Erica Gies’s book documents how conventional water control efforts damage ecosystems and the water cycle, and how they are overwhelmed by natural disasters driven by climate... Read More

In "Power in the Wild", animal behaviorist Lee Alan Dugatkin examines the evolution of social behavior, with a focus on struggles for power within animal societies. From ants to... Read More

Cavan W. Concannon’s "Profaning Paul" is likely the first work of biblical criticism that begins in an outhouse and ends in a garbage heap. Its references to waste offer... Read More

The origins of the conspiracy theories that permeate modern American politics are revealed in Edward H. Miller’s biography of Robert Welch, "A Conspiratorial Life". Born into... Read More

Paleobotanists and geologists faced injury, stiff winds, polar bears, and arduous daily climbs in the summer of 2002 as they collected thousands of fossilized plants from the... Read More

Dark matter, black holes, dark energy: with all this shadowy terminology in play, it’s no wonder when laypeople find cosmology off-putting, so What’s Eating the Universe?... Read More

In his informative, entertaining history book, "Gossip Men", Christopher M. Elias tracks the surveillance state of the latter half of the twentieth century to its roots in both... Read More

Deft and entertaining, Anthony J. Stuart’s "Vanished Giants" reveals the “hugest, fiercest, and strangest” Ice Age animals––mastodons, saber-toothed cats, immense... Read More

France’s Louis XIV, known as “The Sun King,” has long been an enigma. On the one hand, he was visionary, practical, and probably the greatest patron of the arts the world... Read More

In "Waters of the World", Sarah Dry profiles the lives of six brilliant scientists from the mid-nineteenth century to the present who made essential contributions to our... Read More

In "A Small Door Set in Concrete", Israeli activist Ilana Hammerman attests to the cruel and ever-worsening effects of the borders and policies that separate Israel and... Read More

Matthew L. Schuerman’s measured "Newcomers" examines gentrification and how it impacts cities for good and ill. Terms are defined with care in the text, which argues that new... Read More