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New Books in Environmental Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/…
Episodes
New Books in Environmental StudiesSezai Ozan Zeybek, "Animals, Justice, and the Politics of Violence: Shared Struggles in Turkey" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)
Animals, Justice, and the Politics of Violence: Shared Struggles in Turkey (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) by Dr. Sezai Ozan Zeybek explores the intricate…
New Books in Environmental StudiesChristiane Tristl, "Turning Water into Commodity: Digital Innovation and the Private Sector as Development Agent" (Bristol UP, 2025)
In this episode, I am in conversation with Dr Christiane Tristl, an economic geographer interested in heterodox economic geography. Their scholarship focuses…
New Books in Environmental StudiesLucy Lavers et al.," Adventurous Vents: A Journey through the Ventilation Shafts of Britain" (Penguin, 2025)
At the heart of the modern world lie ventilation shafts. We may not notice them, but wherever there are tunnels, sewers, mines, car parks and energy stations…
New Books in Environmental StudiesNicholas Beuret, "Or Something Worse: Why We Need to Disrupt the Climate Transition" (Verso, 2025)
The push for net zero has become a new arena for class conflict, where the powerful profit and the rest suffer. Existing policies won’t limit global heating to…
New Books in Environmental StudiesThe Vet at the End of the Earth: Adventures with Animals in the South Atlantic
The role of a resident vet in the remote islands of the Falklands, St. Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha encompasses many wonderful complexities: caring…
New Books in Environmental StudiesJennifer Boum Make, "Decolonial Care: Reimagining Caregiving in the French Caribbean" (Rutgers UP, 2025)
Decolonial Care: Reimagining Caregiving in the French Caribbean (Rutgers UP, 2025) examines the relationship between the legacies of colonialism and the…
New Books in Environmental StudiesMiles Kenney-Lazar, "Socializing Land: Plantations, Dispossession, and Resistance in Laos" (U Hawai’i Press, 2025)
Since 2008, there has been tremendous public interest in the social and ecological ramifications of the global land rush, a rapid increase of capital…
New Books in Environmental StudiesTrish FitzSimons and Madelyn Shaw, "Fleeced: Unraveling the History of Wool and War" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Not everything about wool is warm and fuzzy. Wool, for millennia the cold climate textile fiber, has a long relationship to war, both in terms of supporting it…
New Books in Environmental StudiesAidan Seale-Feldman, "The Work of Disaster: Crisis and Care Along a Himalayan Fault Line" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
The Work of Disaster: Crisis and Care Along a Himalayan Fault Line (U Chicago Press, 2025) is a compelling portrait of post-disaster imaginaries of repair in…
New Books in Environmental StudiesJason Cons, "Delta Futures: Time, Territory, and Capture on a Climate Frontier" (U California Press, 2025)
A free e-book version of Delta Futures is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn…
New Books in Environmental StudiesJosh Milburn, "Food, Justice, and Animals: Feeding the World Respectfully" (Oxford UP, 2023)
How would we eat if animals had rights? A standard assumption is that our food systems would be plant-based. But maybe we should reject this assumption…
New Books in Environmental StudiesWendy Wolford, "The Plantation Ideal: Landscapes of Extraction in Mozambique" (U California Press, 2025)
Plantations have been the privileged tool of colonial rule and extraction in Mozambique for more than one hundred years despite never having delivered…
New Books in Environmental StudiesEray Çayli, "Earthmoving: Extractivism, War, and Visuality in Northern Kurdistan" (U Texas Press, 2025)
Extractivism—exploiting the earth for resources—has long driven racial capitalism and colonialism. And yet, how does extractivism operate in a world where…
New Books in Environmental StudiesThomas Zeitzoff, "No Option But Sabotage: The Radical Environmental Movement and the Climate Crisis" (Oxford UP, 2026)
An authoritative history of the radical environmental movement in the United States, No Option But Sabotage explores how far activists are willing to go to…
New Books in Environmental StudiesDavid Obst, "Saving Ourselves from Big Car" (Columbia Business School Publishing, 2025)
