Podcasts about nevada test range

  • 9PODCASTS
  • 24EPISODES
  • 21mAVG DURATION
  • ?INFREQUENT EPISODES
  • Nov 5, 2025LATEST

POPULARITY

20172018201920202021202220232024


Best podcasts about nevada test range

Latest podcast episodes about nevada test range

The John Batchelor Show
49: Nuclear Testing, Venezuela Buildup, and Gaza Occupation. Colonel Jeff McCausland criticizes Secretary Hegseth's suggestion that resuming nuclear testing would make nuclear war "less likely," noting that the US deterrent is already credible

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 5, 2025 13:35


Nuclear Testing, Venezuela Buildup, and Gaza Occupation. Colonel Jeff McCausland criticizes Secretary Hegseth's suggestion that resuming nuclear testing would make nuclear war "less likely," noting that the US deterrent is already credible and testing would destabilize adversaries. He highlights the excessive US military buildup near Venezuela, questioning the post-intervention mission, referencing the "Pottery Barn theory." Regarding Gaza, he suggests the potential creation of "two Gazas" leads to an indefinite, burdensome Israeli occupation and creates a breeding ground for future insurgency. 1953 NEVADA TEST RANGE

The John Batchelor Show
49: Nuclear Testing, Venezuela Buildup, and Gaza Occupation. Colonel Jeff McCausland criticizes Secretary Hegseth's suggestion that resuming nuclear testing would make nuclear war "less likely," noting that the US deterrent is already credible

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 5, 2025 6:05


Nuclear Testing, Venezuela Buildup, and Gaza Occupation. Colonel Jeff McCausland criticizes Secretary Hegseth's suggestion that resuming nuclear testing would make nuclear war "less likely," noting that the US deterrent is already credible and testing would destabilize adversaries. He highlights the excessive US military buildup near Venezuela, questioning the post-intervention mission, referencing the "Pottery Barn theory." Regarding Gaza, he suggests the potential creation of "two Gazas" leads to an indefinite, burdensome Israeli occupation and creates a breeding ground for future insurgency. MARCH 1, 1955 NEVADA TEST RANGE

Keys To The Jet
Keys To The Jet Podcast: Halloween Special

Keys To The Jet

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 30, 2025 27:35


This week on Keys To The Jet Podcast, Red dives into one of the eeriest true stories in military aviation history — Ghost 21, the legendary F-100 Super Sabre that disappeared over the Nevada Test Range in 1959… only to keep flying. From radio calls on Guard frequency that shouldn't exist to phantom radar tracks that vanish mid-flight, this is one spooky story you don't want to miss.After the chills fade (maybe), Red switches gears and covers the latest military and aviation news — aircraft developments, global headlines, and the wild stuff happening across the flightline right now.It's the perfect mix of history, mystery, and current events, all in true Red style.

ghosts keys buckle guard halloween special super sabre nevada test range
The John Batchelor Show
PREVIEW: Colleague Henry Sokolski of Non-Proliferation Education Center comments on the possibility that Iran will withdraw from the NPT as did North Korea—and build a bomb quickly. More.

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 13, 2025 1:04


PREVIEW: Colleague Henry Sokolski of Non-Proliferation Education Center comments on the possibility that Iran will withdraw from the NPT as did North Korea—and build a bomb quickly. More. 1955 NEVADA TEST RANGE

The John Batchelor Show
Preview: Colleagues Huessy and Chang Discuss Timeline for DoD's Nuclear-Armed Cruise Missile Fleet Deployment. More Later.

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 27, 2025 1:56


Preview: Colleagues Huessy and Chang Discuss Timeline for DoD's Nuclear-Armed Cruise Missile Fleet Deployment. More Later. 1953 Nevada Test Range

The John Batchelor Show
KREMLIN 2024 WARNS THE NUKE OPTION: 1/8: In the Shadow of Fear: America and the World in 1950 by Nick Bunker (Author)

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 30, 2024 11:42


KREMLIN 2024 WARNS THE NUKE OPTION: 1/8: In the Shadow of Fear: America and the World in 1950 by  Nick Bunker  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Fear-America-World-1950/dp/1541675541/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= In the Shadow of Fear describes the end of one era and the beginning of another. Joseph Stalin tested his first atomic bomb, Mao's army swept through China, and in America the age of FDR gave way to the beginnings of a new conservatism. An aggressive Republican Party, desperate to regain power, seized on rifts among its opponents, and Truman's program for universal health care and civil rights reform went down to defeat. The young Senator Joe McCarthy ambushed Truman and his party with a style of politics that aroused powerful emotions and deepened division. On the eve of the Korean War, a new mood of anger in the nation left many Americans calling in vain for a return to consensus. Putin draws a nuclear red line for the West | Reuters https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-draws-nuclear-red-line-west-2024-09-27/ 1957 AIR TO AIR NUKE MISSILE TEST, NEVADA TEST RANGE

