Geology, Geography, Ecology, and the Environment

For those that love earth, dirt, maps, and the history behind them.

Environmental History and the American South: A Reader (BOOK): edited by Paul S. Sutter and Christopher J. Manganiello

I applaud the editors for their efforts in pulling together this excellent collection. Geographically, chronologically, and topically, it offers good coverage of an incredibly diverse region and should be a boon to the study of southern people and the natural world they inhabit. --Timothy Silver, author of Mount Mitchell and the Black Mountains: An Environmental History of the Highest Peaks in Eastern America

This book offers an original look, through the lens of environmental history, at what has made the South a unique region and at what has made the South a complicated place, as diverse in its culture and economy as in its climate, terrain, and biota. Well-chosen pieces and an excellent overview and bibliography will make this volume invaluable to American historians of every region or period. --Donald Worster, author of A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir

Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Former Soviet Union (BOOK): edited by Julian Agyeman and Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger

"In the quest for a middle ground of 'Just Sustainability,' fresh insight is provided by this eclectic portrait of a region where both justice and sustainability are in short supply."
—Michael R. Edelstein, Ramapo College of New Jersey, author of Contaminated Communities, and lead editor of Cultures of Contamination

"With in-depth field surveys, rich historical contextualization, and cultural assessments, this book shines a light on issues that have received little attention in Western publications. Citizens of the former Soviet Union give voice to environmental issues and their interrelation to ethnic conflicts, nationalism, criminality, and other issues. This book convincingly shows how environmental issues and their solutions are critically tied to other factors."
—Walter Richmond, German, Russian, and Classical Studies, Occidental College

Land-Change Science in the Tropics: Changing Agricultural Landscapes (BOOK): edited by Andrew Millington and Wendy Jepson

The IGBP Land Use Land Cover Change program ended in November 2005 with sessions at the IHDP 6th Open Meeting in Bonn. This book is based on a session at that meeting convened by the editors, and presents other important topics and areas. Included are chapters based on papers presented at this meeting and invited contributions that cover important geographical and thematic issues not addressed at the meeting. In particular, there will be a balance between old agricultural regions (eg. Mediterranean, Indo-Gangetic Plains, Andes, Southern Africa, and upland Southeast Asia) and regions recently converted to agriculture, for example, the Brazilian Cerrado, the Yucatan Penninsula, and Bolivian Chapare.

Nature in Common?: Environmental Ethics and the Contested Foundations of Environmental Policy (BOOK): edited by Ben A. Minteer

“Nature in Common? brings together leading environmental philosophers to sharpen and clarify the divisions and critically examine the strengths and limits of moving environmentalists toward an agenda with which most can agree. This is an important and unique collection of essays. Minteer’s introductory framing is excellent, and each of the chapters, are clear and forceful. This volume is a major contribution and deserves to be read widely. “—Jan Dizard, Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of American Culture and the Pick Professor of Environmental Studies, Amherst College

Nested Ecology: The Place of Humans in the Ecological Hierarchy (BOOK): Edward T. Wimberley foreword by John F. Haught

"[Wimberley's] wise, readable, and convincing book awakens us to spheres of concern that even the most sensitive ecological treatises have often ignored or underemphasized. He has in mind a much more integral and nuanced ecological vision than is customary. Readers of many backgrounds and interests will find herein a carefully coordinated range of reflections on the multiple nesting and nested levels that make up the universe. Wimberley's sophisticated study of the plurality of ecological strata challenges us to develop a wider ecological awareness than even some of the most celebrated ecological visionaries have provided." -- John F. Haught, Georgetown University, from the Foreword

Systemic Management: Sustainable Human Interactions with Ecosystems and the Biosphere (BOOK): Charles W. Fowler (Seattle Native!) J

'Systemic management' is presented as a specialized process of pattern-based decision-making that avoids the inconsistency, subjectivity and error in current management practice. It clearly demonstrates how mimicking nature's empirical examples of sustainability can circumvent anthropocentric tendencies to overuse/misuse human values in management, and illustrates the science best suited for achieving sustainability through examples of research that address specific management questions.