Streetwise: Saving Ourselves from Big Car (Columbia Business School Publishing, 2025) exposes how “Big Car”―the complex of companies in the automobile, oil…
New Books in Environmental StudiesCarl Death, "African Climate Futures" (Oxford UP, 2025)
This episode is brought to you by the BISA Environment and Climate Politics Working Group. African Climate Futures (Oxford UP, 2025) shows how climate-changed…
New Books in Environmental StudiesCassandra Shepard, "Settler Colonialism is the Disaster: A Critique of New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina and During the COVID-19 Pandemic" (U Illinois Press, 2026)
Settler Colonialism is the Disaster: A Critique of New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina and During the COVID-19 Pandemic (U Illinois Press, 2026) is the new…
New Books in Environmental StudiesJaviera Barandiaran, "Living Minerals: Nature, Trade, and Power in the Race for Lithium" (MIT Press, 2026)
A sobering investigation of the rush for lithium for electric vehicles, the problematic history of lithium mining, and the consequences for sustainability…
New Books in Environmental StudiesLys Kulamadayil, "Pathology of Plenty: Natural Resources in International Law" (Bloomsbury 2025)
In Pathology of Plenty: Natural Resources in International Law (Bloomsbury 2025), Lys Kulamadayil offers a crucial examination of how international law shapes…
New Books in Environmental StudiesTom Bolton, "Atomic Albion: Journeys Around Britain’s Nuclear Power Stations" (Strange Attractor, 2025)
The United Kingdom has sixteen nuclear power stations. Most go under the radar, but their presence is enormous, both physically and culturally. They divide…
New Books in Environmental StudiesNancy Castaldo, "Squirrel: How a Backyard Forager Shapes Our World" (Island Press, 2025)
Squirrels are a common sight, seemingly everywhere in wild and urban nature. Their chattering antics in city parks delight us while their raids on our backyard…
New Books in Environmental StudiesChina’s Climate and Air Quality Governance and EU-China Cooperation
When it comes to the global challenges posed by climate change and environmental issues, China has been presented both as a source of problems and a provider…
New Books in Environmental StudiesJoseph Scalia III and Lynne S. Scalia, "Critical Consciousness: Beyond Impasses in Environmentalism, Psychoanalysis, and Education" (Routledge, 2025)
Critical Consciousness: Beyond Impasses in Environmentalism, Psychoanalysis, and Education (Routledge, 2025) provides insight into the antagonism and…
New Books in Environmental StudiesAllison Caine, "Restless Ecologies: Climate Change and Socioecological Futures in the Peruvian Highlands" (U Arizona Press, 2025)
In the high Andean grasslands 4,500 meters above sea level, Quechua alpaca herders live on the edges of glaciers that have retreated more rapidly in the past…
New Books in Environmental StudiesJason Roberts, "We Stay the Same: Subsistence, Logging, and Enduring Hopes for Development in Papua New Guinea" (U Arizona Press, 2024)
An ethnography of indigenous lives amidst subsistence labor, large-scale logging, and unrealized schemes, We Stay the Same: Subsistence, Logging, and Enduring…
New Books in Environmental StudiesMichael Hurley, "Waterways of Bangkok: Memory, Landscape and Twilight" (NUS Press, 2025)
Bangkok is one of the world’s great cities, and the central artery of that city is the Chaophraya River. Michael Hurley’s book, Waterways of Bangkok: Memory…
New Books in Environmental StudiesStevan Harrell, "An Ecological History of Modern China" (U Washington Press, 2023)
Is environmental degradation an inevitable result of economic development? Can ecosystems be restored once government officials and the public are committed to…
New Books in Environmental StudiesBrahim El Guabli, "Desert Imaginations: A History of Saharanism and Its Radical Consequences" (U California Press, 2025)
Desert Imaginations: A History of Saharanism and Its Radical Consequences (U California Press, 2025) traces the cultural and intellectual histories that have…
New Books in Environmental StudiesTara Lohan, "Undammed: Freeing Rivers and Bringing Communities to Life" (Island Press, 2025)
Undammed: Freeing Rivers and Bringing Communities to Life (Island Press, 2025) is not Tara’s first book, she authored one at age eight. From their she followed…
New Books in Environmental StudiesMalcolm Harris, "Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World" (Little, Brown, 2023)
