An Earth Day 2025 Reading List
University Presses like Chicago are committed to making available works that not only keep us informed but also help us to better understand the world and climate around us. Our commitment to environmental awareness and sustainability runs deep, and to celebrate Earth Day, we have put together a reading list of recent books (and a few forthcoming ones!) from Chicago and our client publishers that help illuminate different aspects of our planet.
From Andrew L. Hipp’s beautiful Oak Origins: From Acorns to Species and the Tree of Life, a lyrical paean to the evolutionary origin story of the genus Quercus (the perfect read for Arbor Day on April 25, too!), to distributed titles exploring climatic botany, cuckoo birds, nature-first urban planning, medieval sustainability (and its implications for the present), the role art can play in providing hope and guidance in an age of environmental precarity, and much more, at sixty books strong, this rich collection of reading material will keep you going for all of Earth Month and beyond!
This Earth Day, we’re excited to offer an exclusive discount of 30% off the print editions of all of these books with promo code EARTHDAY30 on our website here!
From Chicago
Otherworldly Antarctica: Ice, Rock, and Wind at the Polar Extreme
Edmund Stump
“Explorer and geologist Stump went on his first research mission to Antarctica in 1970 and returned many times over the following decades. The new book Otherworldly Antarctica offers a selection of the photographs he took on these trips, capturing the ‘innumerable forms’ that ice can take. Icebergs that could have been carved by the sculptor Henry Moore glide through still waters; a meltwater pond refreezes, releasing a shimmer of dissolved gases; a crevasse seems to include every shade of blue. . . . Now in his seventies, he writes that if he ‘had one hour more to savor Antarctica,’ he’d be standing in a field of wind-carved snow ‘as far as the eye could see.’”—Wall Street Journal
The Well-Connected Animal: Social Networks and the Wondrous Complexity of Animal Societies
Lee Alan Dugatkin
“In the past twenty years social network analysis has revolutionized our understanding of animal societies. By studying the flow of information within animal groups, animal behaviorists have shown that sophisticated social networks ‘permeate the natural world. Historian of science Dugatkin reveals the network dynamics behind giraffes’ nurseries and vampire bats’ reciprocal blood sharing, as well as the dedication necessary to collect these data. Although it may require researchers to paint numbers on honeybees, social networking theory confirms that complex social dynamics are not just for humans.”—Scientific American
The Three Ethologies: A Positive Vision for Rebuilding Human-Animal Relationships
Matthew Calarco
“Calarco is a longstanding pioneer thinker in animal studies who weds philosophical acuity with activist passion. In this work, he explores intellectual and practical transformations necessary for the lively co-existence of humans and animals in a post-anthropocentric world. His onto-ethical vision is a lyrical call for a worthwhile and meaningful life rife with opportunities for co-flourishing.”—Eileen Crist, Virginia Tech
Extinctions: From Dinosaurs to You
Charles Frankel
“This unnerving study from science writer Frankel contextualizes the current climate crisis by comparing it to the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. . . . This is an urgent wake-up call.”—Publishers Weekly
Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do It Again
Susan Solomon
“[Solomon] has demonstrated how people can come together to fix huge problems and has also played a crucial role in helping remediate a global threat. . . . In her latest book, Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do It Again, Solomon argues that we can learn from past environmental fights. Public awareness and consumer pressure can influence lawmakers, she says, and lead to positive change.”—New York Times
Wilko Graf von Hardenberg
“Like the metre, the minute, or the meridian that runs through Greenwich, England, ‘sea level’ is best thought of as a social and historical construct, the result of an inherently arbitrary decision taken by generations of people doing their best to make sense of a strange and chaotic world. Von Hardenberg’s history is a story not of the way sea level has changed over time but, rather, of the ways in which humans have understood, and made use of, sea level as a concept, a marker of where we stand in the world.”—New Yorker
The Land Is Our Community: Aldo Leopold’s Environmental Ethic for the New Millennium
Roberta L. Millstein
