it serve? What cultural, material and natural work goes into maintaining ‘nothingness’? Why have a variety of historical actors, from colonial powers to artists and urban dwellers, sought to construct, control and maintain (physically and discursively) empty space, and by which processes is emptiness discovered, visualised and reimagined? This volume draws together contributions from authors working on landscapes and rurality, along with national and imperial narratives, from Brazil to Russia and Ireland. It considers the visual, including the art of Edward Hopper and the work of the British Empire Marketing Board, while concluding with a section that examines constructions of emptiness in relation to capitalism, development and the (re)appropriation of urban space. In doing so, it foregrounds the importance of emptiness as a productive prism through which to interrogate a variety of imperial, national, cultural and urban history.
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Encountering the Past in Nature
Essays in Environmental History
Timo Myllyntaus
Ohio University Press, 2000
A deeper understanding of contemporary environmental problems requires us to know where we come from, and the study of environmental history will help us in that quest. Environmental history, in short, may be described as an attempt to study the interaction between humans and nature in the past. How have human societies affected their environment and vice versa? What does history tell us about ecological change?

The essays in Encountering the Past in Nature provide various approaches to the new discipline. Experts with diverse educational backgrounds tackle important issues in environmental history, ranging from the intellectual formation of environmental concepts to case studies of forest history and animal extinction. Most essays in the collection focus on the issue of wilderness and the various uses of forest resources. Encountering the Past in Nature also offers introductory essays on the historiography and methodology of this field of historical study.

Encountering the Past in Nature is a useful addition to the introductory texts currently available in the United States.
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The End of Nomadism?
Society, State, and the Environment in Inner Asia
Caroline Humphrey and David Sneath
Duke University Press, 1999
Those who herd in the vast grassland region of Inner Asia face a precarious situation as they struggle to respond to the momentous political and economic changes of recent years. In The End of Nomadism? Caroline Humphrey and David Sneath confront the romantic, ahistorical myth of the wandering nomad by revealing the complex lives and the significant impact on Asian culture of these modern “mobile pastoralists.” In their examination of the present and future of pastoralism, the authors recount the extensive and quite sudden social, political, environmental, and economic changes of recent years that have forced these peoples to respond and evolve in order to maintain their centuries-old way of life.
Using extensive and detailed case studies comparing pastoralism in Siberian Russia, Mongolia, and Northwest China, Humphrey and Sneath explore the different paths taken by nomads in these countries in reaction to a changing world. In examining how each culture is facing not only different prospects for sustainability but also different environmental problems, the authors come to the surprising conclusion that mobility can, in fact, be compatible with a modern and urbanized world. While placing emphasis on the social and cultural traditions of Inner Asia and their fate in the post-Socialist economies of the present, The End of Nomadism? investigates the changing nature of pastoralism by focusing on key areas under environmental threat and relating the ongoing problems to distinctive socioeconomic policies and practices in Russia and China. It also provides lively contemporary commentary on current economic dilemmas by revealing in telling detail, for instance, the struggle of one extended family to make a living.
This book will interest Central Asian, Russian, and Chinese specialists, as well as those studying the environment, anthropology, sociology, peasant studies, and ecology.


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Energy and the Ecological Economics of Sustainability
John Peet
Island Press, 1992

Energy and the Ecological Economics of Sustainability examines the roots of the present environmental crisis in the neoclassical economics upon which modern industrial society is based. The author explains that only when we view ourselves in the larger context of the global ecosystem and accept the physical limits to what is possible can sustainability be achieved.

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Environment and Society in the Japanese Islands
From Prehistory to the Present
Bruce L. Batten
Oregon State University Press, 2015
Over the long course of Japan’s history, its people profited from their rich natural environment while simultaneously facing significant environmental challenges. Over time, they have altered their natural environment in numerous ways, from landscape modification to industrial pollution. How has the human-nature relationship changed over time in Japan? How does Japan’s environmental history compare with that of other countries, or that of the world as a whole?

Environment and Society in the Japanese Islands attempts to answer these questions through a series of case studies by leading Japanese and Western historians, geographers, archaeologists, and climatologists. These essays, on diverse topics from all periods of Japanese history and prehistory, are unified by their focus on the key concepts of “resilience” and “risk mitigation.” Taken as a whole, they place Japan’s experience in global context and call into question the commonly presumed division between pre-modern and modern environmental history.