The John Batchelor Show
PRC: Theater nukes: Rick Fisher, senior fellow of the International Assessment and Strategy Center, on Fisher's piece on China's nuclear superiority in Asia. @GordonGChang, Gatestone, Newsweek, The Hill

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 12, 2024 8:55


PRC: Theater nukes:  Rick Fisher, senior fellow of the International Assessment and Strategy Center, on Fisher's piece on China's nuclear superiority in Asia. @GordonGChang, Gatestone, Newsweek, The Hill  1953  Nevada Test Range

The John Batchelor Show
Londinium90AD: Gaius & Germanicus recall the sober lesson in Nevil Shute's ON THE BEACH -- no winners in nuclear war. Michael Vlahos. Friends of History Debating Society. @Michalis_Vlahos

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 10, 2024 11:17


#Londinium90AD: Gaius & Germanicus recall the sober lesson in Nevil Shute's ON THE BEACH -- no winners in  nuclear war.  Michael Vlahos. Friends of History Debating Society. @Michalis_Vlahos may 1953 Nevada Test Range

The John Batchelor Show
PREVIEW: #PUTIN: "STRATEGIC FORCES:" Conversation with colleague Anatol Lieven of the Quincy institute re President Putin speaking again of "strategic forces" aka nuclear weapons, during the Victory Day parade in Moscow at the 79th an

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2024 1:42


PREVIEW: #PUTIN: "STRATEGIC FORCES:"  Conversation with colleague Anatol Lieven of the Quincy institute re President Putin speaking again of "strategic forces" aka nuclear weapons, during the Victory Day parade in Moscow at the 79th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War victory against the Hitlerites. 1955 TEAPOT/BEE at Nevada Test Range,

The John Batchelor Show
1/2: #NuclearWar: The bombs are not going away & What is to be done? Henry Sokolski, NPEC

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later May 4, 2024 12:27


1/2: #NuclearWar: The bombs are not going away & What is to be done? Henry Sokolski, NPEC https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/01/rising-threat-nuclear-war-annihilation/ 1955 Nevada Test Range

The John Batchelor Show
PREVIEW: #IRAN: Conversation with Richard Goldberg of the FDD re what is to be done to stop the Iran regime -- reminding that just one of those missiles can carry a nuclear warhead. More tonight.

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 16, 2024 2:39


PREVIEW: #IRAN: Conversation with Richard Goldberg of the FDD re what is to be done to stop the Iran regime -- reminding that just one of those missiles can carry a nuclear warhead.  More tonight. May 19, 1953, Nevada Test Range

The John Batchelor Show
WHEN IRAN POSSESSES NSNW NUKES: 1/4: Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO by Tom Nichols (Author), Douglas Stuart, Jeff McCausland (Author),

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 14, 2024 11:45


WHEN IRAN POSSESSES NSNW NUKES: 1/4: Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO by  Tom Nichols  (Author), Douglas Stuart, Jeff McCausland  (Author), https://www.amazon.com/Tactical-Nuclear-Weapons-NATO-Nichols/dp/1479181951 The role and future of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe are subjects that sometimes surprise even experts in international security, primarily because it is so often disconcerting to remember that these weapons still exist. Many years ago, an American journalist wryly noted that the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was “a subject that drives the dagger of boredom deep, deep into the heart”— a dismissive quip which would have remained true right up until the moment World War III broke out. The same goes for tactical nuclear weapons: compared to the momentous issues that the East and West have tackled since the end of the Cold War, the scattering of hundreds (or in the Russian case, thousands) of battlefield weapons throughout Europe seems to be almost an afterthought, a detail left behind that should be easy to tidy up. Such complacency is unwise. Tactical nuclear weapons (or NSNWs, “non-strategic nuclear weapons”) still exist because NATO and Russia have not fully resolved their fears about how a nuclear war might arise, or how it might be fought. They represent, as Russian analyst Nikolai Sokov once wrote, “the longest deadlock” in the history of arms control. Washington and Moscow, despite the challenges to the “reset” of their relations, point to reductions in strategic arms as a great achievement, but strategic agreements also reveal the deep ambiguity toward nuclear weapons as felt by the former superpower rivals. The numbers in the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) are lower than at any point in history, but they are based on leaving each side a reliable ability to destroy up to 300 urban targets each. Inflicting this incredible amount of destruction is, on its face, a step no sane national leader would take. But it is here that tactical weapons were meant to play their dangerous role, for they would be the arms that provided the indispensable bridge from peace to nuclear war. Thus, the structures of Cold War nuclear doctrines on both sides remain in place, only on a smaller scale. MARCH 22, 1955 NEVADA TEST RANGE