“Millstein’s comprehensive but accessible work brings back to the present the importance of Aldo Leopold’s ‘land ethic.’ It functions as much more than a revisiting of his most famous work, A Sand County Almanac, but opens modern conservationism to the light of Leopold’s ideas and critique. This relatively short (but both broad and deep) work is a strong blend of environmental ethics, history, and philosophy of biology. It demonstrates how Leopold’s land ethic is as relevant to our modern discussions around climate change, land use, biodiversity, and evolutionary biology as it was originally.”—Philosophy in Review
Lee Alan Dugatkin
“A compelling biography about a groundbreaking scientist and his controversial work, using rodent cities—rodentopias—to identify and examine the potential catastrophes that might befall human overpopulation. . . . Drawing on previously unpublished archival research and interviews with Calhoun’s family and former colleagues, Dugatkin offers a riveting account of an intriguing scientific figure. Considering Dr. Calhoun’s experiments, he explores the changing nature of scientific research and delves into what the study of animal behavior can teach us about ourselves.”—GrrlScientist, Forbes
A Little Queer Natural History
Josh L. Davis
“This splendid debut from Davis, a science writer for London’s Natural History Museum, surveys the dazzling variety of sexual behavior and expression in the animal, fungi, and plant kingdoms. . . . The fascinating science makes a resounding case that the natural world features more diverse expressions of sexual activity and biological sex than commonly believed. The result is a much needed corrective to blinkered notions of what’s considered ‘natural.’”—Publishers Weekly
Green Lands for White Men: Desert Dystopias and the Environmental Origins of Apartheid
Meredith McKittrick
“McKittrick’s text speaks carefully and critically to the larger implications of landscape and racial imaginaries, and it resonates both as an important contribution to South African environmental history and as a cautionary tale for today about the danger and power of abstract imaginations.”—Places Journal
Frog Day: A Story of 24 Hours and 24 Amphibian Lives
Marty Crump, illustrated by Tony Angell
“A scientific gem for everyone from the mildly curious to those well-versed on frog behavior, Crump’s Frog Day is pure pleasure. Budding biologists will love both Angell’s illustrations and Crump’s warm descriptions.”—Booklist (starred review)
Is Anyone Listening? What Animals Are Saying to Each Other and to Us
Denise L. Herzing
“In this entrancing report, marine biologist Herzing details her work for the Wild Dolphin Project researching how the animals communicate with humans and one another. . . . The firsthand accounts of studying dolphins in the wild position Herzing as a kind of aquatic Jane Goodall, and her recollections are elevated by philosophical musings on how scientists should think about the minds of other animals (‘We should be looking to develop species-specific definitions for “types” of intelligence, rather than resorting to human comparisons’). Animal lovers will be eager to dive in.”—Publishers Weekly
Richard Higgins
“[Higgins] takes on the task of perusing through the great timberland of Thoreau’s writing, less to make the case for a definitive angle of identity but to fashion compelling Thoreauvian perspectives, even meditations, on the question.”—Chicago Review of Books
The Alpine Enlightenment: Horace-Bénédict de Saussure and Nature’s Sensorium
Kathleen Kete
“The Alpine Enlightenment is at once a study of a major Swiss savant’s hard-headed love affair with the Alps, a plea for the singularly respectful view of nature that he embodied, and a vivid evocation of the Swiss milieu from which he came. The author makes a powerful case for seeing Horace-Bénédict de Saussure’s view of nature as scrupulously empirical and based on tangible bodily experience, vividly explaining how his life in Geneva and in the mountains fashioned his understanding of the natural world.”—John Brewer, California Institute of Technology
Mindprints: Thoreau’s Material Worlds
Ivan Gaskell
“‘I have travelled a good deal in Concord,’ Thoreau wrote in Walden, famously mocking the notion that travel takes place beyond the borders of one’s hometown. Devotees of the transcendentalist philosopher will be grateful that, nearly two centuries later, Gaskell took up residence in the adjacent town of Lexington and fixed his uncommon powers of perception on his erstwhile neighbor’s life and writing, traveling imaginatively with Thoreau to yield this extraordinary book. Gaskell unsettles and expands our understanding of Thoreau by homing in on the sensory particulars of his surroundings, cherished revelations of worlds past, present, and still to come.”—Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life
Plasticity in the Life Sciences
Antonine Nicoglou