Primarily intended for scholars and students in fields related to Japan or environmental history, these accessibly-written essays will be valuable to anyone wishing to learn about the historical roots of today’s environmental issues or the complex relationship between human society and the natural environment.
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front cover of Environmental Change and Human Adaptation in the Ancient American Southwest
Environmental Change and Human Adaptation in the Ancient American Southwest
Doyel and Dean
University of Utah Press, 2006
Archaeology provides an ideal avenue for examining long-term processes and interrelationships between human behavior and environmental stability, variation, and change. The American Southwest is particularly well suited for such 'deep-time' investigations because of its comprehensive archaeological record, rich ethnographic and historical data on its peoples, and unmatched reconstructions of multiple environmental variables across a broad range of spatial and temporal scales.
 
This volume contains a varied and instructive set of studies of human behavioral adaptation to environmental change in the ancient Southwest. It makes significant contributions to southwestern prehistory, settlement pattern studies, agriculture, behavioral ecology, paleo-environmental reconstruction, and statistical and computer-aided modeling. The mix of case studies and syntheses covers the Colorado Plateau, Sonoran Desert, Mogollon Highlands, and Rio Grande Valley and summarizes the work of some of the leading researchers in the region.
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Environmental Futures
An International Literary Anthology
Edited by Caren Irr, et al.
Brandeis University Press, 2024
A global anthology, curated by experts from around the world, draws on fiction and poetry to examine environmental challenges and their implications for communities.
 
Featuring short stories, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction from around the world, this anthology showcases contemporary literature to envision the future of the environment. While environmental literature written in English has been dominated by English and American men who make solo explorations into an unspoiled natural world, Environmental Futures emphasizes local and indigenous writers contending with global landscapes that are far from pristine. Their work opens up decolonial perspectives from Anglophone Africa, South Asia, India, China, South America, the peripheries of Europe, and BIPoC North America. Introducing many writers who will be unfamiliar to English-speaking readers, this collection explores resistance to the oil economy, the impact of storms and natural disasters, extinction, and relations between humans and animals, among other themes.
 
The pieces are organized by geographical area in five sections: Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. Expert scholars and translators—Kurt Cavender, Roberto Forns-Broggi, Cajetan Iheka, Upamanyu (Pablo) Mukherjee, Irina Sadovina, and Shaobo Xie—selected the works and provided critical introductions for each section.
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front cover of Environmental Imaginaries of the Middle East and North Africa
Environmental Imaginaries of the Middle East and North Africa
Diana K. Davis
Ohio University Press, 2011

The landscapes of the Middle East have captured our imaginations throughout history. Images of endless golden dunes, camel caravans, isolated desert oases, and rivers lined with palm trees have often framed written and visual representations of the region. Embedded in these portrayals is the common belief that the environment, in most places, has been deforested and desertified by centuries of misuse. It is precisely such orientalist environmental imaginaries, increasingly undermined by contemporary ecological data, that the eleven authors in this volume question. This is the first volume to critically examine culturally constructed views of the environmental history of the Middle East and suggest that they have often benefitted elites at the expense of the ecologies and the peoples of the region. The contributors expose many of the questionable policies and practices born of these environmental imaginaries and related histories that have been utilized in the region since the colonial period. They further reveal how power, in the form of development programs, notions of nationalism, and hydrological maps, for instance, relates to environmental knowledge production.

Contributors: Samer Alatout, Edmund Burke III, Shaul Cohen, Diana K. Davis, Jennifer L. Derr, Leila M. Harris, Alan Mikhail, Timothy Mitchell, Priya Satia, Jeannie Sowers, and George R. Trumbull IV

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An Ethics of Biodiversity
Christianity, Ecology, and the Variety of Life
Kevin J. O'Brien
Georgetown University Press, 2010

Life on earth is wildly diverse, but the future of that diversity is now in question. Through environmentally destructive farming practices, ever-expanding energy use, and the development and homogenization of land, human beings are responsible for unprecedented reductions in the variety of life forms around us. Estimates suggest that species extinctions caused by humans occur at up to 1,000 times the natural rate, and that one of every twenty species on the planet could be eradicated by 2060.

An Ethics of Biodiversity argues that these facts should inspire careful reflection and action in Christian churches, which must learn from earth’s vast diversity in order to help conserve the natural and social diversity of our planet. Bringing scientific data into conversation with theological tradition, the book shows that biodiversity is a point of intersection between faith and ethics, social justice and environmentalism, science and politics, global problems and local solutions. An Ethics of Biodiversity offers a set of tools for students, environmentalists, and people of faith to think critically about how human beings can live with and as part of the variety of life in God’s creation.

