Michelle Nijhuis | The New York Review of Books

Life in the Ruins

Two new books consider the delusion of the human quest to be free from the constraints of nature.

The Burning Earth: A History

by Sunil Amrith

A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places

by Christopher Brown

November 21, 2024 issue

The Digital Planet

Digital technologies may worsen environmental problems, but they can also assist in the protection and restoration of ecosystems —and strengthen our relationships with them.

Gaia’s Web: How Digital Environmentalism Can Combat Climate Change, Restore Biodiversity, Cultivate Empathy, and Regenerate the Earth

by Karen Bakker

Environmentalism from Below: How Global People’s Movements Are Leading the Fight for Our Planet

by Ashley Dawson

April 18, 2024 issue

The Nature Trade

By extending the history of the continent to the distant time when humans were, at best, bit players in its marvelous ecosystems, Dan Flores’s Wild New World reminds us that modern North Americans still walk in the footsteps of our fellow animals.

Wild New World: The Epic Story of Animals and People in America

by Dan Flores

The Market in Birds: Commercial Hunting, Conservation, and the Origins of Wildlife Consumerism, 1850–1920

by Andrea L. Smalley with Henry M. Reeves

August 17, 2023 issue

Refill the Swamp!

Two recent books show that the concept of ecological restoration is a fuzzy one: even practitioners rarely agree on what is being restored, or to what end.

Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis

by Annie Proulx

Wild by Design: The Rise of Ecological Restoration

by Laura J. Martin

April 20, 2023 issue

Must We Grow?

New books argue that life in a slower economy isn’t necessarily painful, and is likely to be healthier and more secure in many ways.

The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves

by J.B. MacKinnon

Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less

by Leidy Klotz

June 9, 2022 issue

Blue Planet

“Science journalists have always had to find ways of ‘translating’ complicated concepts without sacrificing accuracy, but even over the course of my career the job has gotten so much harder.”

March 26, 2022

The Downward Slope

In A Cure for Darkness, Alex Riley responds to his depression by turning outward, placing his experience and its purported remedies alongside the experiences of fellow sufferers past and present.

A Cure for Darkness: The Story of Depression and How We Treat It

by Alex Riley

March 24, 2022 issue