The environmental history of Israel is as intriguing and complex as the nation itself. Situated on a mere 8,630 square miles, bordered by the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf, varying from desert to forest, Israel’s natural environment presents innumerable challenges to its growing population. The country’s conflicted past and present, diverse religions, and multitude of cultural influences powerfully affect the way Israelis imagine, question, and shape their environment. Zionism, from the late nineteenth onward, has tempered nearly every aspect of human existence. Scarcities of usable land and water coupled with border conflicts and regional hostilities have steeled Israeli’s survival instincts. As this volume demonstrates, these powerful dialectics continue to undergird environmental policy and practice in Israel today.

Between Ruin and Restoration reflects passionate public debates over meeting the needs of Israel’s population and preserving its natural resources.

The chapters detail the occupations of the Ottoman Empire and British colonialists in eighteenth and nineteenth century Palestine, as well as Fellaheen and pastoralist Bedouin tribes, and how they shaped much of the terrain that greeted early Zionist settlers. Following the rise of the Zionist movement, the rapid influx of immigrants and ensuing population growth put new demands on water supplies, pollution controls, sanitation, animal populations, rangelands and biodiversity, forestry, marine policy, and desertification. Additional chapters view environmental politics nationally and internationally, the environmental impact of Israel’s military, and considerations for present and future sustainability.

Organized into seven categories, each chapter covers: agriculture * wildlife and forestry * land use and management * technology and industry * pollution and human heath * human habitats * and ideology and politics.

With valuable reference aids--including bibliographies, sources for further research, an extensive index, and newly designed maps--this is an indispensable tool for students and educators alike.

History in Dispute addresses these heavily debated questions by offering students different critical perspectives on major historical events, drawn from all time periods and from all parts of the globe. The intent of this biennial series is to provide students with an enhanced understanding of events only summarized in history texts, help stimulate critical thinking and provide ideas for papers and assignments.

Each volume in the History in Dispute series has a thematic, era or subject-specific focus that coincides with the way history is studied at the academic level. Each volume contains roughly 50 entries, chosen by an advisory board of historians and academics. Entries begin with a brief overview summarizing the controversy. This introduction is followed by two or more signed, point-counterpoint essays of 1,500 to 2,000 words each. Features include excerpts from primary source documents to illuminate the viewpoints presented with each entry; photographs and drawings of individuals, sites, objects or documents pertinent to the event or topic; and a chronological list of events. Volumes include a cumulative subject index.

Volume 7, Water and the Environment: Global Perspectives, covers water and environmental issues from a global perspective.

Beginning with an exhilarating account of the 1983 Colorado River floods that almost destroyed Glen Canyon Dam and proceeding through recent articles tracking the water quests of Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Denver, Phoenix, and Tucson, this book provides compelling perspectives on the issues and controversies that have roiled water politics in the West over the past two decades. The tensions between the need for water and society's demands that rivers and their wildlife be restored to health are explored in chapters on the Northwest salmon crisis, Glen Canyon Dam, federal and urban water projects, Native American water rights, watershed restoration, and water management.

Readers will find smart, incisive writings that probe the West's efforts to balance competing needs. The contributors to the book — among them activists, scholars, scientists, and many of the nation's finest environmental journalists — offer captivating portrayals of local efforts to solve water conflicts. Together, these stories bring a refreshing focus and clarity to the West's most complex and contentious environmental issue.

To mark the Texas Observer’s fiftieth anniversary in 2004, Char Miller has selected a cross section of the best work to appear in its pages. Not only does the collection pay homage to an important alternative voice in Texas journalism, it also serves as a progressive chronicle of a half-century of life in the Lone Star State—a state that has spawned three presidents in the last forty years. If Texas is, as some say, a crucible for national politics, then Fifty Years of the Texas Observer can be read as casebook for issues that concern citizens in all fifty states. With a foreword by Molly Ivins, these pieces form a progressive chronicle of a half-century of life in Texas.

On the Border traces San Antonio’s environmental history over the last 300 years, from Spanish exploration to present-day suburbanization. Many of the essays discuss issues that challenge contemporary San Antonio—urban sprawl, water rights, and unchecked economic development—and reveal their complex evolution. They also assess the city’s social ecology, concluding that San Antonio’s power brokers “did not conceive of the community as a community.”

Miller and his contributors point a way toward the future by understanding the past.

Chapter One reveals how crucial wood was to the livelihood of nineteenth-century Americans, and chronicles the advent of the belief that forestry was the key to producing timber without destroying the forests. Chapter Two explores the growth of the profession, including the creation of the Forest Service, and identifies the controversies that often erupted over new practices and controls. Chapter Three highlights the intensified demand for wood for housing after World War II and the subsequent emergence of environmental consciousness that brought new challenges to the profession. Finally, Chapter Four examines the birth of sustainable forestry and documents how the scientific and technological advances of the past 25 years have enabled foresters to extend the nation s wood supply and restore the land.

Through photograph and word, The Greatest Good illustrates the many contributions that foresters and forestry have made to our society.

Char Miller is associate professor of history at Trinity University, San Antonio, where he specializes in nineteenth-and-twentieth century U.S. social and cultural history. He is the author or editor of three other books and numerous scholarly articles.Heywood T. Sanders is associate professor of urban studies at Trinity University. He has published widely on topics in urban politics and policy.

Covering a broad array of topics and reflecting the continuing diversity within the field of environmental history, Out of the Woods begins with three theoretical pieces by William Cronon, Carolyn Merchant, and Donald Worster probing the assumptions that underlie the words and ideas historians use to analyze human interaction with the physical world. One of these - the concept of place - is the subject of a second group of essays. The political context is picked up in the third section, followed by a selection of some of the journal’s most recent contributions discussing the intersection between urban and environmental history. Water’s role in defining the contours of the human and natural landscape is undeniable and forms the focus of the fifth section. Finally, the global character of environmental issues emerges in three compelling articles by Alfred Crosby, Thomas Dunlap, and Stephen Pyne.

Of interest to a wide range of scholars in environmental history, law, and politics, Out of the Woods is intended as a reader for course use and a benchmark for the field of environmental history as it continues to develop into the next century.