New Books in Environmental Studies

Interviews with Environmental Scientists about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

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Episodes

Jennifer Clapp, "Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters" (MIT Press, 2025)

Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of farm machinery, fertilizer, seeds, and pesticides are sold to farmers around the world. Although agricultural inputs are a huge sector of the global economy, the lion's share of that market is controlled by a relatively small number of very large transnational corporations. The high degree of concentration among these agribusiness titans is striking, considering that just a few hundred years ago agricultural inputs were not even marketed good...

Apr 19, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 128

María de Los Ángeles Picone, "Landscaping Patagonia: Spatial History and Nation-Making in Chile and Argentina" (UNC Press, 2025)

In late nineteenth-century Latin America, governments used new scientific, technological, and geographical knowledge not only to consolidate power and protect borders but also to define the physical contours of their respective nations. Chilean and Argentine authorities in particular attempted to transform northern Patagonia, a space they perceived as "desert," through a myriad of nationalizing policies, from military campaigns to hotels. But beyond the urban governing halls of Chile and Argenti...

Apr 16, 2025•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 232

Rebecca Zorach, "Temporary Monuments: Art, Land, and America's Racial Enterprise" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

Art has long played a key role in constructing how people understand and imagine America. Starting with contemporary controversies over public monuments in the United States, in Temporary Monuments: Art, Land, and America’s Racial Enterprise (University of Chicago Press, 2024), Dr. Rebecca Zorach carefully examines the place of art in the occupation of land and the upholding of White power in the US, arguing that it has been central to the design of America’s racial enterprise. Confronting close...

Apr 10, 2025•1 hr 5 min