Chronicles how industry developed a continental perspective in a shared regional space, the mineralized West, and how successful efforts of governments and citizens to protect the environment evolved.

Garbage, wastewater, and hazardous waste: these are the lenses through which Melosi views nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. In broad overviews and specific case studies, Melosi treats the relationship between industrial expansion and urban growth from an ecological perspective.

The world is full of environmental injustices and inequalities; yet few European historians have tackled these subjects head on, nor have they explored their relationships with social inequalities.

Based on ethnographic and archival data, this in-depth study of the Venetian island of Burano shows how its inhabitants develop their sense of a distinct identity.