New Books in Environmental Studies

Forest fires, droughts, and rising sea levels beg a nagging question: have we lost our capacity to act on the future? Dr. Liliana Doganova’s book Discounting the Future: The Ascendancy of a Political Technology (Princeton University Press, 2024) sheds new light on this anxious query. It argues that our relationship to the future has been trapped in the gears of a device called discounting. While its incidence remains little known, discounting has long been entrenched in market and policy practices, shaping the ways firms and governments look to the future and make decisions accordingly. Thus, a sociological account of discounting formulas has become urgent.Discounting means valuing things through the flows of costs and benefits that they are likely to generate in the future, with these future flows being literally dis-counted as they are translated in the present. How have we come to think of the future, and of valuation, in such terms? Building on original empirical research in the historical sociology of discounting, Dr. Doganova takes us to some of the sites and moments in which discounting took shape and gained momentum: valuation of European forests in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; economic theories devised in the early 1900s; debates over business strategies in the postwar era; investor-state disputes over the nationalisation of natural resources; and drug development in the biopharmaceutical industry today. Weaving these threads together, the book pleads for an understanding of discounting as a political technology, and of the future as a contested domain.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/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

In this episode of the CEU Press Podcast, host Andrea Talabér (CEU Press/CEU Review of Books) sat down with Per Högselius and Achim Klüppelberg to discuss their new book with CEU Press entitled, The Soviet Nuclear Archipelago: A Historical Geography of Atomic-Powered Communism (CEU Press, 2023).The book is available Open Access, click here to download.The war in Ukraine, with the exposure of nuclear power stations and the danger of atomic warfare, has made the legacy of the Soviet nuclear sector of critical importance.The two authors map the Soviet nuclear industry in a shifting historical context, making sense of a complex socio-technical and environmental history. Taking an innovative approach, this book explores the history of atomic power in the former Soviet Union using the spatial dimensions of the nuclear industry as a point of departure.Per and Achim’s book is part of our new series, CEU Press Perspectives. The series offers the latest viewpoints on both new and perennial issues, these books address a wide range of topics of critical importance today. The new series, originating from an international collection of leading authors, encourages us to look at issues from a different viewpoint, to think outside the box, and to stimulate debate.You can learn more about the series here.The CEU Press Podcast delves into various aspects of the publishing process: from crafting a book proposal, finding a publisher, responding to peer review feedback on the manuscript, to the subsequent distribution, promotion and marketing of academic books. We will also talk to series editors and authors, who will share their experiences of getting published and talk about their series or books.Interested in CEU Press’s publications? Click here to find out more here. Stay tuned for future episodes and subscribe to our podcast to be the first to be notified. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

In 1867, John Muir set out on foot to explore the botanical wonders of the South, keeping a detailed journal of his adventures as he traipsed from Kentucky southward to Florida. One hundred and fifty years later, on a similar whim, veteran Atlanta reporter Dan Chapman, distressed by sprawl-driven environmental ills in a region he loves, recreated Muir’s journey to see for himself how nature has fared since Muir’s time. Channeling Muir, he uses humor, keen observation, and a deep love of place to celebrate the South’s natural riches. But he laments that a treasured way of life for generations of Southerners is endangered as long-simmering struggles intensify over misused and dwindling resources. Chapman seeks to discover how Southerners might balance surging population growth with protecting the natural beauty Muir found so special.Each chapter touches upon a local ecological problem—at-risk species in Mammoth Cave, coal ash in Kingston, Tennessee, climate change in the Nantahala National Forest, water wars in Georgia, aquifer depletion in Florida—that resonates across the South. Chapman delves into the region’s natural history, moving between John Muir’s vivid descriptions of a lush botanical paradise and the myriad environmental problems facing the South today. Along the way he talks to locals with deep ties to the land—scientists, hunters, politicians, and even a Muir impersonator—who describe the changes they’ve witnessed and what it will take to accommodate a fast-growing population without destroying the natural beauty and a cherished connection to nature.A Road Running Southward: Following John Muir's Journey Through an Endangered Land (Island Press, 2022) is part travelogue, part environmental cri de coeur, and paints a picture of a South under siege. It is a passionate appeal, a call to action to save one of the loveliest and most biodiverse regions of the world by understanding what we have to lose if we do nothing.Matt Simmons is an Assistant Professor of History at Emmanuel University where he teaches courses in U.S. and public history. His research interests focus on the intersection of labor and race in the twentieth-century American South. Connect with him at Matthew Simmons | LinkedIn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with MC Forelle, Assistant Professor of Engineering & Society at the School of Engineering and Applied Science at University of Virginia, about their research on the “chipification” of automobiles. MC’s work examines how computerization affects repair and a wide variety of other automotive experiences. In recent years, they have continued broadening out to include electric and autonomous vehicles and the environmental impacts thereof. Lee and MC also chew the fat about a bunch of other issues along the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

