Book picks similar to
Toxic Bodies: Hormone Disruptors and the Legacy of DES by Nancy Langston
non-fiction
history
school
environmental-history
The Chimp and the River: How AIDS Emerged from an African Forest
David Quammen - 2015
Recent research has revealed dark surprises and yielded a radically new scenario of how AIDS began and spread. Excerpted and adapted from the book Spillover, with a new introduction by the author, Quammen's hair-raising investigation tracks the virus from chimp populations in the jungles of southeastern Cameroon to laboratories across the globe, as he unravels the mysteries of when, where, and under what circumstances such a consequential "spillover" can happen. An audacious search for answers amid more than a century of data, The Chimp and the River tells the haunting tale of one of the most devastating pandemics of our time.
The Dark Side of the Mind: True Stories from My Life as a Forensic Psychologist
Kerry Daynes - 2019
The job: to delve into the psyche of convicted men and women to try to understand what lies behind their often brutal actions. Follow in the footsteps of Kerry Daynes, one of the most sought-after forensic psychologists in the business and consultant on major police investigations. Kerry's job has taken her to the cells of maximum-security prisons, police interview rooms, the wards of secure hospitals and the witness box of the court room. Her work has helped solve a cold case, convict the guilty and prevent a vicious attack. Spending every moment of your life staring into the darker side of life comes with a price. Kerry's frank memoir gives an unforgettable insight into the personal and professional dangers in store for a female psychologist working with some of the most disturbing men and women.
Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America
Eliza Griswold - 2018
This is an incredible true account of investigative journalism and a devastating indictment of energy politics in America.Stacey Haney, a lifelong resident of Amity, Pennsylvania, is struggling to support her children when the fracking boom comes to town. Like most of her neighbors, she sees the energy companies' payments as a windfall. Soon trucks are rumbling down her unpaved road and a fenced-off fracking site rises on adjacent land. But her annoyance gives way to concern and then to fear as domestic animals and pets begin dying and mysterious illnesses strike her family--despite the companies' insistence that nothing is wrong.Griswold masterfully chronicles Haney's transformation into an unlikely whistle-blower as she launches her own investigation into corporate wrongdoing. As she takes her case to court, Haney inadvertently reveals the complex rifts in her community and begins to reshape its attitudes toward outsiders, corporations, and the federal government. Amity and Prosperity uses her gripping and moving tale to show the true costs of our energy infrastructure and to illuminate the predicament of rural America in the twenty-first century.
Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States
John Soluri - 2006
But how did the rise in banana consumption in the United States affect the banana-growing regions of Central America? In this lively, interdisciplinary study, John Soluri integrates agroecology, anthropology, political economy, and history to trace the symbiotic growth of the export banana industry in Honduras and the consumer mass market in the United States.Beginning in the 1870s when bananas first appeared in the U.S. marketplace, Soluri examines the tensions between the small-scale growers, who dominated the trade in the early years, and the shippers. He then shows how rising demand led to changes in production that resulted in the formation of major agribusinesses, spawned international migrations, and transformed great swaths of the Honduran environment into monocultures susceptible to plant disease epidemics that in turn changed Central American livelihoods. Soluri also looks at labor practices and workers' lives, changing gender roles on the banana plantations, the effects of pesticides on the Honduran environment and people, and the mass marketing of bananas to consumers in the United States. His multifaceted account of a century of banana production and consumption adds an important chapter to the history of Honduras, as well as to the larger history of globalization and its effects on rural peoples, local economies, and biodiversity.
Shooting an Elephant
George Orwell - 1936
The other masterly essays in this collection include classics such as "My Country Right or Left", "How the Poor Die" and "Such, Such were the Joys", his memoir of the horrors of public school, as well as discussions of Shakespeare, sleeping rough, boys' weeklies, and a spirited defence of English cooking. Opinionated, uncompromising, provocative, and hugely entertaining, all show Orwell's unique ability to get to the heart of any subject.
