A brilliant and breathtakingly vivid tour of the universe, describing the physics of the dangerous, the deadly, and the scary in the cosmos.So you’ve fallen in love with space and now you want to see it for yourself, huh? You want to witness the birth of a star, or visit the black hole at the center of our galaxy? You want to know if there are aliens out there, or how to travel through a wormhole? You want the wonders of the universe revealed before your very eyes?...

An astrophysicist presents an in-depth yet accessible tour of the universe for lay readers, while conveying the excitement of astronomy. How is a galaxy billions of lightyears away connected to us? Is our home nothing more than a tiny speck of blue in an ocean of night? In this exciting tour of a universe far larger than we can imagine, cosmologist Paul M. Sutter emphasizes how amazing it is that we are part of such a huge, complex, and mysterious place. Through metaphors and uncomplicated...

For readers concerned about the roots of the public mistrust of science, get the book that Publishers Weekly says is "an ardent appraisal of what ails the scientific establishment."Rescuing Science: Restoring Trust in an Age of Doubt is the product of Paul M. Sutter’s long career in the scientific community, both inside and outside academia. Interweaving his own experiences as an astrophysicist with broader trends ...

In its infancy, the movement to protect wilderness areas in the United States was motivated less by perceived threats from industrial and agricultural activities than by concern over the impacts of automobile owners seeking recreational opportunities in wild areas. Countless commercial and government purveyors vigorously promoted the mystique of travel to breathtakingly scenic places, and roads and highways were built to facilitate such travel. By the early 1930s, New Deal public works pro...

Introducing students to the place of population in environmental thinkingFor centuries, thinking about the earth's increasing human population has been tied to environmental ideas and political action. This highly teachable collection of contextualized primary sources allows students to follow European and North American discussions about intertwined and evolving concepts of population, resources, and the natural environment from early contexts in the sixteenth cen...

Providence Canyon State Park, also known as Georgia’s “Little Grand Canyon,” preserves a network of massive erosion gullies allegedly caused by poor farming practices during the nineteenth century. It is a park that protects the scenic results of an environmental disaster. While little known today, Providence Canyon enjoyed a modicum of fame in the 1930s. During that decade, local boosters attempted to have Providence Canyon protected as a national park, insisting that it was natural. At t...

A brilliant and breathtakingly vivid tour of the universe, describing the physics of the dangerous, the deadly, and the scary in the cosmosSo you’ve fallen in love with space and now you want to see it for yourself, huh? You want to witness the birth of a star, or visit the black hole at the center of our galaxy? You want to know if there are aliens out there, or how to travel through a wormhole? You want the wonders of the universe revealed before your very eyes?

The destruction and defiance that swirled around Australia's embrace of the world's nuclear orderThough a nonnuclear state, Australia was embroiled in the military and civilian nuclear energy programs of numerous global powers across the twentieth century. From uranium extraction to nuclear testing, Australia’s lands became sites of imperial exploitation under the guise of national development. The continent was subject to rampant nuclear colonialism. However, this...

Conservation as a tool of colonialism in early twentieth-century KoreaJapanese colonial rule in Korea (1905–1945) ushered in natural resource management programs that profoundly altered access to and ownership of the peninsula’s extensive mountains and forests. Under the banner of “forest love,” the colonial government set out to restructure the rhythms and routines of agrarian life, targeting everything from home heating to food preparation. Timber industrialists,...

The pig played a key role in the German Democratic Republic's attempts to create a modern, industrial food system built on communist principles. By the mid-1980s, East Germany produced more pork per capita than West Germany and the UK, while also suffering the unintended consequences of manure pollution, animal disease, and rolling food shortages.The pig is a highly adaptive animal, and Thomas Fleischman uncovers three types of pig that played roles in this history: the industrial ...

How sun and sea air were prescribed as medicine on America's eastern coastFor centuries, the ocean was seen as a place of danger and work, but by the late nineteenth century, northeastern shores of the United States became therapeutic destinations for the sick and weary. Doctors in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other cities began prescribing time at the beach as a remedy for ailments such as tuberculosis, rickets, and exhaustion. In the decades that followed,...

**Honorable Mention, 2025 Richard Frisbie Award for Adult Nonfiction, sponsored by the Society of Midland AuthorsHonorable Mention, 2025 Frederick Jackson Turner Prize, sponsored by the Organization of American HistoriansA 2025** CHOICE **Outstanding Academic Title in Environmental StudiesHousewives, hard hats, and an Ohio town’s restoration of the radioactive wasteland in its backyard**In 1984, a uranium leak at Ohio’s outdated Fer...