Books like Palma Africana — picked by fans

I grew up hearing about how civilization emerged because of striving to get there, that it was intentional and glorious, a huge progressive step.

Scott is brilliant at showing how living in large, organized groups was an unintended outcome, fragile and precarious and often a failure: not an accident but not willed into being, either. It came from certain kinds of environments, mostly riverine regions that often flooded, where humans could live in larger groups because of grains. Then, as powerful people were able to “tax” the possessors of grain-bearing plants—because they were visible and vulnerable—states emerged.

In other words, Scott shows that our ways of life came from something more like natural law than from any sort of revelation or forethought. The nature of grains did it. 

I was quite taken by Laudan’s attention to the preparation of foods, from deep time to the present, in many of the regions of the world. She is attentive to mixtures: in any dish, in the kinds of dishes served for meals of different kinds, in the sharing and exchanging of tastes, and in the close relationships between dining and worship.

Beginning with the simple motions of a woman grinding grain on stone for the daily meal, or pounding hulls in a vessel, to the innumerable kitchen attendants needed to turn raw materials into ingredients for palace feasts, or the labor-saving kitchen appliances of fast-paced modernity, the ability to break bread in community has long depended on local ecologies and ways of life, as well as human ability to make the best of what is to hand. In fact, she sees the rise of distinctive world food cultures not as… show more.

I found Rappaport’s book to be a really marvelous example of what is now being called “entangled history.” That kind of history picks up one topic and follows it wherever it leads. Because tangible things are easier to trace than intangible things (like ideas or rumors), commodity history is a lively subject, but this is something larger.

Tea has a chemistry to it that people gravitate toward, but there is so much more to the story about why it is so widely consumed in our world today. Once it was a substance grown and sipped in China, but European trading companies also discovered that markets for it could be created. It was famously a commodity deeply entangled in the opium wars, in the new plantation economies of northeastern India and Sri Lanka/Ceylon, and other systems of production.

But Rappaport has so much more to say about the consumption side, too:… show more.

I love seeing an acclaimed novelist turn to non-fiction to write a book that is both about a distant past and at the same time our present.

Ghosh is able to bring us to faraway places, in this case, literally into the lives of a plant that provides the spice that ends up in our baked goods. After reading this book, I found myself thinking again and again about our interconnected world that arose with global capitalism.

Cows are not typically centered in histories of imperialism and colonialism, but John Ryan Fischer presents the case that bovines transformed the societies of California Indians and native Hawaiians in the nineteenth century.

This book helped me think about how to connect histories of livestock and land seizures, and helps us think about animals as malleable creatures of empire that are repurposed by Indigenous nations.   

Weather has always been a constant topic of conversation, and this was certainly true for the Civil War generation. But it was also a matter of serious concern as it greatly affected the conduct of military campaigns. 

With careful attention to the science of weather and meticulous research, Kenneth Noe has crafted what amounts to a “weather history” of the American Civil War that brings new perspectives to the war’s course and would certainly have resonated with everyone from generals to privates to the folks at home. 

Noe’s book makes a striking contribution that assesses the impact of weather along with certain unusual climate conditions on the conduct of the war generally and specifically on strategy and logistics. For students of the Civil War, and with apologies to Bob Dylan, we need Ken Noe to know which way the wind blows.

It is one of the few books about the woman who saved the Ocklawaha River (and the Florida aquifer) from the Cross Florida Barge Canal.

Marjorie Harris Carr, an unassuming woman from Micanopy, Florida, created the organization Florida Defenders of the Environment. It is an important sentry of environmental issues, including safeguarding the future of the Ocklawaha River.

I love this book because it ties our insatiable demand for stuff to local, regional, and, indeed, global pollution and environmental destruction that threatens human and animal life.

Each chapter presents an eye-opening case study, my favorite of which explains all the steps that occur to bring bananas from far-off places and into grocery stores through Southern California’s largest ports. In fact, while Oil Beach spells out the impacts of oil refining, shipping, and trucking on humans, I love it, especially because it focuses on birds, whales, and other non-humans. The sad irony of oil-coated birds being treated at a clinic funded by oil companies will not be lost on the reader.

I also love books that are compelling reads. I read this book from start to finish without putting it down.   

I was one in a world of frustrated and increasingly anxious people back in 2018. Politicians just weren’t talking about the severity of the environmental crisis and the vast actions that we need (and can) undertake to tackle it. And then Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg and Fridays for the Future, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Green New Deal, and the Sunrise Movement came along. Suddenly everyone was talking about it. This set of essays brings so many of those thinkers and doers together to give us an inspiring road map for getting out of the crisis and realizing a better world in the process. And it shows us that these movements are built on the shoulders of giants, particularly in the global south. 

I felt like I was actually in the Alaskan wilds, ocean kayaking, hiking, camping, and exploring while reading Kim Heacox’s book. His descriptions, sensory imagery, and recounting of adventure and experiences both on and off the water made me feel like I was on the trip with him.

His interaction with wild animals was amazing and often was so exciting that it gave me chills. In addition, I enjoyed learning much about the amazing cultural and natural history of Alaska. The places, the people, and even the ancient past all came to life as I lost myself in this wonderful compilation of essays.

Throughout the book ran the poignant thread of human impact and change, which made me more aware and ready to vote for and write for change.