I have to choose a book to submit an analytical review essay on for my environmental resource class, I’ve been scouring for one that’s interesting enough to retain and write about. The main issue I’m having is that it’s required to be nonfiction of course, which I always have a difficult time sticking through, possibly due to information overload or just having a bad attention span. I’ll have to suck it up for this so wanted to see if anyone could recommend a book along these lines:
• non-fiction written after 1972
• Book should clearly relate to environmental studies more generally, including such broad topics as the following: resource conservation, ecology, wilderness, climate change, forest conservation, water conservation, sustainability, nature and human health, nature and spirituality, landscape change, environmental history, eco-tourism, eco-feminism, political ecology, urban ecology, parks & recreation, landscape protection (national forest/park/wilderness designations), ocean ecologies, re-wilding, anthropocene, biodiversity, invasive species, species extinction
• Book should be of at least average length for a trade volume or scholarly monograph, with a general rule of thumb of no less than 200 pages.
• Book should be authored by a scholar, scientist, science-journalist, or other relevant professional
• No self-help books, no fiction/literary books, no children’s books, no art/photo books
I would really appreciate any ideas!
by jxdet
5 Comments
I recommend Braiding Sweetgrass! Great book, easy to read!
Fred Pearce, *The Dammed*
Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime (by Bruno Latour). This is dense but extremely interesting reading; we read part of the book in a grad-level environmental humanities course. As far as I can see, it fits the requirements: written by a scholar, published in 2017, deals with environmental subjects throughout. It’s very thought-provoking, and I highly recommend it.
I was going to recommend Pollution is Colonialism (by Max Liboiron), who’s an Indigenous (Métis/Michif) geographer, in the interest of not recommending something by a straight white man, but at ≈150 pages, Pollution is Colonialism is too short. If you feel comfortable speaking with your instructor about that, you might consider asking for an exception to the rule. Liboiron’s work is great too.
The Water Will Come by Jeff Goodell is about raising sea levels. He examines the topic while looking at particularly vulnerable places such as Venice and Miami. Pretty sure he is a journalist who has covered climate change topics for a long time.
Eco-Imperialism by Paul Driessen is a fascinating book and completely changed my perspective on a lot of issues.