New Books in Environmental Studies
Science:Natural Sciences
Why is cows' milk, which few nonwhite people can digest, promoted as a science-backed dietary necessity in countries where the majority of the population is lactose-intolerant? Why are gigantic new dairy farms permitted to deplete the sparse water resources of desert ecosystems? Why do thousands of U.S. dairy farmers every year give up after struggling to recoup production costs against plummeting wholesale prices?
Exploring these questions and many more, Spoiled: The Myth of Milk as Superfood (Columbia UP, 2023) is an unflinching and meticulous critique of the glorification of fluid milk and its alleged universal benefits. Anne Mendelson's groundbreaking book chronicles the story of milk from the Stone Age peoples who first domesticated cows, goats, and sheep to today's troubled dairy industry. Spoiled shows that drinking fresh milk was rare until Western scientific experts who were unaware of genetic differences in the ability to digest lactose deemed it superior to traditional fermented dairy products. Their flawed beliefs fueled the growth of a massive and environmentally devastating industry that turned milk into a cheap, ubiquitous commodity.
Mendelson's wide-ranging account also examines the consequences of homogenization and refrigeration technologies, the toll that modern farming takes on dairy cows, and changing perceptions of raw milk since the advent of pasteurization. Unraveling the myths and misconceptions that prop up the dairy industry, Spoiled calls for more sustainable, healthful futures in our relationship with milk and the animals that provide it.
Melek Firat Altay is a neuroscientist, biologist and musician. Her research focuses on deciphering the molecular and cellular mechanisms of neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders.
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Thom van Dooren, "The Wake of Crows: Living and Dying in Shared Worlds" (Columbia UP, 2019)
China’s Environmental Footprint in Ghana: Non-State Responses
Leigh Claire La Berge, "Marx for Cats: A Radical Bestiary" (Duke UP, 2023)
Marcy Norton, "The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492" (Harvard UP, 2024)
Timothy Brook, "The Price of Collapse: The Little Ice Age and the Fall of Ming China" (Princeton UP, 2023)
Robert R. Janes, "Museums and Societal Collapse: The Museum as Lifeboat" (Routledge, 2023)
Lee McIntyre, "The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience" (MIT Press, 2019)
Nature-Study
Vincent Ialenti, "Deep Time Reckoning: How Future Thinking Can Help Earth Now" (MIT Press, 2020)
Boria Sax, "Enchanted Forests: The Poetic Construction of a World Before Time" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
Jean Yen-chun Lin, "A Spark in the Smokestacks: Environmental Organizing in Beijing Middle-Class Communities" (Columbia UP, 2023)
Yan Slobodkin, "The Starving Empire: A History of Famine in France's Colonies" (Cornell UP, 2023)
Tom Özden-Schilling, "The Ends of Research: Indigenous and Settler Science After the War in the Woods" (Duke UP, 2023)
Abigail Agresta, "The Keys to Bread and Wine: Faith, Nature, and Infrastructure in Late Medieval Valencia" (Cornell UP, 2022)
John Perlin, "The Forest Journey: The Story of Trees and Civilization" (Patagonia, 2023)
Tracy E. Perkins, "Evolution of a Movement: Four Decades of California Environmental Justice Activism" (U California Press, 2022)
Anne Baillot, "From Handwriting to Footprinting: Text and Heritage in the Age of Climate Crisis" (Open Book Publishers, 2023)
Alexa Weik von Mossner, "Affective Ecologies: Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative" (Ohio State UP, 2017)
Florentine Koppenborg, "Japan's Nuclear Disaster and the Politics of Safety Governance" (Cornell UP, 2023)
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