Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic

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Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 1324007028
Total Pages : 164 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (24 download)

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Book Synopsis Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic by : Emily Monosson

Download or read book Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic written by Emily Monosson and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2023-07-18 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prescient warning about the mysterious and deadly world of fungi—and how to avert further loss across species, including our own. Fungi are everywhere. Most are harmless; some are helpful. A few are killers. Collectively, infectious fungi are the most devastating agents of disease on earth, and a fungus that can persist in the environment without its host is here to stay. In Blight, Emily Monosson documents how trade, travel, and a changing climate are making us all more vulnerable to invasion. Populations of bats, frogs, and salamanders face extinction. In the Northwest, America’s beloved national parks are covered with the spindly corpses of whitebark pines. Food crops are under siege, threatening our coffee, bananas, and wheat—and, more broadly, our global food security. Candida auris, drug-resistant and resilient, infects hospital patients and those with weakened immune systems. Coccidioides, which lives in drier dusty regions, may cause infection in apparently healthy people. The horrors go on. Yet prevention is not impossible. Tracing the history of fungal spread and the most recent discoveries in the field, Monosson meets scientists who are working tirelessly to protect species under threat, and whose innovative approaches to fungal invasion have the potential to save human lives. Delving into case studies at once fascinating, sobering, and hopeful, Blight serves as a wake-up call, a reminder of the delicate interconnectedness of the natural world, and a lesson in seeing life on our planet with renewed humility and awe.

Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691236305
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines by : Nicholas Money

Download or read book Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines written by Nicholas Money and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-03-19 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From beneficial fungi that keep bacteria under control and consume dead cells to toxic molds that cause disease, our bodies are constantly navigating a fungus-filled world. And our interactions with fungi are not limited to what happens in our bodies as we interact with these microbes via our diet and as a source of medicines. In short, there exists an incredible range of interactions between humans and fungi. In this book, Nicolas Money describes this relationship between fungi and humans in the context of our health. Readers learn how the field of mycology has been advancing, from studies that reveal the diversity of yeasts that grow on the skin to research on the use of psychedelic mushrooms in the treatment of depression. The book is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on how fungi operate in our bodies from spores in the lungs to the yeasts and filaments that can infect our internal organs. In particular, Money focuses on the mycobiome, which is the fungal part of the larger microbiome, and explains what is and isn't known about the significance of fungi in the health of the gut. In the second half of the book, Money shifts his focus to our relationship with fungi outside the body, including in food, medicine, and agriculture -- and he pulls no punches when it comes to countering misguided notions when it comes to the medicinal powers of mushrooms. Throughout the book, Money explains how the human-fungi relationship is symbiotic, meaning that it is sometimes beneficial and sometimes harmful. Ultimately, the reader comes away with a broad understanding of what scientists are learning about the fascinating role of fungi inside and outside of our bodies"--

Unnatural Selection

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Publisher : Island Press
ISBN 13 : 1610914996
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis Unnatural Selection by : Emily Monosson

Download or read book Unnatural Selection written by Emily Monosson and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gonorrhea. Bed bugs. Weeds. Salamanders. People. All are evolving, some surprisingly rapidly, in response to our chemical age. In Unnatural Selection, Emily Monosson shows how our drugs, pesticides, and pollution are exerting intense selection pressure on all manner of species. And we humans might not like the result. Monosson reveals that the very code of life is more fluid than once imagined. When our powerful chemicals put the pressure on to evolve or die, beneficial traits can sweep rapidly through a population. Species with explosive population growth--the bugs, bacteria, and weeds--tend to thrive, while bigger, slower-to-reproduce creatures, like ourselves, are more likely to succumb. Unnatural Selection is eye-opening and more than a little disquieting. But it also suggests how we might lessen our impact: manage pests without creating super bugs; protect individuals from disease without inviting epidemics; and benefit from technology without threatening the health of our children.

Plague, Pestilence and Pandemic: Voices from History

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Publisher : Thames & Hudson
ISBN 13 : 0500776474
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis Plague, Pestilence and Pandemic: Voices from History by : Peter Furtado