“Nicoglou traces the history of the concept of plasticity and its use in different biological disciplines from Aristotle to the present, bringing out a wide range of significant continuities and differences and illuminating the varying relation of plasticity to crucial concepts such as variation, diversity, novelty, adaptation, regulation, and more. As well as being an essential read for anyone interested in the lively contemporary discussions of plasticity, this is a fine example of the integrated historical and philosophical approach to understanding biology.”—John Dupré, author of Processes of Life: Essays in the Philosophy of Biology
Oak Origins: From Acorns to Species and the Tree of Life
Andrew L. Hipp, illustrated by Rachel D. Davis
“In Oak Origins, the evolutionary biologist Hipp traces Quercus’s mighty family tree back millions of years to its modest roots, when a single population began to diverge from its relatives in the beech family. How did oaks evolve into so many species? Why were they able to spread so widely? And what is their future likely to be? . . . Hipp writes lucidly, and even lyrically in places, such as his brief evocations of spring and autumn in the upper Midwest and his extended metaphor likening oaks’ genetic recombination to Miles Davis’s ‘Pharaoh’s Dance.’ . . . [A] rich and thoughtful account.”—Wall Street Journal
Foundations of Stream and River Ecology: A Guide to the Classic Literature
Edited by Wyatt F. Cross, Jonathan P. Benstead, Amy M. Marcarelli, and Ryan A. Sponseller
“For those who are starting out in stream ecology . . . this book is an excellent first step into the stream world. And all of us will benefit from discovering, or rediscovering, the foundations that support the expansion of our collective knowledge in stream and river ecology.”—Nancy B. Grimm, Arizona State University, from the foreword
Live Stock and Dead Things: The Archaeology of Zoopolitics between Domestication and Modernity
Hannah Chazin
“We have been waiting for a book like this for many years. A meticulously researched, beautifully written study that is both zooarchaeological and zoopolitical, and one that gives nonhuman animals in postdomestication, premodern societies the chance to be social and historical actors themselves. Beyond teleology, facile distinctions, and binarisms, this is a rare bird of a book that pays our dues to the mundane beings that lived and labored with and alongside humans but which were instrumentalized and objectified in scholarship for far too long.”—Yannis Hamilakis, Brown University
The Arrival of the Fittest: Biology’s Imaginary Futures, 1900–1935
Jim Endersby
“The Arrival of the Fittest tells the story of the version of ‘Darwinism’ that wouldn’t die: an account of evolution focused not on selection, but on the appearance of novelty amongst plants and animals. Situated at the intersection of history of science and science communication, this book reveals a cast of scientists and writers who wrestled with the possibilities of mutation, some little-known today but all influential in the early twentieth century. With clarity and wit, Endersby reveals how their utopian hopes for biology resonate in the present.”—Charlotte Sleigh, author of The Paper Zoo: 500 Years of Animals in Art
Apes on the Edge: Chimpanzee Life on the West African Savanna
Jill Pruetz
“Pruetz’s passion for her work, the chimpanzees, and the local community come through so clearly in Apes on the Edge. This captivating book will appeal greatly to the scientific community as well as the lay reader interested in chimpanzees, animal behavior, and conservation.”—Lydia M. Hopper, coeditor of Chimpanzees in Context and Chimpanzee Memoirs
Saving Orchids: Stories of Species Survival in a Changing World
Philip Seaton and Lawrence W. Zettler
“Beginning and ending with Florida’s iconic ghost orchid, Seaton and Zettler bring to life the heroic efforts of people from all walks of life caring about and protecting orchids. They show how profoundly humans have affected life on Earth but also how inspirational actions by dedicated individuals are central to the fate of orchids, the ‘canaries in the coal mine’ for environmental change. Orchids teach us that the fate of nature is in our hands.”—Sandra Knapp, author of Extraordinary Orchids
Novel Ecologies: Nature Remade and the Illusions of Tech
Allison Carruth
“Carruth deftly interrogates the utopianism of technoculture, demonstrating the fractious intimacies of worldmaking and world-destruction in technological developments and their artistic reconfigurations. Novel Ecologies is on firm ground with science and technology without being beholden to their superiority framework and infallible logic. Carruth’s inspiring analysis of the power of artistic practices to disrupt and reroute critical energies toward planetary flourishing, is breathtaking. In this ode to livingness amidst a reckoning with devastation, Carruth has written a book that we need now and that is a testament to the future.”—Cajetan Iheka, author of African Ecomedia: Network Forms, Planetary Politics
Paul D. Taylor