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front cover of Ethnic Diversity and the Control of Natural Resources in Southeast Asia
Ethnic Diversity and the Control of Natural Resources in Southeast Asia
A. Terry Rambo, Kathleen Gillogly, and Karl L. Hutterrer, Editors
University of Michigan Press, 1988
The authors consider the ways in which the high degree of ethnic diversity within the region is related to the nature of tropical Asian environments, on the one hand, and the nature of Southeast Asian political systems and the ways in which they manipulate natural resources, on the other. Rather than focus on defining the phenomenon of ethnicity, this book examines the different social evolutionary contexts in which the phenomenon is manifested.
Companion volume to Cultural Values and Human Ecology in Southeast Asia (Michigan Papers no. 27).
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Ethnoecology
Situated Knowledge/Located Lives
Virginia D. Nazarea
University of Arizona Press, 1999
The re-emerging field of ethnoecology offers a promising way to document and analyze human-environment interactions. This collection brings the discipline into sharp focus, conveying local understandings of environments and proposing a way of looking at the relationship between humans and the natural world that emphasizes the importance of cognition in shaping behavior. Case studies by international experts explore the varied views of scholars on the human dimension of conversation and the different views of local peoples regarding their own environments. Filled with peoples' voices from North and South America, Africa, and Asia, these cases cover a range of issues: natural resource conservation and sustainable development, the relationship between local knowledge and biodiversity, the role of the commons in development, and the importance of diversity and equity in environmental management. As the only volume to address the status of this increasingly multidisciplinary field—especially as it relates to the differential power of multiple stakeholders—Ethnoecology: Situated Knowledge/Located Lives is intended for a wide range of specialists not only in social and natural sciences but also in agricultural studies. It conveys the overriding importance of this powerful methodological approach in providing insiders' perspectives on their environment and how they manage it. CONTENTS
1. Introduction. A View from a Point: Ethnoecology as Situated Knowledge, Virginia D. Nazarea
2. The Value of Subsistence for the Future of the World, Eugene S. Hunn
3. Practical and Religious Meanings of the Navajo Hogan, Lillie Lane
4. The Agronomy of Memory and the Memory of Agronomy: Ritual Conservation of Archaic Cultigens in Contemporary Farming Systems, Michael R. Dove
5. Ethnoecology Serving the Community: A Case Study from Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico, Richard I. Ford
6. Lenses and Latitudes in Landscapes and Lifescapes, Virginia D. Nazarea
7. Cultural Landscapes and Biodiversity: The Ethnoecology of an Upper R¡o Grande Watershed Commons, Devon G. Peña
8. Conserving Folk Crop Varieties: Different Agricultures, Different Goals, Daniela Soleri and Steven E. Smith
9. Plant Constituents and the Nutrition and Health of Indigenous Peoples, Timothy Johns
10. Sustainable Production and Harvest of Medicinal and Aromatic Herbs in the Sierras de C¢rdoba Region, Argentina, Marta Lagrotteria and James M. Affolter
11. Managing the Maya Commons: The Value of Local Knowledge, Scott Atran
12. Safeguarding Traditional Resource Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Darrell A. Posey
13. A Practical Primer on Intellectual Property Rights in a Contemporary Ethnoecological Context, David J. Stephenson, Jr.
14. Toward Compensation: Returning Benefits from Ethnobotanical Drug Discovery to Native Peoples, Katy Moran
15. Am I My Brother's Keeper?, Christine S. Kabuye
16. Epilogue. Quo Vadis? The Promise of Ethnoecology, Robert E. Rhoades and Jack Harlan
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front cover of The Eucharistic Vision of Laudato Si
The Eucharistic Vision of Laudato Si
Praise, Conversion, and Integral Ecology
Lucas Briola
Catholic University of America Press, 2022
No other encyclical has generated as much conversation—both Catholic and non-Catholic—as Laudato si’. Often forgotten in these conversations is the theological heart and eucharistic vision of the encyclical and its integral ecology. Even the title of Laudato si’—“Praised be!”—signals the centrality of right praise in caring for our common home. Using Bernard Lonergan’s theology of history, this book unearths the doxological, eucharistic vision that shapes the encyclical’s integral presentation of social and ecological conversion. It offers the first book-length study that recovers the eucharistic nature of Laudato si’. In drawing out the eucharistic vision of Laudato si’, the book accomplishes several feats for the reader. It roots the eucharistic dimensions of the encyclical in the writings of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, showing how Pope Francis develops their thought in notable ways. It introduces Bernard Lonergan’s theology of history, showing how his framework can capture the eucharistic contours of caring for our common home; so too, in light of Laudato si’, does the book expand his theology of history to incorporate both ecological concern and the doxological, eucharistic essence of the church. The book assembles a liturgically shaped, systematic account of the church’s social mission. It joins poles otherwise sundered in a polarized church and world: between worship and justice, between concerns for human life and concerns for the natural world. Realizing the eucharistic vision of Laudato si’ promises much for our contemporary moment. Pope Francis recently observed that the integral ecology of Laudato si’ holds the key for the world’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Catholic Bishops recently launched a Eucharistic Revival that aims to rekindle eucharistic devotion and praxis. The Eucharistic Vision of Laudato Si’: Praise, Conversion, and Integral Ecology supplies a timely study that helps fulfill these intertwined calls.
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Eurasian Environments
Nature and Ecology in Imperial Russian and Soviet History
NIcholas B. Breyfogle
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018
Through a series of essays, Eurasian Environments prompts us to rethink our understanding of tsarist and Soviet history by placing the human experience within the larger environmental context of flora, fauna, geology, and climate. This book is a broad look at the environmental history of Eurasia, specifically examining steppe environments, hydraulic engineering, soil and forestry, water pollution, fishing, and the interaction of the environment and disease vectors. Throughout, the authors place the history of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union in a trans-chronological, comparative context, seamlessly linking the local and the global. The chapters are rooted in the ecological and geological specificities of place and community while unveiling the broad patterns of human-nature relationships across the planet. Eurasian Environments brings together an international group scholars working on issues of tsarist/Soviet environmental history in an effort to showcase the wave of fascinating and field-changing research currently being written. 
 
