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Buhs, Joshua Blu. The Fire Ant Wars: Nature, Science, and Public Policy in Twentieth-Century America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Sometime in the first half of the twentieth century, a coterie of fire ants came ashore from South American ships docked in Mobile, Alabama. […] Responding to a collective call from southerners to eliminate these invasive pests, the U.S. Department of Agriculture developed a campaign that not only failed to eradicate the fire ants but left a wake of dead wildlife, sickened cattle, and public protest. With political intrigue, environmental tragedy, and such figures as Rachel Carson and E. O. Wilson, The Fire Ant Wars is a grippingly perceptive tale of changing social attitudes and scientific practices. Tracing the political and scientific eradication campaigns, Joshua Buhs’s bracing study uses the saga as a means to consider twentieth-century American concepts of nature and environmental stewardship. — University of Chicago Press website.