Download or read book Plague, Pestilence and Pandemic: Voices from History written by Peter Furtado and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening anthology from the bestselling editor of Histories of Nations, exploring how people around the globe have suffered and survived during plague and pandemic, from the ancient world to the present. Plague, pestilence, and pandemics have been a part of the human story from the beginning and have been reflected in art and writing at every turn. Humankind has always struggled with illness; and the experiences of different cities and countries have been compared and connected for thousands of years. Many great authors have published their eyewitness accounts and survivor stories of the great contagions of the past. When the great Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta visited Damascus in 1348 during the great plague, which went on to kill half of the population, he wrote about everything he saw. He reported, "God lightened their affliction; for the number of deaths in a single day at Damascus did not attain 2,000, while in Cairo it reached the figure of 24,000 a day." From the plagues of ancient Egypt recorded in Genesis to those like the Black Death that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages, and from the Spanish flu of 1918 to the Covid-19 pandemic in our own century, this anthology contains fascinating accounts. Editor Peter Furtado places the human experience at the center of these stories, understanding that the way people have responded to disease crises over the centuries holds up a mirror to our own actions and experiences. Plague, Pestilence and Pandemic includes writing from around the world and highlights the shared emotional responses to pandemics: from rage, despair, dark humor, and heartbreak, to finally, hope that it may all be over. By connecting these moments in history, this book places our own reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic within the longer human story.

The Viral Storm

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Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 0805091947
Total Pages : 319 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis The Viral Storm by : Nathan Wolfe

Download or read book The Viral Storm written by Nathan Wolfe and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The "Indiana Jones" of virus hunters reveals the complex interactions between humans and viruses, and the threat from viruses that jump from species to species"-- Provided by publisher.

King of Poisons

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Publisher : Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1597977039
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (979 download)

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Book Synopsis King of Poisons by : John Parascandola

Download or read book King of Poisons written by John Parascandola and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, arsenic's image as a poison has been inextricably tied to images of foul play. In King of Poisons, John Parascandola examines the surprising history of this deadly element. From Gustave Flaubert to Dorothy Sayers, arsenic has long held a place in the literary realm as an instrument of murder and suicide. It was delightfully used as a source of comedy in the famous play Arsenic and Old Lace. But as Parascandola shows, arsenic has had a number of surprising real-world applications. It was frequently found in such common items as wallpaper, paint, cosmetics, and even candy, and its use in medical treatments was widespread. American ambassador Clare Boothe Luce suffered from exposure to arsenical paint in her study, and Napoleon's death has long been speculated to be the result of accidental or intentional poisoning. But arsenic poisoning is still a public menace. In the neighborhood surrounding American University in Washington, D.C., the army has undertaken a massive cleanup of artillery shells and bottles containing chemical warfare agents such as arsenical lewisite after a number of workmen and residents became ill. Arsenic contamination of the water supply in Bangladesh and in West Bengal, India, is a major public health problem today as well. From murder to crime fiction, from industrial toxin to chemical warfare, arsenic remains a powerful force in modern life.

Fungal Diseases

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Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 030921226X
Total Pages : 488 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis Fungal Diseases by : Institute of Medicine

Download or read book Fungal Diseases written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-10-08 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fungal diseases have contributed to death and disability in humans, triggered global wildlife extinctions and population declines, devastated agricultural crops, and altered forest ecosystem dynamics. Despite the extensive influence of fungi on health and economic well-being, the threats posed by emerging fungal pathogens to life on Earth are often underappreciated and poorly understood. On December 14 and 15, 2010, the IOM's Forum on Microbial Threats hosted a public workshop to explore the scientific and policy dimensions associated with the causes and consequences of emerging fungal diseases.

What a Fish Knows

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Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
ISBN 13 : 0374714339
Total Pages : 277 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (747 download)

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Book Synopsis What a Fish Knows by : Jonathan Balcombe

Download or read book What a Fish Knows written by Jonathan Balcombe and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller Do fishes think? Do they really have three-second memories? And can they recognize the humans who peer back at them from above the surface of the water? In What a Fish Knows, the myth-busting ethologist Jonathan Balcombe addresses these questions and more, taking us under the sea, through streams and estuaries, and to the other side of the aquarium glass to reveal the surprising capabilities of fishes. Although there are more than thirty thousand species of fish—more than all mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians combined—we rarely consider how individual fishes think, feel, and behave. Balcombe upends our assumptions about fishes, portraying them not as unfeeling, dead-eyed feeding machines but as sentient, aware, social, and even Machiavellian—in other words, much like us. What a Fish Knows draws on the latest science to present a fresh look at these remarkable creatures in all their breathtaking diversity and beauty. Fishes conduct elaborate courtship rituals and develop lifelong bonds with shoalmates. They also plan, hunt cooperatively, use tools, curry favor, deceive one another, and punish wrongdoers. We may imagine that fishes lead simple, fleeting lives—a mode of existence that boils down to a place on the food chain, rote spawning, and lots of aimless swimming. But, as Balcombe demonstrates, the truth is far richer and more complex, worthy of the grandest social novel. Highlighting breakthrough discoveries from fish enthusiasts and scientists around the world and pondering his own encounters with fishes, Balcombe examines the fascinating means by which fishes gain knowledge of the places they inhabit, from shallow tide pools to the deepest reaches of the ocean. Teeming with insights and exciting discoveries, What a Fish Knows offers a thoughtful appraisal of our relationships with fishes and inspires us to take a more enlightened view of the planet’s increasingly imperiled marine life. What a Fish Knows will forever change how we see our aquatic cousins—the pet goldfish included.

