• New Books in Environmental Studies

  • By: Marshall Poe
  • Podcast

New Books in Environmental Studies

By: Marshall Poe
  • Summary

  • Interviews with Environmental Scientists about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies
    New Books Network
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Episodes
  • Ramachandra Guha, "Speaking with Nature: The Origins of Indian Environmentalism" (Yale UP, 2024)
    Feb 1 2025
    From one of the world’s leading historians comes the first substantial study of environmentalism set in any country outside the Euro-American world. By the canons of orthodox social science, countries like India are not supposed to have an environmental consciousness. They are, as it were, “too poor to be green.” In Speaking with Nature: The Origins of Indian Environmentalism (Yale UP, 2024), Ramachandra Guha challenges this narrative by revealing a virtually unknown prehistory of the global movement set far outside Europe or America. Long before the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and well before climate change, ten remarkable individuals wrote with deep insight about the dangers of environmental abuse from within an Indian context. In strikingly contemporary language, Rabindranath Tagore, Radhakamal Mukerjee, J. C. Kumarappa, Patrick Geddes, Albert and Gabrielle Howard, Mira, Verrier Elwin, K. M. Munshi, and M. Krishnan wrote about the forest and the wild, soil and water, urbanization and industrialization. Positing the idea of what Guha calls “livelihood environmentalism” in contrast to the “full-stomach environmentalism” of the affluent world, these writers, activists, and scientists played a pioneering role in shaping global conversations about humanity’s relationship with nature. Spanning more than a century of Indian history, and decidedly transnational in reference, this book offers rich resources for considering the threat of climate change today. About the Author: Ramachandra Guha is the author of many books, including India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy and Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914–1948. Guha’s awards include the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society of Environmental History, the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, and the Fukuoka Prize for contributions to Asian studies. He lives in Bangalore. About the Host: Stuti Roy has recently graduated with an MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies at the University of Oxford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Helen Louise Cowie, "Animals in World History" (Routledge, 2024)
    Feb 1 2025
    Animals in World History (Routledge, 2024) by Dr. Helen Cowie provides a concise synthesis of human-animal relations over time, charting shifting attitudes towards animals from domestication to the present day. It asks how non-human species have shaped human history, and how humans have reconfigured the animal world. Humans have had a long and close relationship with animals. They have hunted them, consumed them as food and fashion, exploited them as energy sources, utilised them in warfare, exhibited them in zoos and menageries, and studied them for science. In the process, they have radically changed the way in which many animals live, subjecting them to captivity, altering their diets, constraining their movements and, through selective breeding, reshaping their bodies. The book explores the use of animals for sustenance, labour, companionship and display, and traces the rise of the animal rights movement. It also assesses how humans have impacted the overall biodiversity of the planet, driving some species of animals to extinction and permitting others to colonise new continents. With case studies on animal astronauts, celebrity kakapos, globetrotting pandas and cocaine hippos, Animals in World History offers a lively and accessible introduction to human-animal relations for students and instructors of animal studies, environmental history, and social and cultural history. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies
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    54 mins
  • Peter Hill, "River Profiles: The People Restoring Our Waterways" (Columbia UP, 2024)
    Jan 29 2025
    Peter Hill has been working as a resource manager with a specialty in stream restoration for over two decades, first for Washington DC and then as a consultant for Great Lakes Watershed Opportunities. Currently, he is Senior Policy Advisor for Green Infrastructure at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center in Milwaukee, WI. His many years of experience in managing major, multi-agency stream and river restoration projects which necessarily needed to include building partnerships to support such multi-faceted ecological restoration efforts. Many of these resource management projects have been located in underserved areas. With River Profiles: The People Restoring Our Waterways (Columbia UP, 2024), Pete reaches out to both the layperson, as well as the practicing professional. His goal is to build a more comprehensive understanding regarding restoration best practices that can be tapped to meet a community’s desire for a healthy and sustainable riparian environment. But Pete’s perspective and professional practice goes beyond just understanding different restoration approaches. He is also quite cognizant about the need to build community understanding and support for their local rivers and streams, both in rural and urban settings. To this latter point, he does feel strongly that stream and river restoration can be tied directly to a community’s environmental justice efforts. Michael Simpson has been actively working, researching and teaching in the watershed management and wetlands fields for 40 years. He is a licensed wetlands scientist where he has conducted numerous delineations, wetland assessments, employing a variety of assessment approaches and data collection procedures, as well as designing wetlands for treatment of non-point source run-off, agricultural liquid wastes and municipal generated waste water. Currently, his primary research for both US EPA and NOAA has focused upon impact to natural systems and built infrastructure in riparian corridors and estuaries, from changes in land-use on the watershed combined with increases in storm intensity and frequency due to projected climate change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies
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    34 mins

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