|9780822957478|An overview of contemporary environmental affairs, from 1940s to the present—with an emphasis on nature in an urbanized society, land developments, environmental technology, the structure of environmental politics, environmental opposition, and the results of environmental policy.| Samuel P. Hays|| Science / Environmental Science Science / General

|9780822958574|Refuse Reform and the Environment| As recently as the 1880s, most American cities had no effective means of collecting and removing the mountains of garbage, refuse, and manure-over a thousand tons a day in New York City alone-that clogged streets and overwhelmed the senses of residents. In his landmark study, Garbage in the Cities, Martin Melosi offered the first history of efforts begun in the Progressive Era to clean up this mess. Since it was first published, Garbage in the Cities has remained one of the best historical treatments of the subject. This thoroughly revised and updated edition includes two…

|9780822958734|Scientists and Philosophers on the Falsification, Rejection, and Replacement of Theories|In a recent issue of the Atlantic Monthly, Cullen Murphy wrote that “It is always a little disconcerting when audacious scientific theories come a cropper.” In this case, he was speaking of Stephen Hawking’s now self-repudiated idea that information swallowed by cosmic black holes might be escaping into “baby universes.” John Losee looks at the subject of rejected scientific theories through an analysis of case studies from more than two centuries of science. Losee excerpts the work of prominent scientists and philosophers of science accompanied by evaluative comments from the…

|9780822959861| In 1865, Gregor Mendel presented “Experiments in Plant-Hybridization,” the results of his eight-year study of the principles of inheritance through experimentation with pea plants. Overlooked in its day, Mendel's work would later become the foundation of modern genetics. Did his pioneering research follow the rigors of real scientific inquiry, or was Mendel's data too good to be true-the product of doctored statistics? In Ending the Mendel-Fisher Controversy, leading experts present their conclusions on the legendary controversy surrounding the challenge to Mendel's findings by British statistician and biologist R. A. Fisher. In his 1936 paper “Has Mendel's Work Been Rediscovered?”…

|9780822959885|Perspectives on Waterways in Europe and North America| Throughout history, rivers have run a wide course through human temporal and spiritual experience. They have demarcated mythological worlds, framed the cradle of Western civilization, and served as physical and psychological boundaries among nations. Rivers have become a crux of transportation, industry, and commerce. They have been loved as nurturing providers, nationalist symbols, and the source of romantic lore but also loathed as sites of conflict and natural disaster. Rivers in History presents one of the first comparative histories of rivers on the continents of Europe and North America in the modern…