New Books in Environmental Studies
Science:Natural Sciences
Cacti and succulents are phenomenally popular worldwide among plant enthusiasts, despite being among the world's most threatened species. The fervor driving the illegal trade in succulents might also be driving some species to extinction. Delving into the strange world of succulent collecting, Jared D. Margulies' book The Cactus Hunters: Desire and Extinction in the Illicit Succulent Trade (U Minnesota Press, 2023) takes us to the heart of this conundrum: the mystery of how and why ardent lovers of these plants engage in their illicit trade. This is a world of alluring desires, where collectors and conservationists alike are animated by passions that at times exceed the limits of law. What inspires the desire for a plant? What kind of satisfaction does it promise?
The answer, Margulies suspects, might be traced through the roots and workings of the illegal succulent trade--an exploration that traverses the fields of botany and criminology, political ecology and human geography, and psychoanalysis. His globe-spanning inquiry leads Margulies from a spectacular series of succulent heists on a small island off the coast of Mexico to California law enforcement agents infiltrating a smuggling ring in South Korea, from scientists racing to discover new and rare species before poachers find them to a notorious Czech "cacto-explorer" who helped turn a landlocked European country into the epicenter of the illegal succulent trade. A heady blend of international intrigue, social theory, botanical lore, and ecological study, The Cactus Hunters offers complex insight into species extinction, conservation, and more-than-human care.
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Todd E. Vachon, "Clean Air and Good Jobs: U.S. Labor and the Struggle for Climate Justice" (Temple UP, 2023)
Phaedra C. Pezzullo, "Beyond Straw Men: Plastic Pollution and Networked Cultures of Care" (U California Press, 2023)
Jeffrey Angles, ed., "Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again: The Original Novellas by Shigeru Kayama" (U Michigan Press, 2023)
Kathrin Eitel, "Recycling Infrastructures in Cambodia: Circularity, Waste, and Urban Life in Phnom Penh" (Routledge, 2022)
Daniel Jaffee, "Unbottled: The Fight Against Plastic Water and for Water Justice" (U California Press, 2023)
Oscar Webber, "Negotiating Relief and Freedom: Responses to Disaster in the British Caribbean, 1812-1907" (Manchester UP, 2023)
Stefan Helmreich, "A Book of Waves" (Duke UP, 2023)
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Nicole Fabricant, "Fighting to Breathe: Race, Toxicity, and the Rise of Youth Activism in Baltimore" (U California Press, 2022)
Zdenka Sokolickova, "The Paradox of Svalbard: Climate Change and Globalisation in the Arctic" (Pluto Press, 2023)
Ryan Tucker Jones, "Red Leviathan: The Secret History of Soviet Whaling" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
Andrea Muehlebach, "A Vital Frontier: Water Insurgencies in Europe" (Duke UP, 2023)
Davide Rodogno, "Night on Earth: A History of International Humanitarianism in the Near East, 1918–1930" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua, "Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility" (Haymarket, 2023)
Jeffrey J. Cohen and Julian Yates, "Noah's Arkive" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)
Travis Holloway, "How to Live at the End of the World: Theory, Art, and Politics for the Anthropocene" (Stanford UP, 2022)
Lyndsie Bourgon, "Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America's Woods" (Little, Brown Spark, 2023)
Shelley Ingram and Willow G. Mullins, "Wait Five Minutes: Weatherlore in the Twenty-First Century" (UP of Mississippi, 2023)
Christopher C. Sellers, "Race and the Greening of Atlanta: Inequality, Democracy, and Environmental Politics in an Ascendant Metropolis" (U Georgia Press, 2023)
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