“I thoroughly enjoyed it and learnt a great deal. . . . The book contains lovely full-colour pictures, which feature many original specimens from the Natural History Museum’s collections, and . . . is written in a style that makes it accessible to everyone. . . . [I] would recommend it to you.”—Deposits
The Ellesmere Wolves: Behavior and Ecology in the High Arctic
L. David Mech, Morgan Anderson, and H. Dean Cluff
“The pack, up close. . . . The book is sprinkled with delightful photos of pups, yearlings, and adult wolves, along with anecdotes and heartwarming moments that make it a joy to read. Deeply moving and richly described, the book makes it clear that one does not need to be a scientist to find these wolves fascinating. A mesmerizing account of wolves and the researcher who devoted his life to understanding their world.”—Kirkus Reviews
Flower Day: A Story of 24 Hours and 24 Floral Lives
Sandra Knapp, illustrated by Katie Scott
“Knapp offers a lovely series of essays on and appreciations of the flower, using the conceit that the biologist Linnaeus suggested—creating a flower clock. Knapp, with the aid of artist Scott, describes twenty-four plants in the order by which their blooms appear during the course of a day. Knapp ebbs and flows through her essays, sharing different pieces of information.. . . . Rich observation and beautiful illustrations are highlights of Knapp’s unique take on flowering plants.”―Library Journal
World War Zoos: Humans and Other Animals in the Deadliest Conflict of the Modern Age
John M. Kinder
“Incisive in its argument, ambitious in its scope, and disturbingly page-turning, Kinder’s World War Zoos takes readers on a haunting, historical tour of zoological parks during one of the deadliest periods in human history. Whether you are interested in zoos, animal history, or World War II, this book is an absolute must-read, for scholars, students, and animal-lovers alike. World War Zoos will leave you with a raw perspective of war and an unforgettable account of twentieth-century zoo animals who were—and are—all-too-often taken for granted.”—Daniel Vandersommers, author of Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo: Stories from the Animal Archive
Sand, Snow, and Stardust: How US Military Engineers Conquered Extreme Environments
Gretchen Heefner
“The US military’s dream of global power collided with extreme environments. Heefner’s breathtaking book reveals how the stunning sweep of the US defense establishment required overcoming such extremes by getting granular, enlisting scientists to understand environments in painstaking detail—the titular sand, snow, and stardust. Heefner captures the hidden history of this planetary security infrastructure in irresistible prose, illuminating how the global environment itself became visible at the murky edges, geopolitical and material.”—Megan Black, author of The Global Interior: Mineral Frontiers and American Power
Bad Nature: How Rat Control Shapes Human and Nonhuman Worlds
Andrew McCumber
“McCumber’s incisive and often witty account of three distinct rat problems nibbles at the edges of human-animal dynamics. The humble rat becomes a scapegoat for moral panics and social anxieties, reflecting cultural boundaries and social inequalities. The book reveals rats as potent symbols at the border between order and disorder, us and them, and we learn much from McCumber about how people seek to assert control over chaos. Who are the real pests in these cultural dramas? Spoiler: it’s not always the rats.”—Terence McDonnell
The Elephant in the Room: How to Stop Making Ourselves and Other Animals Sick
Liz Kalaugher
“Enlightening, timely, and empathetic, Kalaugher’s deep exploration successfully reveals exactly how the health of people, animals, and ecosystems are forever intertwined.”—Booklist
Lab Dog: What Global Science Owes American Beagles
Brad Bolman
“Bolman keeps a nuanced focus on how the beagle’s trajectory sheds light on what it means for an animal to be considered more ‘human’ than others, and on how the practices of breeders and kennel clubs intertwined in surprising ways with those of scientific research institutions. The result is an intriguing deconstruction of a little discussed, ethically complex issue.”—Publishers Weekly
Natural Attachments: The Domestication of American Environmentalism, 1920–1970
Pollyanna Rhee
“While Natural Attachments is a deeply researched academic book, it’s written clearly enough to be accessible to a general reader. Rhee’s conceptualization of ‘ownership environmentalism’ speaks to the central conundrum we face in our efforts to slow the negative effects of climate change: who’s willing to sacrifice? Who’s willing to moderate their consumption and use of resources? Who deserves or is entitled to a livable environment?”—California Review of Books
Fishes of the Chicago Region: A Field Guide
Francis M. Veraldi, Stephen M. Pescitelli, and Philip W. Willink
