Earth Day Reading List: Upcoming in Environmental Studies

Happy Earth Day! Over the last 54 years, Earth Day has evolved into the largest civic event on Earth. This year’s theme is “Planet vs. Plastics” to call for a 60% global reduction in plastic production by 2040. Earthday.org calls on us to “advocate for widespread awareness on the health risk of plastics, rapidly phase out all single-use plastics, urgently push for a strong UN Treaty on Plastic Pollution, and demand an end to fast fashion.”

In this reading list, we highlight upcoming and recently published books in environmental studies, ranging from scholarship on the environmental justice movement in Alaska to conservation efforts on the Great Plains.

Rewilding the Urban Frontier

EDITED BY GREG GORDON

While acknowledging the profound impact our species has had on the natural world, and rivers in particular, Rewilding the Urban Frontier argues that the Anthropocene presents opportunities for rethinking our relationship to the natural world and potentially healing the age-old rift between humans and nature.

As the environmental justice movement slowly builds momentum, Diane J. Purvis highlights the work of Indigenous peoples in Alaska’s small rural villages, who have faced incredible odds throughout history yet have built political clout fueled by vigorous common cause in defense of their homes and livelihood. 

This anthology gathers selections from fiction, nonfiction, and government documents that chronicle the splendor, the exploitation, and the controversies surrounding this extraordinary and much-loved alpine lake. Some selections have not appeared in print since their original publication, while others have not been republished or excerpted for decades.

Framing Nature

YOLONDA YOUNGS

Framing Nature provides a novel interpretation of how places, especially national parks, are transformed into national and environmental symbols.

Cast Out of Eden

ROBERT AQUINAS MCNALLY

John Muir is widely and rightly lauded as the nature mystic who added wilderness to the United States’ vision of itself, largely through the system of national parks and wild areas his writings and public advocacy helped create. That vision, however, came at a cost: the conquest and dispossession of the tribal peoples who had inhabited and managed those same lands, in many cases for millennia.

Between Soil and Society

JONATHAN COPPESS

One of the few books to make sense of the legal and economic analysis of agricultural conservation policy, Between Soil and Society provides a window into larger issues of American politics, governance, and policy development.

Back from the Collapse

CURTIS H. FREESE

Back from the Collapse is a clarion call for restoring one of North America’s most underappreciated and overlooked ecosystems: the grasslands of the Great Plains. 

The Nebraska Sandhills

EDITED BY MONICA M. NORBY, JUDY DIAMOND, AARON SUTHERLEN, SHERILYN C. FRITZ, KIM HACHIYA, DOUGLAS A. NORBY, AND MICHAEL FORSBERG

The Nebraska Sandhills features nearly forty essays about the history, people, geography, geology, ecology, and conservation of the Nebraska Sandhills. Illustrated with hundreds of remarkable color photographs of the area, this is the most up-to-date and illuminating portrayal of this remarkable yet largely unknown region of the United States.

Losing Eden

SARA DANT

Cohesive and compelling, Losing Eden recognizes the central role of the natural world in the history of the American West and provides important analysis on the continually evolving relationship between the land and its inhabitants.

Hydronarratives

MATTHEW S. HENRY

In Hydronarratives Matthew S. Henry examines cultural representations that imagine a just transition, a concept rooted in the U.S. labor and environmental justice movements to describe an alternative economic paradigm predicated on sustainability, economic and social equity, and climate resilience.

For further reading, check out our Environment and Region in the American West, America’s Public Lands, or Our Sustainable Future series.

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