The John Batchelor Show
WHEN IRAN POSSESSES NSNW NUKES: 3/4: Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO by Tom Nichols (Author), Douglas Stuart, Jeff McCausland (Author),

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 14, 2024 14:05


WHEN IRAN POSSESSES NSNW NUKES: 3/4: Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO by  Tom Nichols  (Author), Douglas Stuart, Jeff McCausland  (Author), https://www.amazon.com/Tactical-Nuclear-Weapons-NATO-Nichols/dp/1479181951 The role and future of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe are subjects that sometimes surprise even experts in international security, primarily because it is so often disconcerting to remember that these weapons still exist. Many years ago, an American journalist wryly noted that the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was “a subject that drives the dagger of boredom deep, deep into the heart”— a dismissive quip which would have remained true right up until the moment World War III broke out. The same goes for tactical nuclear weapons: compared to the momentous issues that the East and West have tackled since the end of the Cold War, the scattering of hundreds (or in the Russian case, thousands) of battlefield weapons throughout Europe seems to be almost an afterthought, a detail left behind that should be easy to tidy up. Such complacency is unwise. Tactical nuclear weapons (or NSNWs, “non-strategic nuclear weapons”) still exist because NATO and Russia have not fully resolved their fears about how a nuclear war might arise, or how it might be fought. They represent, as Russian analyst Nikolai Sokov once wrote, “the longest deadlock” in the history of arms control. Washington and Moscow, despite the challenges to the “reset” of their relations, point to reductions in strategic arms as a great achievement, but strategic agreements also reveal the deep ambiguity toward nuclear weapons as felt by the former superpower rivals. The numbers in the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) are lower than at any point in history, but they are based on leaving each side a reliable ability to destroy up to 300 urban targets each. Inflicting this incredible amount of destruction is, on its face, a step no sane national leader would take. But it is here that tactical weapons were meant to play their dangerous role, for they would be the arms that provided the indispensable bridge from peace to nuclear war. Thus, the structures of Cold War nuclear doctrines on both sides remain in place, only on a smaller scale. 1953 NEVADA TEST RANGE

The John Batchelor Show
PREVIEW: #NUCLEAR-ARSENAL: Conversation with Peter Huessy, National Institute of Deterrence Studies, re the multiple nuclear weapon threats from four capitals, Moscow, Tehran, Beijing, Pyomgyang, and what is to be done about the US nuclear arsenal that wa

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2024 3:08


PREVIEW: #NUCLEAR-ARSENAL: Conversation with Peter Huessy, National Institute of Deterrence Studies, re the multiple nuclear weapon threats from four capitals, Moscow, Tehran, Beijing, Pyomgyang, and what is to be done about the US nuclear arsenal that was built for the 20th Century Cold War when there was just one peer nuclear foe, Moscow.  More later. 1953 Atomic Cannon, Nevada Test Range

The John Batchelor Show
ROSATOM RULES: 3/4: The Case for Nukes: How We Can Beat Global Warming and Create a Free, Open, and Magnificent Future Paperback – April 3, 2023 by Robert Zubrin (Author)

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 25, 2024 10:10


ROSATOM RULES: 3/4: The Case for Nukes: How We Can Beat Global Warming and Create a Free, Open, and Magnificent Future Paperback – April 3, 2023 by  Robert Zubrin  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Case-Nukes-Global-Warming-Magnificent/dp/1736386069/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=UeGVv&content-id=amzn1.sym.ed85217c-14c9-4aa0-b248-e47393e2ce12&pf_rd_p=ed85217c-14c9-4aa0-b248-e47393e2ce12&pf_rd_r=143-0258134-6610437&pd_rd_wg=sJV8b&pd_rd_r=0137d795-3a42-44c6-84c4-74819fbb82e3&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk The Case for Nukes is a unique book. In it, world-renowned nuclear and aerospace engineer Dr. Robert Zubrin explains how nuclear power works and how much it has to offer humanity. He debunks the toxic falsehoods that have been spread to dissuade us from using it by variously the ignorant, the fearful, the fanatical, and by cynical political operatives bought and paid for by competing interests. He tells about revolutionary developments in the field, including new reactor types that can be cheaply mass produced, that cannot be made to melt down no matter how hard their operators try, that use a new fuel called thorium far more plentiful than uranium, and still more advanced systems, employing thermonuclear fusion - the power that lights the sun - to extract more energy from a gallon of water than can be obtained from 300 gallons of gasoline. He tells about the bold entrepreneurs - a totally different breed from the government officials who created the existing types of nuclear reactors - who are leading this revolution. May 19, 1953 Nevada Test Range