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Everyday Nature
Knowledge of the Natural World in Colonial New York
Gronim, Sara S
Rutgers University Press, 2007

In the modern world, the public looks to scientists and scholars for their expertise on issues ranging from the effectiveness of vaccines to the causes of natural disasters. But for early Americans, whose relationship to nature was more intimate and perilous than our own, personal experience, political allegiances, and faith in God took precedence over the experiments of the learned.

In Everyday Nature, Sara Gronim shows how scientific advances were received in the early modern world, from the time Europeans settled in America until just before the American Revolution. Settlers approached a wide range of innovations, such as smallpox inoculation, maps and surveys, Copernican cosmology, and Ben Franklin’s experiments with electricity, with great skepticism.  New Yorkers in particular were distrustful because of the chronic political and religious factionalism in the colony. Those discoveries that could be easily reconciled with existing beliefs about healing the sick, agricultural practices, and the revolution of the planets were more readily embraced.

A fascinating portrait of colonial life, this book traces a series of innovations that were disseminated throughout the Atlantic world during the Enlightenment, and shows how colonial New Yorkers integrated new knowledge into their lives.

         

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The Evolution of Calusa
A Nonagricultural Chiefdom of the Southwest Florida Coast
Randolph J. Widmer
University of Alabama Press, 1988

The aims of this study are twofold: compile, for the first time, all the archaeological, environmental, and geological data pertinent to the evolution of the aboriginal inhabitants of southwest Florida; and, using this basis, develop a specific, integrated, and dynamic model of cultural adaptation that will serve as a stimulus for hypotheses that go beyond simple culture-historical concerns for future archaeological research in this region.

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Experiments in Consilience
Integrating Social And Scientific Responses To Save Endangered Species
Edited by Frances R. Westley and Philip S. Miller
Island Press, 2003

In his 1998 book Consilience, E.O. Wilson set forth the idea that integrating knowledge and insights from across the spectrum of human study -- the humanities, social science, and natural sciences -- is the key to solving complex environmental and social problems. Experiments in Consilience tells the unique story of a pathbreaking effort to apply this theoretical construct in a real-world setting.

The book describes the work of the Biodiversity Research Network, a team of experts from the United States and Canada brought together to build interdisciplinary connections and stimulate an exchange of expertise. Team members sought to understand the ecology and population dynamics of key species in particular ecosystems, to understand the impact of human populations on those species and ecosystems, and to develop tools and processes for involving a greater variety of stakeholders in conservation efforts.

In order to keep the experiment grounded, the network focused on a single type of conservation planning workshop run by a single organization -- the Population and Habitat Viability Assessment Workshop (PHVA) of the IUCN-sponsored Conservation Breeding Specialist Group (CBSG).

The book combines sections on the theoretical underpinnings of relevant concepts in population biology, simulation modeling, and social science with detailed descriptions of six PHVA workshops conducted on different species across four continents. A concluding chapter examines the lessons learned, which have application to both theory and practice, including reflections on interdisciplinarity, integrated risk assessment, and future directions for research and action. Through the combination of theory and application, combined with frank discussions of what the research network learned -- including both successes and failures -- the book offers fresh ideas on how to improve on-the-ground conservation decisionmaking.

