The vortex: an environmental history of the modern world

Part I. Essentials. Potosí : rich in metals

Sugar : the new organic

The Canal du Midi : the great mobilization

Sustainable forestry : the state of the woodlands

Shipbreaking in Chittagong : leftovers

Part II.

Appropriations. The land title : to own a place

Breadfruit : food choices

Guano : the fertility business

Whaling : resources at sea

United Fruit : the great corporate banana

Part III.

Irreversible.

The dodo : species that perish

The boll weevil : the nemesis of monoculture

The little Grand Canyon : the perils of erosion

Cane toads :immigrants on the march

Saudi Arabia : the state of resources

Part IV. Technology takes command.

London smog : in the age of coal

The water closet : producing cleanliness

Chicago's slaughterhouses : animals on the line

Synthetic nitrogen : farming on steroids

Air-conditioning : engineering the climate

Part V. Ruptures.

Cholera : the nature of disease

Baedeker : guidance for seekers

Gandhi's salt : to change the world

The 1970 Tokyo Resolution : international conventions

The 1976 Tangshan earthquake : somewhat natural disasters

Part VI. The final reserves

Kruger National Park : reserved nature

Eucalyptus : supertrees

Hybrid corn : breeding ambitions

Aswan Dam : damming and developing

The rice-eating rubber tree : speaking of dependence

Part VII.

The age of catastrophe

Holodomor : The politics of hunger

The Pontine Marshes : fighting for space

The chemurgy movement : the business of biofuels

Autobahn : The endsieg of automobilism

The pine roots campaign : the totality of war

Part VIII. The great entrenchment

Battery chicken : the industrialized animal

Lucky Dragon No. 5 : atoms without limits

DDT : learning from a book

Torrey Canyon : coping with technological failure

Plastic gags : ephemeralia

Coda : the pandemic

The mess we're in : an inconclusive conclusion.