Teaming with Fungi

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Publisher : Timber Press
ISBN 13 : 1604697296
Total Pages : 173 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (46 download)

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Book Synopsis Teaming with Fungi by : Jeff Lowenfels

Download or read book Teaming with Fungi written by Jeff Lowenfels and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2017-01-11 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of Teaming with Microbes and Teaming with Nutrients Teaming with Fungi is an important guide to mycorrhizae and the role they play in agriculture, horticulture, and hydroponics. Almost every plant in a garden forms a relationship with fungi, and many plants would not exist without their fungal partners. By better understanding this relationship, gardeners can take advantage of the benefits of fungi, which include an increased uptake in nutrients, resistance to drought, earlier fruiting, and more. Learn how the fungi interact with plants and how to best to employ them in your home garden.

Manual for the Identification of Va Mycorrhizal Fungi

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 245 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (176 download)

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Book Synopsis Manual for the Identification of Va Mycorrhizal Fungi by : Norman Carl Schenck

Download or read book Manual for the Identification of Va Mycorrhizal Fungi written by Norman Carl Schenck and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Economics of Sustainable Food

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Publisher : Island Press
ISBN 13 : 1642831611
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (428 download)

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Book Synopsis The Economics of Sustainable Food by : Nicoletta Batini

Download or read book The Economics of Sustainable Food written by Nicoletta Batini and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Economics of Sustainable Food details the true cost of food for people and the planet. It illustrates how to transform our broken system, alleviating its severe financial and human burden. The key is smart macroeconomic policy that moves us toward methods that protect the environment like regenerative land and sea farming, low-impact urban farming, and alternative protein farming, and toward healthy diets. The book's multidisciplinary team of authors lay out detailed fiscal and trade policies, as well as structural reforms, to achieve those goals. Chapters discuss strategies to make food production sustainable, nutritious, and fair, ranging from taxes and spending to education, labor market, health care, and pension reforms, alongside regulation in cases where market incentives are unlikely to work or to work fast enough. The authors carefully consider the different needs of more and less advanced economies, balancing economic development and sustainability goals. Case studies showcase successful strategies from around the world, such as taxing foods with a high carbon footprint, financing ecosystems mapping and conservation to meet scientific targets for healthy biomes permanency, subsidizing sustainable land and sea farming, reforming health systems to move away from sick care to preventive, nutrition-based care, and providing schools with matching funds to purchase local organic produce.--Amazon.

Integrated Management of Diseases Caused by Fungi, Phytoplasma and Bacteria

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Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 1402085710
Total Pages : 436 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Integrated Management of Diseases Caused by Fungi, Phytoplasma and Bacteria by : Aurelio Ciancio

Download or read book Integrated Management of Diseases Caused by Fungi, Phytoplasma and Bacteria written by Aurelio Ciancio and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-08-19 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume focuses on integrated pest and disease management (IPM/IDM) and biocontrol of some key diseases of perennial and annual crops. It continues a series originated during a visit of prof. K. G. Mukerji to the CNR Plant Protection Institute in Bari (Italy), in November 2005. Both editors aim at a series of five volumes embracing, in a multi-disciplinary approach, advances and achievements in the practice of crop protection, for a wide range of plant parasites and pathogens. Two volumes of the series were already produced, dedicated to general concepts in IPM and to management and biocontrol of nematodes of grain crops and vegetables. This Volume deals, in particular, with diseases due to bacteria, phytoplasma and fungi. Every day, in any agroecosystem, farmers face problems related to plant diseases. Since the beginning of agriculture, indeed, and probably for a long time in the future, farmers will continue to do so. Every year, plant diseases cause severe losses in the global production of food and other agricultural commodities, worldwide. Plant diseases are not limited to episodic events occurring in single farms or crops, and should not be regarded as single independent cases, affecting only farms on a local scale. The impact of plant disease epidemics on food shortage ignited, in the last two centuries, deep cultural, social and demographic changes, affecting million human beings, through i. e. migration, death and hunger.