“The authors have compiled the most complete and up-to-date guide about fishes that occur in the Chicago Region, and Fishes of the Chicago Region will be a sought-after item among biologists, teaching institutions, anglers, and naturalists not only in Chicagoland but in other areas as well. The maps are concise, the fish photos are stunning, and the natural history information is compendious. This book will be an invaluable resource for those passionate about fishes.”—Jeremy Tiemann, associate aquatic ecologist, Prairie Research Institute’s Illinois Natural History Survey, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Conserving Nature in Greater Yellowstone: Controversy and Change in an Iconic Ecosystem
Robert B. Keiter
“The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem was once an interwoven fabric of biodiversity, migrating wildlife, and the livelihood of Indigenous people. But in our insatiable appetite for economic growth, we sliced it up into pieces for states, timber harvest, mining, energy development, ranches, homesteads, and fortunately, two big parks in the middle. Keiter artfully explains this history and how, with science, law, litigation, policy, and politics, we are trying to stitch it back together into a quilt that may, we hope, resemble its former function and beauty.”—Jonathan B. Jarvis, eighteenth director of the National Park Service
Nonadaptive Selection: An Evolutionary Source of Ecological Laws
John Damuth and Lev R. Ginzburg
“A total intellectual and scientific pleasure. Damuth and Ginzburg have made a case for connection among a diverse set of phenomena that have resisted our understanding. More importantly, they’ve made new phenomena make more sense just by naming a process. Nonadaptive Selection is one of the most original and important books on evolution and ecology to come out in the last twenty years.”—Carl Simpson, University of Colorado Boulder
Editorial Committee of the Madrid Code
The latest, updated edition of the essential, authoritative reference for botanical, mycological, and phycological names. New rules in this 2025 edition include a mechanism for voluntary registration of plant and algal names, clarifications for naming fossil taxa, the option to reject a new name if it is derogatory to a group of people, and the replacement of an epithet that was considered particularly offensive (revising to afra, afrorum, and afrum).
From Bodleian Library Publishing
Ferdinand Bauer’s Remarkable Birds
Jonathan Elphick
“Let’s face it: some books are genuinely dangerous—dangerously captivating, that is. Take, for example, Ferdinand Bauer’s Remarkable Birds. In its richly colored, oversized pages, Elphick has gathered together and presented to those willing to risk becoming lost to time while gazing upon the magnificent watercolor paintings created by eighteenth century natural history artist Ferdinand Bauer. . . . Birdwatchers, birders, ornithologists, naturalists, art historians, and all those who simply enjoy superb illustrations of birds in particular or natural subjects in general are highly encouraged to add this new book to their reading list.”—Well-read Naturalist
Beautiful Shells: George Perry’s Conchology
Mark Carnall
“This is a reproduction of an 1811 book about, well, beautiful shells! Originally published during a time when shells were trendy, this book will make you much more appreciative of shells. It will also help you appreciate the history of natural science and the mundane things that make up our world.”—St. Louis on the Air (Best Books of 2024)
Stephen A. Harris
“More than 200 plates depicting the flora and fauna of North America and the Caribbean, hand-colored by the influential eighteenth-century naturalist Mark Catesby, are printed here in full splendor, accompanied by a thorough argument for Catesby’s significance in the history of naturalism.”—Apollo
From Brandeis University Press
The Green Ages: Medieval Innovations in Sustainability
Annette Kehnel
“With The Green Ages, [Kehnel] has written a book of great joy: an environmental history of many facets, which explains how some premodern practices of sustainability are applicable to the present day.”—Telegraph
From Hirmer Publishers
Distant Early Warning Systems: From the Cold War to the Cosmos
Edited by Julie Decker
The Distant Early Warning Line, also known as the DEW Line, was a system of radar stations in the northern Arctic region of Canada, with additional stations along the north coast and Aleutian Islands of Alaska and the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It was intended to detect incoming bombers of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and provide early warning of any sea and land invasion. Investigating art, climate change, and geopolitics at a time of rapid social and technological change, this book looks at the role of artists as early warning systems and explores the ways we connect and disconnect place and people through technology and the ideas of boundaries—planetary boundaries, the boundaries of survival, and other human limits.
