Environmental Science: In Context

Grade 9 Up—Approximately 250 two- to four-page entries provide historical background and information on a wide variety of topics, discussing the issues involved, and their impact; primary sources are often included. Covering subjects from "Recycling" to "Media: Environmentally Based News and Entertainment," the set will be useful to students looking for paper topics. However, coverage is uneven, with some entries too short to comprise even adequate overviews, and some complex topics oversimplified. For example, the two lines in the "Drought" article elaborating on the book's assertion that the phenomenon can be a factor in conflicts beg elaboration. The piece explains that Arab pastoralists and African farmers coexisted peacefully in the Sudan until water scarcity created tensions—a factor in the Darfur genocide. The editors define primary sources as sometimes including secondary sources, if an entry "is written to summarize an event, includes quotes, recollections, or retrospectives … written by participants in the earlier event…." Even according to this definition, many of the sources in this book do not qualify as primary, creating potential confusion. The bibliographies for each topic are short, consist mainly of books, and occasionally include questionable Web sites. An article on Silent Spring includes the Web site of the People's Weekly World newspaper, a publication that is affiliated with the Communist Party U.S.A. and that claims to be "known for its partisan coverage"

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