Palo Alto is nice. The weather is temperate, the people are educated, rich, healthy, enterprising. Remnants of a hippie counterculture have synthesized with…
New Books in Environmental StudiesLaurie Parsons, "Carbon Colonialism: How Rich Countries Export Climate Breakdown" (Manchester UP, 2023)
Climate change is devastating the planet, and globalisation is hiding it. Laurie Parsons's book Carbon Colonialism: How Rich Countries Export Climate Breakdown…
New Books in Environmental StudiesCaroline Peyton, "Radioactive Dixie: A Nuclear History of the American South" (U Georgia Press, 2025)
How and why did the South’s history, culture, and politics shape the region’s nuclear and energy industries? And how is that history linked to broader…
New Books in Environmental StudiesGonzalo Lizarralde, "Unnatural Disasters: Why Most Responses to Risk and Climate Change Fail But Some Succeed" (Columbia UP, 2021)
Unnatural Disasters: Why Most Responses to Risk and Climate Change Fail But Some Succeed (Columbia UP, 2021) offers a new perspective on our most pressing…
New Books in Environmental StudiesRyan Emanuel, "On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice" (UNC Press, 2024)
Despite centuries of colonialism, Indigenous peoples still occupy parts of their ancestral homelands in what is now Eastern North Carolina--a patchwork quilt…
New Books in Environmental StudiesMarcy Norton, "The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492" (Harvard UP, 2024)
In The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492 (Harvard University Press, 2024), Dr. Marcy Norton offers a dramatic new interpretation of the…
New Books in Environmental StudiesDanielle Alesi, "Eating Animals in the Early Modern Atlantic World: Consuming Empire, 1492-1700" (Taylor & Francis, 2025)
Eating Animals in the Early Modern Atlantic World: Consuming Empire, 1492-1700 (Amsterdam University Press, 2025) by Dr. Danielle Alesi examines how the…
New Books in Environmental StudiesExtraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism with Thea Riofrancos
Lithium, a crucial input in the batteries powering electric vehicles, has the potential to save the world from climate change. But even green solutions come at…
New Books in Environmental StudiesPeter Frankopan, "The Earth Transformed: An Untold History" (Knopf, 2023)
The Earth Transformed. An Untold History (Knopf, 2023) is a captivating and informative book that reveals how climate change has been a driving force behind…
New Books in Environmental StudiesTheodore J. Karamanski, "Great Lake: An Unnatural History of Lake Michigan" (U Michigan Press, 2026)
Theodore Karamanski joins fellow Lake Michigan enthusiast Jana Byars to talk about his new book, Great Lake: An Unnatural History of Lake Michigan. Looking…
New Books in Environmental StudiesFlorentine Koppenborg, "Japan's Nuclear Disaster and the Politics of Safety Governance" (Cornell UP, 2023)
Florentine Koppenborg’s Japan’s Nuclear Disaster and the Politics of Safety Governance (Cornell UP, 2023) begins with the understated observation that the…
New Books in Environmental StudiesHenry Grabar, "Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World" (Penguin, 2023)
Parking, quite literally, has a death grip on America: each year a handful of Americans are tragically killed by their fellow citizens over parking spots. But…
New Books in Environmental StudiesAnna Zeide, "US History in 15 Foods" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
From whiskey in the American Revolution to Spam in WWII, food reveals a great deal about the society in which it exists. Selecting 15 foods that represent key…
New Books in Environmental StudiesAndrew W. Bernstein, "Fuji: A Mountain in the Making" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Fuji: A Mountain in the Making (Princeton UP, 2025) is A panoramic biography of Japan's iconic mountain from the Ice Age to the present Mount Fuji is…
New Books in Environmental StudiesThomas Manuel Ortiz, "Why We Struggle to Go Green: Hard Truths about the Clean Energy Transition" (Texas A&M Press, 2025)
Clean energy won’t save us from the effects of climate change. Amid corporate Net Zero campaigns, the politics of the Green New Deal, and the calls to abandon…
New Books in Environmental StudiesWeila Gong, "Implementing a Low-Carbon Future: Climate Leadership in Chinese Cities" (Oxford UP, 2025)
This episode explores what China’s subnational climate experiments tell us about the possibilities and limits of climate leadership in an era of intensified…
