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.
Category: Reviews
2017 Year In Review
Climate change, indigenous knowledge, environmental justice. Edge Effects contributors addressed critical issues in a year of social and environmental upheaval.
The Potential for Peril Built into San Francisco
An environmental history of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake weaves together urban planning, plate tectonics, Progressive-Era reform, and soil dynamics.
How Canada’s Scientists Mapped the Arctic North and Weathered the Cold War
In the 1940s and 1950s, atmospheric studies of Canada’s Arctic North were defined by technological failure. Edward Jones-Imhotep tells the story of the Cold War from a new vantage point—that of an “unreliable nation.”
How the Other Half Loved Nature
A recent book shows Chicago’s turn-of-the-century black and immigrant laborers embraced the great outdoors. Did they have any other choice?
The Black Birders Who Made White Ornithologists Famous
Nancy Jacobs’ new book uncovers how African birders and vernacular birding knowledge helped build European imperial science.
Ursula K. Heise Thinks Beyond Melancholy: A Review of “Imagining Extinction”
Extinction stories have a flavor, and it tastes like melancholy. A new book asks what different narratives we could bring to the table.
Al Gore and the Global South: A Review of “An Inconvenient Sequel”
Climate change advocacy requires finding common ground. Al Gore’s new documentary highlights the importance of listening to the Global South to find solutions.
Seeds as Time Capsules
When Courtney Fullilove looks inside a seed, she sees Mennonite farmers, Comanche agriculture, and Echinacea patents. Her new book, “The Profit of the Earth,” shows that the genes of a seed can narrate the history of American empire.
Black Branding and Gentrification in Washington, D.C.
Who should be allowed to brand a neighborhood? A review of Derek Hyra’s new book, “Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City,” examining transformations in the Shaw/U Street neighborhood of the nation’s capital.