Experiments in Consilience offers a one-of-a-kind overview and introduction to the challenges of cross-disciplinary analysis as well as cross-functional, cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral action. It centers on the problem of conserving endangered species while telling the story of a new form of organizing for effective risk assessment, recommendation, and action.

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front cover of Exploring Cause and Explanation
Exploring Cause and Explanation
Historical Ecology, Demography, and Movement in the American Southwest
Cynthia L. Herhahn
University Press of Colorado, 2016
This 13th biennial volume of the Southwest Symposium highlights three distinct archaeological themes—historical ecology, demography, and movement—tied together through the consideration of the knowledge tools of cause and explanation. These tools focus discussion on how and why questions, facilitate assessing past and current knowledge of the Pueblo Southwest, and provide unexpected bridges across the three themes. For instance, people are ultimately the source of the movement of artifacts, but that statement is inadequate for explaining how artifact movement occurred or even why, at a regional scale, different kinds of movement are implicated at different times. Answering such questions can easily incorporate questions about changes in climate or in population density or size.
 
Each thematic section is introduced by an established author who sets the framework for the chapters that follow. Some contributors adopt regional perspectives in which both classical regions (the central San Juan or lower Chama basins) and peripheral zones (the Alamosa basin or the upper San Juan) are represented. Chapters are also broad temporally, ranging from the Younger Dryas Climatic interval (the Clovis-Folsom transition) to the Protohistoric Pueblo world and the eighteenth-century ethnogenesis of a unique Hispanic identity in northern New Mexico. Others consider methodological issues, including the burden of chronic health afflictions at the level of the community and advances in estimating absolute population size. Whether emphasizing time, space, or methodology, the authors address the processes, steps, and interactions that affect current understanding of change or stability of cultural traditions.
 
Exploring Cause and Explanation considers themes of perennial interest but demonstrates that archaeological knowledge in the Southwest continues to expand in directions that could not have been predicted fifty years ago.

Contributors: Kirk C. Anderson, Jesse A. M. Ballenger, Jeffery Clark, J. Andrew Darling, B. Sunday Eiselt, Mark D. Elson, Mostafa Fayek, Jeffrey R. Ferguson, Severin Fowles, Cynthia Herhahn, Vance T. Holliday, Sharon Hull, Deborah L. Huntley, Emily Lena Jones, Kathryn Kamp, Jeremy Kulisheck, Karl W. Laumbach, Toni S. Laumbach, Stephen H. Lekson, Virginia T. McLemore, Frances Joan Mathien, Michael H. Ort, Scott G. Ortman, Mary Ownby, Mary M. Prasciunas, Ann F. Ramenofsky, Erik Simpson, Ann L. W. Stodder, Ronald H. Towner
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Exposed
Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times
Stacy Alaimo
University of Minnesota Press, 2016

Opening with the statement “The anthropocene is no time to set things straight,” Stacy Alaimo puts forth potent arguments for a material feminist posthumanism in the chapters that follow.

From trans-species art and queer animals to naked protesting and scientific accounts of fishy humans, Exposed argues for feminist posthumanism immersed in strange agencies and scale-shifting ethics. Including such divergent topics as landscape art, ocean ecologies, and plastic activism, Alaimo explores our environmental predicaments to better understand feminist occupations of transcorporeal subjectivity.

She puts scientists, activists, artists, writers, and theorists in conversation, revealing that the state of the planet in the twenty-first century has radically transformed ethics, politics, and what it means to be human. Ultimately, Exposed calls for an environmental stance in which, rather than operating from an externalized perspective, we think, feel, and act as the very stuff of the world.

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The Extractive Zone
Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives
Macarena Gómez-Barris
Duke University Press, 2017
In The Extractive Zone Macarena Gómez-Barris traces the political, aesthetic, and performative practices that emerge in opposition to the ruinous effects of extractive capital. The work of Indigenous activists, intellectuals, and artists in spaces Gómez-Barris labels extractive zones—majority indigenous regions in South America noted for their biodiversity and long history of exploitative natural resource extraction—resist and refuse the terms of racial capital and the continued legacies of colonialism. Extending decolonial theory with race, sexuality, and critical Indigenous studies, Gómez-Barris develops new vocabularies for alternative forms of social and political life. She shows how from Colombia to southern Chile artists like filmmaker Huichaqueo Perez and visual artist Carolina Caycedo formulate decolonial aesthetics. She also examines the decolonizing politics of a Bolivian anarcho-feminist collective and a coalition in eastern Ecuador that protects the region from oil drilling. In so doing, Gómez-Barris reveals the continued presence of colonial logics and locates emergent modes of living beyond the boundaries of destructive extractive capital.
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