Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Knowing Nature
1. The Agency of Insects
2. The Agency of Chemicals
3. Copper Mining and Ecological Collapse
4. Engineering Pain in the Jinzu River Basin
6. Hell at the Hojo Colliery
Conclusion
Works Cited

Promotional Information

Explores the relationship between the causes of colossal toxic pollution and the manner in which pain caused by pollution insults porous human bodies

About the Author

Brett L. Walker is Regents' Professor and department chair of history and philosophy at Montana State University, Bozeman. He is author of The Conquest of Ainu Lands: Ecology and Culture in Japanese Expansion, 1590-1800 and The Lost Wolves of Japan.

Reviews

"This is a fascinating, original, and persuasive book that makes several important contributions to the field of environmental history. With this work Walker further solidifies his position as the leading environmental historian of Japan writing in English." Timothy George, author of Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan "In this powerful, disturbing new book, Brett Walker turns his attention to the environmental consequences of industrialization in Japan over the past two centuries, focusing especially on toxic pollution and the human suffering it has caused. Toxic Archipelago is a major contribution not just to Japanese environmental history but to the history of industrial pollution worldwide." William Cronon, University of Wisconsin-Madison