How to Survive: Living with Care in the Climate Crisis
Edited by Francesca Du Brock and Julie Decker
Offering hope to heal the relationship between our planet and all of its inhabitants—including humans, animals, and plants—essays, visual narratives, and interviews explore practices of care and present possibilities for living differently in a fragile age. Artists and culture bearers consider bonds of love, responsibility, and reciprocity, encouraging consideration of our inherent interdependence with one another, with other creatures, and with the planet itself.
From the Missouri Botanical Garden Press
Love Them to Death: Turning Invasive Plants into Local Economic Opportunities
Edited by Wendy L. Applequist
“Love Them to Death provides a remarkable shift in the ‘traditional’ perspective on invasive species. While we have been brought up to consider invasive plants as foes, this book makes a powerful case for shifting the paradigmatic landscape of invasive species, by providing a series of well-written and researched chapters on the potential utilitarian value that they can provide. People who eat such plants are termed invasivores, and the book provides examples of many other types of uses—building materials, medicines, biomass, fodder, and in artistry—based on species that have been at best ignored and at worst considered our enemies. Congratulations to the editor and chapter authors who have reshaped our thinking and understanding of this complex but fascinating topic.”—Michael J. Balick, New York Botanical Garden
From Reaktion Books
Saving the World: How Forests Inspired Global Efforts to Stop Climate Change
Brett M. Bennett and Gregory A. Barton
“A historical approach to the ideas behind climate change, with a particular focus on the role of trees. . . . If the development of scientific thought interests you, there’s plenty of food for thought here on a subject that couldn’t be more topical.”—Arbuturian
England’s Green: Nature and Culture since the 1960s
David Matless
“A brilliant environmental kaleidoscope. . . . This is a sharply critical view of what England’s green and pleasant land has undergone. . . . The book’s publication could not be timelier, in a world whose naturalness seems increasingly pressured.”—Country Life
Cynthia Chris
“Timely, nutty, inspiring, subversive, maddening, secretive—that’s the cuckoo in life and in lore. What would spring be without the cuckoo’s call? Achingly silent. I’m grateful to Chris for her evocative study of this fascinating and charismatic bird.”—Elizabeth Bradfield, naturalist, author of Toward Antarctica and editor of Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry
Botanical Architecture: Plants, Buildings and Us
Paul Dobraszczyk
“An impressive, compendious book with a great deal to offer the architecture lover and the plant lover alike, including much that will surprise.”—Literary Review
Elizabeth Lawson
“Among the smallest terrestrial photosynthetic organisms, mosses and lichens play pivotal ecological roles. And yet they are often, if not typically, overlooked. Lawson’s book succeeds in elevating these diminutive creatures by drawing our attention to their charm and importance. Beautifully written and illustrated, Moss and Lichen should be read by anyone who loves nature and appreciates its manifold complexity and splendor.”—Karl J. Niklas, author of Plant Evolution: An Introduction to the History of Life
The Idea of Waste: On the Limits of Human Life
John Scanlan
“In The Idea of Waste, Scanlan has produced yet another valuable think piece about ‘what waste is and what it has been.’ ‘It is about how we have lived with waste,’ he asserts, ‘made use of it as a thing or idea, and dreamt of escaping or conquering its negative effects once and for all.’ As usual, Scanlan offers a lot to chew on in this new book in a field that has seen amazing growth in recent years.”—Martin V. Melosi, author of the award-winning Fresh Kills: A History of Consuming and Wasting in New York City
Gail Harland
“Brilliant. . . . Harland’s research is impeccable, her dialogue with the reader is comfortable, and the photographs are utter confection for the eye. This will accomplish for Paeonia what Anna Pavord’s The Tulip did for the appreciation of the singular impact on our collective horti(cultural) identity by a single genus of plants.”—Daniel J. Hinkley, author of Windcliff: A Story of People, Plants, and Gardens
The Year: An Ecology of the Zodiac
Spike Bucklow
“The Year is a contemplative almanac charting nature and culture through the zodiac, with a powerful message for our time of grave disjuncture between the two.”—Ferdinand Saumarez Smith, author of Eleusis and Enlightenment
The Green Fuse: Essays in Making Sense of Gardens
Peter Dale
“In The Green Fuse, Dale poses the question of what gardens mean to us, then answers that question in brilliant and engaging ways. Organized around themes such as mazes and labyrinths, garden follies and music in the garden, with a series of remarkable interludes that transport the reader to gardens the author has visited and loved, this book offers a wealth of insight from an experienced gardener and gifted student of the literature of gardens from ancient times to the present day. Richly illustrated from an array of sources, including the author’s own photo archive, this book will delight both practical gardeners and readers curious about the history, culture and aesthetics of the garden.”—Judith W. Page, professor emerita at the University of Florida and coeditor of Women and the Collaborative Art of Gardens from Antiquity to the Present
Lost Animals, Disappearing Worlds: Stories of Extinction
Barbara Allen
“This book brings together a selection of extinct species, many that have been pushed to global extinction in living memory or at least recently enough to have touched human culture, and tells their stories. . . . Extinct species slip from our collective memories unless books such as this one bring them back to our attention and make us wonder whether our species could have done better.”—Mark Avery, markavery.info (Sunday Book Review)
From the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Mark Seddon and David Shreeve, with photographs by Sam Ford
Great British Elms is a celebration of the recovery of great British elms in the wake of disease, destruction, and death. Illustrated throughout with stunning photography of these beautiful trees, this book is a pictorial and historical record of the elm and offers hope for its future.
