Conservation History

In the dramatic narratives that comprise The Republic of Nature, Mark Fiege reframes the canonical account of American history based on the simple but radical premise that nothing in the nation's past can be considered apart from the natural circumstances in which it occurred. Revisiting historical icons so familiar that schoolchildren learn to take them for granted, he makes surprising connections that enable readers to see old stories in a new light.

In Car Country, Wells rejects the idea that the nation's automotive status quo can be explained as a simple byproduct of an ardent love affair with the automobile. Instead, he takes listeners on a tour of the evolving American landscape, charting the ways that transportation policies and land-use practices have combined to reshape nearly every element of the built environment around the easy movement of automobiles. Wells untangles the complicated relationships between automobiles and the environment, allowing listeners to see the everyday world in a completely new way.

In April 1970, twenty million people grabbed their rakes, gloves, and recycling bins to celebrate the first Earth Day. Since that environmental kickoff, nature has never been in better shape. RIGHT? WRONG! The real deal is a bit muddier than that. It’s true that the first Earth Day encouraged people around the globe to clean up their act when it came to the environment. But activists have been working for centuries to save the planet! Join the History Smashers team to bust history's biggest misconceptions and figure out what really went down before (and after!) the first Earth Day.

We all need to understand the issues surrounding the controversial topic of GMOs for the sake of our health, our families, and the security of the food chain of our planet. Our very future may depend on it. This first volume in a five book series is the introduction you've been looking for.

Imagine walking into a restaurant and finding chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides, or neonicotinoid insecticides listed in the description of your entree. They may not be printed in the menu, but many are in your food.These are a few of the literally millions of pounds of approved synthetic substances dumped into the environment every day, not just in the US but around the world.

In presenting the first complete history of Central Pennsylvania's most famous mountain, Tom Shakely pieces together the story of Mount Nittany as perhaps the most famous symbol of The Pennsylvania State University and the Nittany Valley.

The Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah, created by President Obama in 2016 and eviscerated by the Trump administration in 2017, contains more archaeological sites than any other region in the United States. In The Bears Ears, acclaimed adventure writer David Roberts takes listeners on a tour of his favorite place on Earth, as he unfolds the rich and contradictory human history of the 1.35 million acres of the Bears Ears domain. Weaving personal memoir with archival research, Roberts sings the praises of the outback he's explored for the last 25 years.

The story of the short life and tragic death of Bowland Beth - an English hen harrier. 'The sun was blood red as it broke the horizon and lit the communal roost where the female hen harrier had spent the night. She watched the other harriers as they left to go foraging for food out on the moor. She didn't join them, for she had felt a quickening in her body, an urge to move to Mallowdale Pike, a rocky crag from where she had fledged nine months ago. After preening, she lifted off from the roost and soared up over the fell.'

In 1932, America faced an economic crisis even more severe than the one it has been experiencing recently. The issue then, as now, was how to address it. When President Franklin Roosevelt came into office, he faced more economic problems than any president since has ever faced, but he came equipped with unique and creative solutions to them.

Wild City is a paean to New York City and its complex, and often surprising, relationship to its non-human residents, large and small. Like the wide range of humans who populate it’s five boroughs, a many animals, including whales, coyotes, deer, bed bugs, geese, mosquitos, and hawks all call the Big Apple’s streets, parks, and shores home as well.

They are trees of life and trees of knowledge. They are wish-fulfillers, rain forest royalty, more precious than gold. They are the fig trees, and they have affected humanity in profound but little-known ways. Gods, Wasps and Stranglers tells their amazing story. Fig trees fed our prehuman ancestors, influenced diverse cultures, and played key roles in the dawn of civilization.

The Earth is definitely getting warmer. There's no argument about that, but who, or what, is the cause? While the vast majority of scientists who study the environment agree that humans play a large part in climate change, there is a counterargument. Author Gail Herman presents both sides of the debate in this fact-based, fair-minded, and well-researched book that looks at the subject from many perspectives, including scientific, social, and political.

This is the exciting story of a soil scientist confronting politicians to encourage them to pass a law to protect the land, the soil. When the US Congress passed a law establishing the Soil Conservation Service, it was the first government agency in the world dedicated to protecting the land, to protecting the Earth.

MaVynee loved going to the beach. But in the days of Jim Crow, she couldn't just go to any beach - most of the beaches in Jacksonville were for Whites only. Knowing something must be done, her grandfather bought a beach that African American families could enjoy without being reminded they were second-class citizens; he called it American Beach. Artists like Zora Neale Hurston and Ray Charles vacationed on its sunny shores. It's here that MaVynee was first inspired to sing, propelling her to later become a widely acclaimed opera singer who routinely performed on an international stage.

From best-selling author and illustrator Kate Pankhurst, descendant of Emmeline Pankhurst, comes another 'smart, informative, inclusive and accessible' book about trail-blazing women. This time, it's women who have helped protect our natural world from way before it was on a political agenda. Discover their untold stories.