The John Batchelor Show
GOOD EVENING: The show begins in NYC where the doubts about the quality of life and of Mayor Adams leadership sominate the conversation about City Hall. hen to Las Vegas to welcome a Hollywood Studio to Clark County. To Brazil and Paraguay and Lebanon.

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 23, 2024 6:30


GOOD EVENING: The show begins in NYC where the doubts about the quality of life and of Mayor Adams leadership sominate the conversation about City Hall.  hen to Las Vegas to welcome a Hollywood Studio to Clark County.  To Brazil and Paraguay and Lebanon. To Pennsylvania and fretting about the slowdown and the cost of food. To US Steel, to Apple, and to DOJ.  To Washington 1950 and the eve of the Korean War. To Ukraine, to Rime, to Bocas Chica, to Lunar Orbit. 1957 Nevada Test Range

Federal Drive with Tom Temin
This bill could compensate veterans exposed to radiation at a Nevada test range

Federal Drive with Tom Temin

Play Episode Listen Later May 11, 2023 19:03


The Tonopah Test Range is a classified spot in Nevada, operated by the Defense and Energy Departments. It was once the site for nuclear materials testing. Many veterans who worked at Tonopah in later years claim exposure to residual radiation has caused health problems. Now a bill from Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) would compensate these veterans. Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with the man who did much of the research and documentation of the radiation effects. The bill is name after him: Air Force Veteran Dave Crete. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

veterans defense nevada exposed radiation compensate tonopah federal drive tom temin nevada test range
Federal Drive with Tom Temin
This bill could compensate veterans exposed to radiation at a Nevada test range

Federal Drive with Tom Temin

Play Episode Listen Later May 11, 2023 19:03


The Tonopah Test Range is a classified spot in Nevada, operated by the Defense and Energy Departments. It was once the site for nuclear materials testing. Many veterans who worked at Tonopah in later years claim exposure to residual radiation has caused health problems. Now a bill from Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) would compensate these veterans. Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with the man who did much of the research and documentation of the radiation effects. The bill is name after him: Air Force Veteran Dave Crete. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

veterans defense nevada exposed radiation compensate tonopah federal drive tom temin nevada test range
New Books in Environmental Studies
Sara Dant, “Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016)

New Books in Environmental Studies

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2017 55:43


From Frederick Jackson Turner to Walter Prescott Webb, the high cliffs of Yosemite to the flat deserts and blasted rock of the Nevada Test Range, the American West has long been defined by its environments. The human history of western ecologies extends back thousands of years, writes the historian Sara Dant in her new synthesis, Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West (Wiley Blackwell, 2017). Dant, a professor of history at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, traces the history of how people changed, and in turn were changed by, the American West’s myriad environments. In Losing Eden, Dant describes how pre-contact societies made water flow in the desert, how Spanish colonizers introduced fauna to the region now taken for granted as decidedly “western,” and how American commodification of the non-human world fundamentally altered human perceptions of western landscapes. By the late nineteenth century, the concept of commodification had led to both great material wealth for the United States, and almost irreparable damage to western environments. It was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that, according to Dant, some Americans began to look upon their “lost Eden” and ask, “at what cost?” Losing Eden is a book which, at heart, seeks to disprove the notion that the American West was ever an Eden at all by showing that the history of environmental change in the region is as old as human footsteps on western soil, while also arguing for a new ethic of collective action to reverse some of the most far reaching changes wrought by humans in the American West. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Books Network
Sara Dant, “Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016)