From the University of British Columbia Press
Nature-First Cities: Restoring Relationships with Ecosystems and with Each Other
Cam Brewer, Herb Hammond, and Sean Markey
“Nature-First Cities challenges the dominant perception of cities as being either booming metropolises or impoverished slums that are inhospitable to nature and wildlife. . . . Urban greenspace and green infrastructure complement traditional infrastructure, provide many ecological, economic, and social benefits, and contribute to the health and well-being of urban dwellers. Isn’t it time we protected, restored, and enhanced the nature in our own neighborhoods?”—Drs. Faisal Moola and David Suzuki, from the foreword
Feathered Entanglements: Human-Bird Relations in the Anthropocene
Edited by Scott E. Simon and Frédéric Laugrand
“Written by well-experienced scholars, this book will set a new milestone in ethno-ornithology. It is rare to see a volume exclusively focusing on birds and providing sophisticated insights into anthropological theory. I am excited for this book!”—Shiaki Kondo, Intercultural Studies, Kobe University (Japan)
After Ice: Cold Humanities for a Warming Planet
Edited by Rafico Ruiz, Paula Schönach, and Rob Shields
“After Ice will be useful to open a conversation about melting materialities under changing climates.”—Dolly Jørgensen, coeditor of Northscapes: History, Technology, and the Making of Northern Environments
From the University of Wales Press
Introducing Medieval Animal Names
Ben Parsons
What did medieval people call the animals they lived and worked with? Why did they choose those particular names? This book sets out to answer these questions. Drawing evidence from literary, documentary, and material sources, Introducing Medieval Animal Names surveys the surviving evidence of pet names from the period, along with the labels given to livestock and working animals, and the folk names given to wild birds and beasts. The book seeks to lay bare the period’s larger attitudes towards animals and their functions and identities. It also sheds light on how those in the Middle Ages conceived the natural world as a whole and its relationship with human beings and their culture.
From the University of Wales Press, Calon
Tir: The Story of the Welsh Landscape
Carwyn Graves
“Into this dismal world, Graves’s book Tir enters like a breath of fresh air. I can’t even begin to convey the riches of the book or the astonishing amount of complexity Carwyn somehow manages to cram into its few pages—perhaps I’ll write a lengthier appreciation another time—but the book is an invitation into a different way of seeing. Not an overgeneralized screed about the evils of farming or human impacts worldwide, but a close look at the intertwined culture history and landscape history of a place, or in fact a set of places, enabling a long and local view of how their human and more-than-human ecologies have played out in the past, and may play out in the future.”—Resilience
Sheeplands: How Sheep Shaped Wales and the World
Alan Marshall
“Top of your Royal Welsh reads should be Sheeplands, Marshall’s joyous celebration of those woolly pillars of the rural economy. As you can tell from the subtitle How Sheep Shaped Wales and the World, this is a book of epic scope, as we follow the winding track which leads back into the mists of history and the furthest corners of the globe.”—Nation.Cymru
All of these Earth Day books are available from our website or from your favorite bookseller.