New Books in Environmental Studies

Water, malt, yeast, and hops: these are essential ingredients of beer. Hops, specifically, play an outsized role in determining its flavor and aroma. In Beer Ghosts: In Search of Lost Hops and the Women Who Grew Them (U Chicago Press, 2026), Dr. Jennifer Jordan takes us back to a brief but pivotal moment in the nineteenth century when Wisconsin produced much of the hops grown in the United States. Yet those long-ago hops are not the only ghosts in Jordan’s story. Haunting the pages of this book are the young women whose work at harvest time was key to the rise of the American beer industry.
Until the early twentieth century, the work of picking hops was a time-consuming process that could only be done by hand, one cone at a time. In nineteenth-century Wisconsin, that work was performed almost exclusively by women and girls, who traveled to hop farms in droves as summer came to a close and the harvest began. At the height of the hop boom in the 1860s, farmers and their families laid out beds and prepared food for tens of thousands of seasonal laborers, and hosted parties and dances well into the night. Despite the scale of Wisconsin’s hop boom (and subsequent crash), the industry left behind little trace aside from local records and archives. And it is that barely discernible trace that lures Jordan to dig deeper.
Dr. Jordan’s vivid prose takes us back to this era by drawing on a rich trove of archival sources, from the thousands of hop farmers in the agricultural census to the extraordinary diary of a single hop picker, a young woman named Ella. The history of beer is incomplete without the history of Ella and the others who labored in the hop fields and in the houses that hosted them. In this book, Dr. Jordan gives life and voice to these beer ghosts who call to us from the past, showing the rich connections between a nation’s beer and the lives that made it possible.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Photographer Peter Aaron and acclaimed wine writer Jane Anson join the New Books Network to discuss Bordeaux Chronicle (Vendome Press, 2026), a visual and historical portrait of one of the world's most celebrated wine regions, told through photographs taken 55 years apart.
In 1969, at just 23, Aaron traveled through Bordeaux on a Vespa with his Nikon camera, commissioned by legendary wine merchant Alexis Lichine to photograph 64 wine estates for an encyclopedia that was never published. His photographs, largely unseen for decades, captured a Bordeaux far removed from today's glamorous châteaux and state-of-the-art wineries: modest cellars, vineyard laborers, family-run estates, and centuries-old traditions. In 2024, Aaron returned to photograph many of those same properties, offering a fascinating then-and-now portrait of the region.
Aaron recalls his introduction to wine through his father, Sam Aaron of New York's famed Sherry-Lehmann, his teenage experience working at Château Haut-Brion, and the encounters that shaped his original journey. He also reflects on returning half a century later and reconnecting with people and places he first photographed as a young man.
Anson, who has lived in Bordeaux since 2003, brings her deep knowledge of the region's wines, history, and families to the conversation. Together, they trace Bordeaux's rise as a global center of fine wine, luxury, and architectural ambition, touching on advances in winemaking, evolving ownership, environmental practices, and opportunities for women, while considering what has been gained - and lost - along the way.
The interview also delves into the collaboration behind Bordeaux Chronicle, which pairs Aaron's photographic archive with Anson's historical perspective. More than a wine book, it offers a compelling look at the people, places, and traditions that have shaped Bordeaux across generations, and the enduring character of a region where past and present remain closely intertwined.
Interview by Laura Goldberg, longtime food blogger here.

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The oil industry today sponsors dozens of citizen advocacy organizations. Often called 'front groups' or 'astroturf,' they have become key actors in fossil fuel companies' political efforts across the US and Canada. People For Oil: Citizen Mobilization in the U.S. and Canadian Fossil Fuel Industries (Cambridge UP, 2026) by Dr. Tim Wood digs into these groups and the day-to-day ways they shape our energy future. Drawing on interviews with pro-oil organizers and citizen joiners, Dr. Wood explains why these groups form, why people join, and how these organizations intervene in governance. He shows that while we tend to think of all corporate grassroots mobilization as financially secretive, many campaigns today are openly sponsored and long-lasting. This allows industry lobbyists to stake a claim to representing citizen voice. By making sense of the backstage logics and affective politics of pro-oil organizing, People for Oil equips readers to better understand important new players in today's climate and energy politics.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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In this episode, I had the privilege of speaking with Maude Barlow, who has spent decades at the center of the global water justice movement. She is the honorary chairperson of the Council of Canadians, a co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, and served as senior advisor on water to the president of the United Nations General Assembly, where she helped win the 2010 resolution recognizing water as a human right. She has written or co-written nearly twenty books, including Blue Gold, Blue Covenant, and Still Hopeful. Her latest book, Earth for Sale: The Fight to Stop the Last Plunder of the Commons, was published by ECW Press in 2026.
Most of us agree the natural world is in crisis. Barlow's prescient warning is about who we are trusting to fix it. Governments, claiming they cannot afford conservation on their own, are inviting the same energy, chemical, agribusiness, and bottled water corporations that caused the damage to manage the recovery. On the theory that the best way to save nature is to put a price on it. Behind friendly terms like "nature-based solutions" and "ecosystem services" lies a fast-growing market in carbon credits, debt-for-nature swaps, biodiversity offsets, conservation bonds, and water futures. Drawing on detailed examples from around the world, Barlow argues that this financialization of nature is a false solution. It is one that too few people, including many environmentalists, have noticed, and she makes the case for keeping the stewardship of the commons in public and community hands.
Our conversation ranges from the rights of nature movement and the trouble with carbon trading to the new colonialism of finance conservation, the global water wars, and why, after a lifetime of activism, she still believes hope is a moral imperative. As I mention in the episode, what struck me even before we spoke is how well researched the book is, with every issue illuminated clearly and backed by a wide array of sources. It is one reason I am passionate about people reading it. Please enjoy getting to learn more about Maude and her work in this interview.

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The national parks are loved by many Americans and visitors from around the world. Yet, few realize how often these landscapes and their history have been shaped by questions answered in the courts. With more than 3,500 lawsuits involving the National Park Service, litigation has shaped and defined the character of the parks. Litigation has determined how land can be added to national parks, answered questions about treaty and free speech rights on park land, and settled numerous other disputes that have helped determine what the parks look like today. In her new book National Parks and the Supreme Court: Groundbreaking Legal Battles (University of Nevada Press, 2026), Carla Chung Mattix examines five landmark Supreme Court cases involving national parks over the course of nearly a century. These cases provide readers with a new lens to understanding the parks and help them understand the role of the courts in the nation's public lands. In this episode, Mattix, who was an attorney for the National Park Service in the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of the Solicitor for 25 years, discusses her new book and the Court's influence on the national parks.

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