The American Chestnut

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Publisher : University of Georgia Press
ISBN 13 : 0820369500
Total Pages : 393 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis The American Chestnut by : Donald Edward Davis

Download or read book The American Chestnut written by Donald Edward Davis and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before 1910 the American chestnut was one of the most common trees in the eastern United States. Although historical evidence suggests the natural distribution of the American chestnut extended across more than four hundred thousand square miles of territory—an area stretching from eastern Maine to southeast Louisiana—stands of the trees could also be found in parts of Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington State, and Oregon. An important natural resource, chestnut wood was preferred for woodworking, fencing, and building construction, as it was rot resistant and straight grained. The hearty and delicious nuts also fed wildlife, people, and livestock. Ironically, the tree that most piqued the emotions of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Americans has virtually disappeared from the eastern United States. After a blight fungus was introduced into the United States during the late nineteenth century, the American chestnut became functionally extinct. Although the virtual eradication of the species caused one of the greatest ecological catastrophes since the last ice age, considerable folklore about the American chestnut remains. Some of the tree’s history dates to the very founding of our country, making the story of the American chestnut an integral part of American cultural and environmental history. The American Chestnut tells the story of the American chestnut from Native American prehistory through the Civil War and the Great Depression. Davis documents the tree’s impact on nineteenth-and early twentieth-century American life, including the decorative and culinary arts. While he pays much attention to the importation of chestnut blight and the tree’s decline as a dominant species, the author also evaluates efforts to restore the American chestnut to its former place in the eastern deciduous forest, including modern attempts to genetically modify the species.

The Dying of the Trees

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Publisher : Viking Adult
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Dying of the Trees by : Charles E. Little

Download or read book The Dying of the Trees written by Charles E. Little and published by Viking Adult. This book was released on 1995 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the sugarbush of Vermont and the dogwoods of Maryland to the hollows in Appalachia and the mountainsides of the West, a whole range of human-caused maladies--acid rain, ultraviolet rays, and other eco-hazards--has been the cause of major forest decline. Little explores the phenomenon with scientists and government officials, and recounts their respondes to this threat to global ecological balance.

The End of Night

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Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 0316228796
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (162 download)

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Book Synopsis The End of Night by : Paul Bogard

Download or read book The End of Night written by Paul Bogard and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2013-07-09 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deeply panoramic tour of the night, from its brightest spots to the darkest skies we have left. A starry night is one of nature's most magical wonders. Yet in our artificially lit world, three-quarters of Americans' eyes never switch to night vision and most of us no longer experience true darkness. In The End of Night, Paul Bogard restores our awareness of the spectacularly primal, wildly dark night sky and how it has influenced the human experience across everything from science to art. From Las Vegas' Luxor Beam -- the brightest single spot on this planet -- to nights so starlit the sky looks like snow, Bogard blends personal narrative, natural history, science, and history to shed light on the importance of darkness -- what we've lost, what we still have, and what we might regain -- and the simple ways we can reduce the brightness of our nights tonight.

Lichen Biology

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521459747
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (597 download)

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Book Synopsis Lichen Biology by : Thomas H. Nash (III.)

Download or read book Lichen Biology written by Thomas H. Nash (III.) and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-01-26 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A broad-ranging review of organisms which have long-fascinated biologists, ecologists and chemists.

Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens

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Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393242803
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens by : Steve Olson

Download or read book Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens written by Steve Olson and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-03-07 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting history of the Mount St. Helens eruption that will "long stand as a classic of descriptive narrative" (Simon Winchester). For months in early 1980, scientists, journalists, sightseers, and nearby residents listened anxiously to rumblings in Mount St. Helens, part of the chain of western volcanoes fueled by the 700-mile-long Cascadia fault. Still, no one was prepared when an immense eruption took the top off of the mountain and laid waste to hundreds of square miles of verdant forests in southwestern Washington State. The eruption was one of the largest in human history, deposited ash in eleven U.S. states and five Canadian providences, and caused more than one billion dollars in damage. It killed fifty-seven people, some as far as thirteen miles away from the volcano’s summit. Shedding new light on the cataclysm, author Steve Olson interweaves the history and science behind this event with page-turning accounts of what happened to those who lived and those who died. Powerful economic and historical forces influenced the fates of those around the volcano that sunny Sunday morning, including the construction of the nation’s railroads, the harvest of a continent’s vast forests, and the protection of America’s treasured public lands. The eruption of Mount St. Helens revealed how the past is constantly present in the lives of us all. At the same time, it transformed volcanic science, the study of environmental resilience, and, ultimately, our perceptions of what it will take to survive on an increasingly dangerous planet. Rich with vivid personal stories of lumber tycoons, loggers, volcanologists, and conservationists, Eruption delivers a spellbinding narrative built from the testimonies of those closest to the disaster, and an epic tale of our fraught relationship with the natural world.