Newsroom

Chesapeake Bay is viewed these days as a rich fisheries and hunting environment, but few know that it was even more productive than now. Once described as an immense protein factory, the Bay, along with its fisheries and waterfowl harvests, has changed...

Proving Ground: Expertise and Appalachian Landscapes is a book about people who were on the move, a long way from home, and wanted everyone to know it. They yearned for affirmation, and the Appalachian Mountains were the venue through which they found it. I...

Two centuries ago, when the richest man in America ran for higher public office, he prioritized the public good above personal gain, and he cultivated American science and technology as key potential contributors to general prosperity. Stephen Van Rensselaer’s...

One year ago this May, President Obama signed the National Bison Legacy Act, naming the American bison as the country’s official national mammal. The following July, wildlife preservationist groups filed notice of their intent to sue the Department of the...

It’s June, and hurricane season has begun in the Atlantic region. Drawing on the discography of my recent book, Cultivation and Catastrophe: The Lyric Ecology of Modern Black Poetry, this blog post offers a disaster playlist to get you through these stormy...

My recent book, The Draining of the Fens, is about the drive to transform a vast wetland in eastern England into arable farmland during the seventeenth century. Today, England’s Fens are among the most fertile farmland in all of northern Europe, but the region...