Ecology, Botany and Nature Book List ·

African Sacred Groves

Ecological Dynamics and Social Change

In Western scholarship, Africa’s so-called sacred forests are often treated as the remains of primeval forests, ethnographic curiosities, or cultural relics from a static precolonial past. Their continuing importance in African societies, however, shows that this “relic theory” is inadequate for understanding current social and ecological dynamics.…

All Flesh is Grass

The Pleasures and Promises of Pasture Farming

Amidst Mad Cow scares and consumer concerns about how farm animals are bred, fed, and raised, many farmers and homesteaders are rediscovering the traditional practice of pastoral farming. Grasses, clovers, and forbs are the natural diet of cattle, horses, and sheep, and are vital supplements for hogs, chickens, and turkeys.…

America’s Romance with the English Garden

The 1890s saw a revolution in advertising. Cheap paper, faster printing, rural mail delivery, railroad shipping, and chromolithography combined to pave the way for the first modern, mass-produced catalogs.…

Between the Sea and the Lagoon

An Eco-social History of the Anlo of Southeastern Ghana c. 1850 to Recent Times

This study offers a “social interpretation of environmental process” for the coastal lowlands of southeastern Ghana. The Anlo-Ewe, sometimes hailed as the quintessential sea fishermen of the West African coast, are a previously non-maritime people who developed a maritime tradition.…

Born in the Spring

A Collection of Spring Wildflowers

A must for flower and art lovers, Born in the Spring is a unique collection of line drawings and magnificent watercolors of spring wildflowers. All of the drawings and paintings were done from living plants, in minute detail, with complete botanical accuracy.…

The Buffalo Book

The Full Saga of the American Animal

The journals and memoirs of 19th century explorers and travelers in the American West often told of viewing buffalo massed together as far as the eye could see. This book appropriately covers the subject of the buffalo as extensively as that animal covered the plains.…

The Colorado

The vast Colorado River collects water from the highest Rocky Mountain peaks and traverses the widest plateaus, the deepest canyons, and the lowest deserts before emptying into the delta of northern Mexico.…

Colorado Gem Trails and Mineral Guide

This famous book takes you on an extensive gem and mineral collecting tour of Colorado, revealing the interesting places where Nature has stored her treasures. Detailed directions are given for reaching the noted as well as the little-known localities in all sections of this great mineral-producing state.…

Cougar!

Known alternately as the puma, mountain lion, or panther, the cougar covers a territory on this continent almost as far-ranging as humans. Previous literature has implied, in a carefully crafted but thinly veiled manner, that the cougar presents little threat to human life and that a person should more fear the possibility of being struck by “a piano falling from the sky.…

Crisis & Decline in Bunyoro

Population & Environment in Western Uganda 1860–1955

The Kingdom of Bunyoro's story demonstrates convincingly that environmental change there was not a uniform, statewide process. In one of the first studies of the political ecology of a major African kingdom, Crisis & Decline in Bunyoro addresses state capacity, ideology, and government legitimacy as crucial issues.…

Cultivating Success in Uganda

Kigezi Farmers and Colonial Policies

Kigezi, a district in southwestern Uganda, is exceptional in many ways. In contrast to many other parts of the colonial world, this district did not adopt cash crops. Soil conservation practices were successfully adopted, and the region maintained a remarkably developed and individualized land market from the early colonial period.…

Cultivating the Colonies

Colonial States and their Environmental Legacies

The essays collected in Cultivating the Colonies demonstrate how the relationship between colonial power and nature reveals the nature of power. Each essay explores how colonial governments translated ideas about the management of exotic nature and foreign people into practice, and how they literally “got their hands dirty” in the business of empire.…

Custodians of the Land

Ecology and Culture in the History of Tanzania

Farming and pastoral societies inhabit ever-changing environments. This relationship between environment and rural culture, politics and economy in Tanzania is the subject of this volume which will be valuable in reopening debates on Tanzanian history.…

Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development

Cahora Bassa and Its Legacies in Mozambique, 1965–2007

Cahora Bassa Dam on the Zambezi River, built in the early 1970s during the final years of Portuguese rule, was the last major infrastructure project constructed in Africa during the turbulent era of decolonization.…

DeVoto’s West

History, Conservation, and the Public Good

Social commentator and preeminent western historian Bernard DeVoto vigorously defended public lands in the West against commercial interests. By the time of his death in 1955, DeVoto had published criticism, history, and fiction.…

Dune Country

A Hiker’s Guide to the Indiana Dunes

One of our nation’s newest parks stretches along Lake Michigan across 14 miles of windswept beach between Gary and Michigan City in Northern Indiana. Dune Country explains for the first time in terms everyone can understand why the plant and animal succession and the rich variety of natural habitats there are so unique.…

Ecology Control and Economic Development in East African History

The Case of Tanganyika, 1850–1950

This pioneering book was one of the first to place the history of East Africa within the context of the environment. It has been used continuously for student teaching. It is now reissued with an introduction placing it within the debate that has developed on the subject; there is also an updated bibliography.…

Ecology of African Pastoralist Societies

This study presents a comprehensive survey and analysis of the literature and debates surrounding African pastoralist societies by a leading anthropologist of African pastoralism. Katherine Homewood traces the origins and spread of pastoralism on the African continent before examining contemporary pastoralist environments and livelihoods.…

Encountering the Past in Nature

Essays in Environmental History

A deeper understanding of contemporary environmental problems requires us to know where we come from, and the study of environmental history will help us in that quest. Environmental history, in short, may be described as an attempt to study the interaction between humans and nature in the past.…

Environment at the Margins

Literary and Environmental Studies in Africa

Environment at the Margins brings literary and environmental studies into a robust interdisciplinary dialogue, challenging dominant ideas about nature, conservation, and development in Africa and exploring alternative narratives offered by writers and environmental thinkers.…