"Icelanders believe in elves. Why does that make you laugh? asks Nancy Marie Brown, in this wonderfully quirky exploration of our interaction with nature. Looking for answers in history, science, religion, and art -- from ancient times to today -- Brown finds that each discipline defines what is real and unreal, natural and supernatural, demonstrated and theoretical, alive and inert. Each has its own way of perceiving and valuing the world around...

"First published in 1985, William deBuys's Enchantment and Exploitation has become a New Mexico classic. It offers a complete account of the relationship between society and environment in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico, a region unique in its rich combination of ecological and cultural diversity. Now, more than thirty years later, this revised and expanded edition provides a long-awaited assessment of the quality of the journey...

Recounts the decades-long saga of the New Jersey seaside town plagued by childhood cancers caused by air and water pollution due to the indiscriminate dumping of toxic chemicals.

"Chronicling the practices, legends, and wisdom of the vanishing traditions of the upper Amazon, this book reveals the area's indigenous peoples' approach to living in harmony with the natural world. Rainforest Medicine features in-depth essays on plant-based medicine and indigenous science from four distinct Amazonian societies: deep forest and urban, lowland rainforest and mountain. The book is illustrated with unique botanical and cultural drawings...

"Faith of Cranes is Lentfer's quiet, lyrical memoir of his home near Glacier Bay, where he reveals a family's simple acts -- planting potatoes, gathering berries, hunting deer -- and a close and eccentric Alaskan community. He shows us how several thousand birds, and one little girl, teach a new father there is no future imaginable that does not leave room for compassion and grace."--P. [4] of cover.

"The public lands of the western United States comprise some 450 million acres of grassland, steppe land, canyons, forests, and mountains. It's an American commons, and it is under assault as never before. Journalist Christopher Ketcham has been documenting the confluence of commercial exploitation and governmental misconduct in this region for over a decade. His revelatory book takes the reader on a journey across these last wild places, to see how...

"From injuries caused by lead poisoning to the devastating effects of atmospheric pollution, infectious disease, and industrial waste, Americans of color are harmed by environmental hazards in staggeringly disproportionate numbers. This systemic onslaught of toxic exposure and institutional negligence causes irreparable physical harm to millions of people across the country--cutting lives tragically short and needlessly burdening our health care system....

"In 2006, the last of China's Yangtze river dolphins--baiji--succumbed to extinction, and la vaquita marina, a diminutive porpoise endemic to the Upper Gulf of California, quietly and without fanfare inherited the title of world's most endangered marine mammal. Unlike many other critically endangered species, the vaquita is not hunted. Nor is its habitat disappearing or degraded. The species is even protected by law. Why then have its numbers plummeted...