In Terracene: A Crude Aesthetics (Duke UP, 2023), Salar Mameni historicizes the popularization of the scientific notion of the Anthropocene alongside the emergence of the global war on terror. Mameni theorizes the Terracene as an epoch marked by a convergence of racialized militarism and environmental destruction. Both the Anthropocene and the war on terror centered the antagonist figures of the Anthropos and the terrorist as responsible for epochal changes in the new geological and geopolitical world orders. In response, Mameni shows how the Terracene requires radically new engagements with terra (the earth), whose intelligence resides in matters such as oil and phenomena like earthquakes and fires. Drawing on the work of artists whose practices interrogate histories of settler-colonial and imperial interests in land and resources in Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Kuwait, Syria, Palestine, and other regions most affected by the war on terror, Mameni offers speculative paths into the aesthetics of the Terracene.Salar Mameni is an art historian specializing in contemporary transnational art and visual culture in the Arab/Muslim world with an interdisciplinary research on racial discourse, transnational gender politics, militarism, oil cultures and extractive economies in West Asia. Mameni has published articles in Signs, Women & Performance, Al-Raida Journal, Fuse Magazine, Fillip Review and Canadian Art Journal, and has written for exhibition catalogues in Dubai, Sharjah and Istanbul. Mameni was the curator of “Snail Fever,” at the Third Line Gallery in Dubai that explored art as a pandemic bringing together artists from the region whose works consider the embodied, viral and contaminating nature of sonic and visual aesthetics.Najwa Mayer is an interdisciplinary cultural scholar of race, gender, sexuality, and Islam in/and the United States, working at the intersections of politics, aesthetics, and critical theory. She is currently a Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Scholar at Boston University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Britain is a nation of gardeners; the suburban garden, with its roses and privet hedges, is widely admired and copied across the world. But it is little understood how millions across the nation developed an obsession with their colourful plots of land.Behind the Privet Hedge: Richard Sudell, the Suburban Garden and the Beautification of Britain (Reaktion, 2024) by Michael Gilson explores the history of this development and how, despite their stereotype as symbols of dull, middle-class conformity, these new open spaces were seen as a means to bring about social change in the early twentieth century. Gilson restores to the story a remarkable but long-forgotten figure, Richard Sudell, who spent a lifetime ‘evangelising’ that the garden be in the vanguard of progress towards a new egalitarian society with everyday beauty at its centre.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/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Solving the Climate Crisis: Frontline Reports from the Race to Save the Earth (Seven Stories Press, 2023) is a hopeful and critical resource that makes a convincing and detailed case that there is a path forward to save our environment. Illustrating the power of committed individuals and the necessity for collaborative government and private-sector climate action, the book focuses on three essential areas: The technological dimension move to 100% clean renewable energy as fast as we possibly can through innovations like clean-steel, "green" cement, and carbon-reuse companies; The ecological dimension enhance and protect natural ecosystems, forests, and agricultural lands to safely store greenhouse gases and restore soils, transforming how we grow, process, and consume food; The social dimension update and create new laws, policies and economic measures to recenter human values and reduce environmental and social injustice. Based on more than 6 years of research, Berger traveled the nation and abroad to interview governors, mayors, ranchers, scientists, engineers, business leaders, energy experts, and financiers as well as carbon farmers, solar and wind innovators, forest protectors, non-profit leaders, and activists.With real world examples, an explanation of cutting-edge technologies in solar and wind, and political organizing tactics, Solving the Climate Crisis provides a practical road map for how we effectively combat climate change. Replacing the fossil-fuel system with a newly invigorated, modernized, clean-energy economy will produce tens of millions of new jobs and save trillions of dollars. Protecting the climate is thus potentially the greatest economic opportunity of our time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Antarctica is, and has always been, very much “for sale.” Whales, seals, and ice have all been marketed as valuable commodities, but so have the stories of explorers. The modern media industry developed in parallel with land-based Antarctic exploration, and early expedition leaders needed publicity to generate support for their endeavours. Their lectures, narratives, photographs, and films were essentially advertisements for their adventures. At the same time, popular media began to use the newly encountered continent to draw attention to commercial products. These advertisements both trace the commercialization of Antarctica and reveal how commercial settings have shaped the dominant imaginaries of the place.By contextualising and analysing Antarctic advertisements from the late nineteenth century to the present, Brand Antarctica: How Global Consumer Culture Shapes Our Perceptions of the Ice Continent (University of Nebraska Press, 2023) by Dr. Hanne Elliot Fønss Nielsen identifies five key framings of the South Polar continent: a place for heroes, a place of extremity, a place of purity, a place to protect, and a place that transforms. Demonstrating how these conceptual framings of Antarctica in turn circulate through our culture, Dr. Hanne Elliot Fønss Nielsen challenges common assumptions about Antarctica’s past and present, encouraging readers to rethink their own relationship with the Far South.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/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Acclaimed Japanese poet Hiromi Ito discusses her collection 'Tree Spirits Grass Spirits', intertwining nature, travel, and philosophy. The non-linear narrative mirrors plant growth. Themes include immigration, language, gender, care work, and death. The podcast explores the significance of plant narratives in reflecting on migration and identity, highlighting the parallel care for plant and human life.

Imagine an environmentalist. Are you picturing a Birkenstock-clad hippie? An office worker who hikes on weekends? A political lobbyist? What about a modern day timber worker? This last group is at the center of University of Oregon historian Steven C. Beda's new book, Strong Winds and Widow Makers: Workers, Nature, and Environmental Conflict in Pacific Northwest Timber Country (U Illinois Press, 2023). In Beda's telling, it's timber workers, as lovers of the outdoors who also rely upon healthy forests for their livelihoods, who are often at the forefront of local environmentalism, including organizing at the crossroads of labor and environmental activism. From the late 19th century onwards, timber works imbued the Pacific Northwest with a sense of place inaccessible to upper-class Northern California newcomers who changed the region's cultural and political calculus in the late 20th century. We live in a timber society, Beda argues, and no one knows what that means nearly as much as the workers who turn trees into books like this. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies