Books like Flushed by W. Hodding Carter

Upton Sinclair’s *The Jungle* exposes the harsh realities of Chicago's stockyards, highlighting the exploitation of immigrants and workers in the early 20th century and sparking reforms such as the Pure Food and Meat Inspection Act.

Jared Diamond analyses why great civilizations collapse, linking environmental misuse, climate change, population pressures, and trade instability as common causes, and offering lessons from societies that survived.

Rachel Carson’s *Silent Spring* examines the widespread use of pesticides and their harmful effects on nature, sparking the modern environmental movement.

Marc Reisner’s updated study investigates the economics, politics, and ecology of water in the American West, charting over a century of public and private desert reclamation.

Jeff Goodell explains how rising sea levels will flood coastlines, dissolve cities, and reshape the planet—mixing climate science with on‑ground reporting to illuminate the coming global flood.

Charles Fishman explores the mysteries and critical importance of water, from ancient rivers to modern technology, showing how our planet’s most vital resource has moved from abundance to high‑stakes scarcity.

This young readers' version of the recent documentary film's companion adult volume cuts the page count by about a third but preserves the original's cogent message and many of its striking visuals. After explaining that his interest in the environment predates even his mother's reading of Silent Spring aloud to him as a teenager, Gore proceeds to document steeply rising carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere, and then to link that to accelerating changes in temperature and precipitation patterns worldwide. Using easy-to-grasp graphics and revealing before-and-after photos, he shows how glaciers and ice shelves are disappearing all over the globe with alarming speed, pointing to profound climate changes and increased danger from rising sea levels in the near future. O'Connor rephrases Gore's arguments in briefer, simpler language without compromising their flow, plainly intending to disturb readers rather than frighten them. He writes measured, matter-of-fact prose, letting facts and trends speak for themselves but, suggesting that "what happens locally has worldwide consequences," he closes with the assertion that we will all have to "change the way we live our lives." Like the film, this title may leave readers to look elsewhere for both documentation and for specific plans of action, but as an appeal to reason it's as polished and persuasive as it can be.

An essay collection that blends family, community, and natural history in light, thoughtful nonfiction.

"The Romans developed sophisticated methods for managing hygiene, including aqueducts for moving water from one place to another, sewers for removing used water from baths and runoff from walkways and roads, and public and private latrines. Through the archeological record, graffiti, sanitation-related paintings, and literature, Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow explores this little-known world of bathrooms and sewers, offering unique insights into Roman sanitation, engineering, urban planning and development, hygiene, and public health. Focusing on the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Ostia, and Rome, Koloski-Ostrow's work challenges common perceptions of Romans' social customs, beliefs about health, tolerance for filth in their cities, and attitudes toward privacy. In charting the complex history of sanitary customs from the late republic to the early empire, Koloski-Ostrow reveals the origins of waste removal technologies and their implications for urban health, past and present"--Provided by publisher.