Reading the Environment

Diverse Voices and Forms. Contemporary Focus: Historical Perspective. Help with Reading and Writing.

With 63 essays, 22 articles and editorials, 6 short stories, and 7 poems by naturalists, corporate executives, journalists, politicians, philosophers, economists, developers, scientists, poets, fiction writers, and historians, Reading the Environment takes students behind the crisis headlines to introduce them to the rich variety of writing on nature and the environment. In all their diversity, the selections have on thing in common: excellence in writing.

With 78 of its 99 selections written since 1980, Reading the Environment is distinctly contemporary in emphasis; however, students can place recent writing in the historical context provided by classic essays on nature and the environment by Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, Edward Abbey, and Henry D. Thoreau, among others.

Reading the Environment gives help where it is needed. Argument Pairs/Topic Clusters encourage critical reading. A Chronology identifies key publications, organizations, legislations, and environmental catastrophes. Vignettes/Photographs spark discussion and writing. Chapter Introductions place the selections in a larger social and political context. Study Questions ("Understanding What You Read," "Writing About What You Read," and " Making Connections"). Glossary of Environmental Terms. Selected List of Books for Further Reading.

Melissa Walker, Emory University, has more than twenty-five years experience teaching college students to write research papers.