The Keystone Approach: Healing Arthritis and Psoriasis by Restoring the Microbiome
Rebecca Fett - 2017
The latest scientific research reveals that the balance of bacteria in an individual’s microbiome can have a profound impact on inflammation throughout the body. In those with psoriasis or autoimmune arthritis, there is often a characteristic lack of certain beneficial bacteria that normally regulate the immune system – known as “keystone” species. This is typically coupled with an overabundance of potentially harmful bacteria that further trigger the inflammatory response. The Keystone Approach calms inflammation at the source by restoring the balance of good and bad bacteria in the microbiome. Based on an in-depth analysis of the latest scientific evidence, The Keystone Approach also explains how to optimize the Mediterranean diet for the greatest reduction in inflammation, along with providing detailed guidance for choosing supplements supported by good-quality clinical trials. ---- Rebecca Fett is a science writer with a degree in molecular biotechnology and biochemistry from the University of Sydney. She previously spent ten years as a biotechnology patent litigation attorney in New York, where she specialized in analyzing the scientific and clinical evidence for immune-targeting biologic medicines
The History of Medicine: A Very Short Introduction
William Bynum - 2008
Taking a thematic rather than strictly chronological approach, W.F. Bynum, explores the key turning points in the history of Western medicine-such as the first surgical procedures, the advent of hospitals, the introduction of anesthesia, X-Rays, vaccinations, and many other innovations, as well as the rise of experimental medicine. The book also explores Western medicine's encounters with Chinese and Indian medicine, as well as nontraditional treatments such as homeopathy, chiropractic, and other alternative medicines. Covering a vast amount of information, this Very Short Introduction sheds new light on medicine's past, while at the same time engaging with contemporary issues, discoveries, and controversies, such as the spiraling costs of health care, lack of health insurance for millions, breakthrough treatments, and much more. For readers who wish to understand the how we have arrived at our current state of medical practice and knowledge, this book is essential reading.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion
Edward J. Larson - 1997
Yet despite its influence on the 20th century, there are no modern histories of the trial and its aftermath. This book fills that void not only by skillfully narrating the trial's events, but also by framing it in a broader social context, showing how its influence has cut across religious, cultural, educational and political lines. With new material from both the prosecution and the defense, along with the author's astute historical and legal analysis, "Summer for the Gods" is destined to become a new classic about a pivotal milestone in American history.
Our Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century
Boston Women's Health Book Collective - 1970
A guide to women's health, including information on breast cancer, AIDS, pregnancy and childbirth, and medical practices and procedures.
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
Terry Tempest Williams - 1991
That same season, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by. One event was nature at its most random, the other a by-product of rogue technology: Terry's mother, and Terry herself, had been exposed to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s. As it interweaves these narratives of dying and accommodation, Refuge transforms tragedy into a document of renewal and spiritual grace, resulting in a work that has become a classic.
The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution
Alfred F. Young - 1999
When the Tea Party became a leading symbol of the Revolutionary ear fifty years after the actual event, this 'common man' in his nineties was 'discovered' and celebrated in Boston as a national hero. Young pieces together this extraordinary tale, adding new insights about the role that individual and collective memory play in shaping our understanding of history.
The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History
Ibn Khaldun
Some modern thinkers view it as the first work dealing with the social sciences of sociology, demography, and cultural history. The Muqaddimah also deals with Islamic theology, historiography, the philosophy of history, economics, political theory, and ecology. It has also been described as an early representative of social Darwinism.
Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore
Elizabeth Rush - 2018
In Rising, Elizabeth Rush guides readers through some of the places where this change has been most dramatic, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and from New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish in place.Weaving firsthand testimonials from those facing this choice--a Staten Islander who lost her father during Sandy, the remaining holdouts of a Native American community on a drowning Isle de Jean Charles, a neighborhood in Pensacola settled by escaped slaves hundreds of years ago--with profiles of wildlife biologists, activists, and other members of these vulnerable communities, Rising privileges the voices of those too often kept at the margins.
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Adam Smith - 1776
Written in clear and incisive prose, The Wealth of Nations articulates the concepts indispensable to an understanding of contemporary society; and Robert Reich's Introduction both clarifies Smith's analyses and illuminates his overall relevance to the world in which we live. As Reich writes, "Smith's mind ranged over issues as fresh and topical today as they were in the late eighteenth century--jobs, wages, politics, government, trade, education, business, and ethics."Introduction by Robert Reich - Commentary by R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner - Includes a Modern Library Reading Group Guide
Conflict After the Cold War, Updated Edition
Richard K. Betts - 1993
Professor Betts examines the arguments about what political, economic, social and military factors tend to cause war and whether such causes can be made obsolete.
