Nature at War

Reviews / Votes

'Featuring renowned scholars of military and environmental history, Nature at War shows how the mid-century clash between Allied and Axis forces revolutionized every aspect of American life - from the food we eat, to the smoke we breath, to the clothes we wear and the chemicals and drugs that pour through our veins. This impressive volume is long overdue and should be essential reading for anyone interested in the ecological history of the world's 'darkest hour'.' Bart Elmore, The Ohio State University 'Nature at War reveals how World War II was literally a War on the World. While claiming 60 million lives and devastating land, air, and water, WWII also transformed the US by promoting industrial agriculture, chemical pesticides, out-of-control military spending, rampant consumerism, nicotine addiction, and urban smog. A remarkable accounting.' Gar Smith, co-founder of Environmentalists Against War and author of Nuclear Roulette and The War and Environment Reader 'The necessity and even glory of World War II is unquestionable in US culture, and even in this book. Yet this book makes clear that the world could never survive another similar disaster, not only because of the nuclear danger, but also because of the environmental destruction created and unleashed by that war. In fact, the earth-attacking practices of extraction and consumption that grew out of WWII may yet doom us all if not undone and corrected.' David Swanson, author of War Is A Lie 'Nature at War offers the first book length analysis of the environmental developments during World War II in the United States, and raises questions of thunderous importance for the rest of the world as well.' Simo Laakkonen, University of Turku '... an important contribution to histories of World War II, the United States, and the environment.' Scott Kaufman, Journal Of Military History 'Nature at War is a fresh, engaging examination of how the American war effort resulted in an environmental transformation unique in scale and duration. ... This remarkable collection highlights the depth and breadth of the conflict in an environmental context and suggests new ways to think about the intersection of war and environment. ... The authors and editors should be commended for advancing our understanding of the cataclysm of World War II.' J. L. Anderson, Journal of American History 'Nature at War makes an important contribution to the already-rich historiography of World War II on the home front and pushes historians to rethink the ramifications of the war on US citizens' relationship to the natural world. Environmental historians, historians of US foreign relations, historians of twentieth-century US society and culture, and military historians all will find something of interest here. While the chapters in this book often deal with well-known moments in history ... the feat of this volume is reinterpreting these events from an environmental lens, allowing old stories to tell us, as historians, something new.' Christina LeBlanc, H-Net Reviews