New Books in Environmental StudiesAmy Bowers Cordalis, "The Water Remembers: My Indigenous Family's Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life" (Little Brown, 2024)
For the members of a Northern California tribe, salmon are the lifeblood of the people—a vital source of food, income, and cultural identity. When a…
New Books in Environmental StudiesCaitlin Schroering, "Global Solidarities Against Water Grabbing: Without Water, We Have Nothing" (Manchester UP, 2024)
Conflicts over water are human-caused events with socio-political and economic causes. From Brazil's Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB) to…
New Books in Environmental StudiesVeronica House, "Local Organic: Food Rhetorics and Community Writing for Impact" (Utah State UP, 2025)
This episode features a conversation with the inspiring Dr. Veronica House, whose book Local Organic: Food Rhetorics and Community Writing for Impact (Utah…
New Books in Environmental StudiesJennifer Ott, "Where the City Meets the Sound: The Story of Seattle's Waterfront" (HistoryLink, 2025) This
From canoes on the beach at Dzidzilalich to steamships and piers, Seattle's waterfront was the center of the city's economy and culture for generations. Its…
New Books in Environmental StudiesKatrina Navickas, "Contested Commons: A History of Protest and Public Space in England" (Reaktion, 2025)
A radical history of England, Contested Commons: A History of Protest and Public Space in England (Reaktion, 2025) by Dr. Katrina Navickas is a gripping…
New Books in Environmental StudiesPeter Newell, "States of Transition: From Governing the Environment to Transforming Society" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
What is the role of the state in supporting transitions and deeper transformations towards a more sustainable world? Brought to you by the BISA Environment…
New Books in Environmental StudiesAndrew Bernstein, "Fuji: A Mountain In The Making" (Princeton UP, 2025)
The Great Wave is perhaps the most famous piece of Japanese artwork: a roaring blue wave and three boats on the ocean. And far in the background is Mt. Fuji…
New Books in Environmental StudiesKathryn Chelminski, "Governing Energy Transitions: A Study of Regime Complex Effectiveness on Geothermal Development in Indonesia and the Philippines" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
As the world moves with increasing urgency to mitigate climate change and catalyze energy transitions to net zero, understanding the governance mechanisms that…
New Books in Environmental StudiesChristopher Key Chapple, "Embodied Ecology: Yoga and the Environment" (Mandala Publishing, 2025)
In Embodied Ecology: Yoga and the Environment (Mandala Publishing, 2025), Hindu Studies scholar Christopher Key Chapple explores how Hindu and Yoga traditions…
New Books in Environmental StudiesLiving Night: On the Secret Wonders of Wildlife After Dark
When the sun sets, things start to get interesting among wild animals. Wherever we live, whether in the city or suburbs or country, darkness conjures a hidden…
New Books in Environmental StudiesRob Holmes et. al., "Silt Sand Slurry: Dredging, Sediment, and the Worlds We Are Making" (Applied Research & Design, 2023)
Silt Sand Slurry: Dredging, Sediment, and the Worlds We Are Making is a visually rich investigation into where, why, and how sediment is central to the future…
New Books in Environmental StudiesMontserrat Bonvehi Rosich and Seth Denizen, "Thinking Through Soil: Wastewater Agriculture in the Mezquital Valley" (Harvard UP, 2025)
To think through soil is to engage with some of the most critical issues of our time. In addition to its agricultural role in feeding eight billion people…
New Books in Environmental StudiesAaron Smale, "Tairāwhiti: Pine, Profit and the Cyclone" (Bridget Williams, 2024)
"The Coast has been battered for years by decisions made by those who don’t live there and don’t have any connection to the place. It started early." Based on…
New Books in Environmental StudiesGregory S. Wilson, "Poison Powder: The Kepone Disaster in Virginia and Its Legacy" (U Georgia Press, 2023)
In 1975 workers at Life Science Products, a small makeshift pesticide factory in Hopewell, Virginia, became ill after exposure to Kepone, the brand name for…
New Books in Environmental StudiesChad Augustine Córdova, "Toward a Premodern Posthumanism: Anarchic Ontologies of Earthly Life in Early Modern France" (Northwestern UP, 2025)
What good is aesthetics in a time of ecological crisis? Toward a Premodern Posthumanism: Anarchic Ontologies of Earthly Life in Early Modern France…