#2: The Current Literature on Science: Author-meets-Blogger Series in Review

(Ten Best of the Decade from Half of the World's Fair)

This series began with the kindness of a friend who agreed to let me ask him about his book about Barry Commoner, science, and modern environmentalism. It then spawned a series of 17 interviews with authors of books in science studies, environmental history, the history of science, and all combinations in between. Every one of them was enjoyable to do; every author was generous and insightful. I've been able to use some of these as thumbnail sketches of readings I use in class. In that, they stand as the best example of blogging as a complement to my academic work. I already have a summary page of these here (visually) and here (just a list of links), so below I'll give banner images for each discussion as a third form of compilation. And I'll say thank you again to all the authors who agreed to do this and the many readers who wrote off-line and on-line in response. Also a final thank you to Michael Egan and Jody Roberts who contributed their own interviews to the series (Egan with Kevin Marsh; Roberts with Lizzie Grossman and Michelle Murphy).

Michael Egan, Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival: The Remaking of American Environmentalism (MIT, 2007):

Cyrus Mody, various studies on nanotechnology and nanoscience (2004-present):

Saul Halfon, The Cairo Consensus: Demographic Surveys, Women's Empowerment, and Regime Change in Population Policy (Lexington Books, 2006):

Kevin Marsh, Drawing Lines in the Forest: Creating Wilderness Areas in the Pacific Northwest (Washington, 2007):

David Hess, Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry: Activism, Innovation, and the Environment in an Era of Globalization (MIT, 2007):

Elizabeth Grossman, High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health (Island Press, 2007):

Shobita Parthasarathy, Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology, and the Comparative Politics of Health Care (MIT Press, 2007):

Aaron Sachs, The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism (Viking Press, 2006):

Jan Golinski, British Weather and the Climate of Enlightenment (Chicago, 2007):

Kelly Joyce, Magnetic Appeal: MRI and the Myth of Transparency (Cornell, 2008):

D. Graham Burnett, Trying Leviathan: The Nineteenth-Century New York Court Case That Put the Whale on Trial and Challenged the Order of Nature (Princeton, 2007):

Michelle Murphy, Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers (Duke, 2006):

Gregg Mitman, Breathing Space: How Allergies Shape Our Lives and Landscapes (Yale, 2007):

Keith Warner, Agroecology in Action: Extending Alternative Agriculture through Social Networks (MIT Press, 2007):

Christopher Henke, Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power: Science and Industrial Agriculture in California (MIT Press, 2008):

Martha McCaughey, The Caveman Mystique: Pop-Darwinism and the Debates Over Sex, Violence, and Science (Routledge, 2007):

Julie Sze, Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Urban Health and Environmental Justice (MIT Press, 2007):