2018 Year in Review
As 2018 draws to a close, our editors reflect on a year of climate crisis and environmental exploitation and consider the urgency of environmental art, activism, and scholarship.
Category: Reviews
Outswimming Extinction in the Great Lakes
Dan Egan’s compelling narrative of recent challenges to Great Lakes ecosystems raises intriguing questions about invasion, evolution, and species survival.
Earth First! and the Ethics of American Environmentalism
Why were American radical environmental movements able to gain political and philosophical ground in the second half of the 20th century? Keith Woodhouse looks at this question through the history of Earth First! and its legacy today.
Should We Empathize with Poachers?
Globalization makes animals more vulnerable to illegal trafficking, even as regulations restricting poaching have increased. An ecologist reviews Rachel Nuwer’s new book and asks what role empathy should play in addressing animal trafficking.
Woke Environmentalism
Environmental justice is the future of environmental activism. A new documentary reader edited by Christopher Wells chronicles the birth of the environmental justice movement.
Birds on the Brain in the Ancient World
In ancient Greece and Rome, birds filled more than the skies. Jeremy Mynott’s new book explores birds in ancient imaginations and the science, pastimes, art, and literature they inspired.
A History of the Anthropocene in Objects
In this book teaser, objects like monkey wrenches and pesticide pumps help narrate a fragmentary history of the Anthropocene.
A Pig Born a Commodity, Raised as a Friend in Neflix’s Okja
To some, this pig is family. To others, she’s food. In a review of Netflix’s Okja, a geographer explores how the film’s representation of super pigs and human-animal friendships asks us to rethink our relationships with nonhuman animals.
In Annihilation, the Revolution Will Not Be Human
A science fiction novel offers a genre-bending perspective that helps us think about wildness, purity, and invasion in new and strange ways.
The Rise of the Climate Change Novel
What happens when our changing world starts to look more and more unreal? The recent boom in novels that depict climate change pits the real against the magical, surreal, and fantastical.