New Books Network

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2017 55:54


From Frederick Jackson Turner to Walter Prescott Webb, the high cliffs of Yosemite to the flat deserts and blasted rock of the Nevada Test Range, the American West has long been defined by its environments. The human history of western ecologies extends back thousands of years, writes the historian Sara Dant in her new synthesis, Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West (Wiley Blackwell, 2017). Dant, a professor of history at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, traces the history of how people changed, and in turn were changed by, the American West’s myriad environments. In Losing Eden, Dant describes how pre-contact societies made water flow in the desert, how Spanish colonizers introduced fauna to the region now taken for granted as decidedly “western,” and how American commodification of the non-human world fundamentally altered human perceptions of western landscapes. By the late nineteenth century, the concept of commodification had led to both great material wealth for the United States, and almost irreparable damage to western environments. It was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that, according to Dant, some Americans began to look upon their “lost Eden” and ask, “at what cost?” Losing Eden is a book which, at heart, seeks to disprove the notion that the American West was ever an Eden at all by showing that the history of environmental change in the region is as old as human footsteps on western soil, while also arguing for a new ethic of collective action to reverse some of the most far reaching changes wrought by humans in the American West. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Books in American Studies
Sara Dant, “Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016)

New Books in American Studies

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2017 55:18


From Frederick Jackson Turner to Walter Prescott Webb, the high cliffs of Yosemite to the flat deserts and blasted rock of the Nevada Test Range, the American West has long been defined by its environments. The human history of western ecologies extends back thousands of years, writes the historian Sara Dant in her new synthesis, Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West (Wiley Blackwell, 2017). Dant, a professor of history at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, traces the history of how people changed, and in turn were changed by, the American West’s myriad environments. In Losing Eden, Dant describes how pre-contact societies made water flow in the desert, how Spanish colonizers introduced fauna to the region now taken for granted as decidedly “western,” and how American commodification of the non-human world fundamentally altered human perceptions of western landscapes. By the late nineteenth century, the concept of commodification had led to both great material wealth for the United States, and almost irreparable damage to western environments. It was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that, according to Dant, some Americans began to look upon their “lost Eden” and ask, “at what cost?” Losing Eden is a book which, at heart, seeks to disprove the notion that the American West was ever an Eden at all by showing that the history of environmental change in the region is as old as human footsteps on western soil, while also arguing for a new ethic of collective action to reverse some of the most far reaching changes wrought by humans in the American West. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Books in History
Sara Dant, “Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016)

New Books in History

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2017 55:43


From Frederick Jackson Turner to Walter Prescott Webb, the high cliffs of Yosemite to the flat deserts and blasted rock of the Nevada Test Range, the American West has long been defined by its environments. The human history of western ecologies extends back thousands of years, writes the historian Sara Dant in her new synthesis, Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West (Wiley Blackwell, 2017). Dant, a professor of history at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, traces the history of how people changed, and in turn were changed by, the American West’s myriad environments. In Losing Eden, Dant describes how pre-contact societies made water flow in the desert, how Spanish colonizers introduced fauna to the region now taken for granted as decidedly “western,” and how American commodification of the non-human world fundamentally altered human perceptions of western landscapes. By the late nineteenth century, the concept of commodification had led to both great material wealth for the United States, and almost irreparable damage to western environments. It was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that, according to Dant, some Americans began to look upon their “lost Eden” and ask, “at what cost?” Losing Eden is a book which, at heart, seeks to disprove the notion that the American West was ever an Eden at all by showing that the history of environmental change in the region is as old as human footsteps on western soil, while also arguing for a new ethic of collective action to reverse some of the most far reaching changes wrought by humans in the American West. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Books in the American West
Sara Dant, “Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016)

New Books in the American West

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2017 55:18


From Frederick Jackson Turner to Walter Prescott Webb, the high cliffs of Yosemite to the flat deserts and blasted rock of the Nevada Test Range, the American West has long been defined by its environments. The human history of western ecologies extends back thousands of years, writes the historian Sara Dant in her new synthesis, Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West (Wiley Blackwell, 2017). Dant, a professor of history at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, traces the history of how people changed, and in turn were changed by, the American West’s myriad environments. In Losing Eden, Dant describes how pre-contact societies made water flow in the desert, how Spanish colonizers introduced fauna to the region now taken for granted as decidedly “western,” and how American commodification of the non-human world fundamentally altered human perceptions of western landscapes. By the late nineteenth century, the concept of commodification had led to both great material wealth for the United States, and almost irreparable damage to western environments. It was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that, according to Dant, some Americans began to look upon their “lost Eden” and ask, “at what cost?” Losing Eden is a book which, at heart, seeks to disprove the notion that the American West was ever an Eden at all by showing that the history of environmental change in the region is as old as human footsteps on western soil, while also arguing for a new ethic of collective action to reverse some of the most far reaching changes wrought by humans in the American West. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Books in Geography
Sara Dant, “Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016)

New Books in Geography

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2017 55:18


From Frederick Jackson Turner to Walter Prescott Webb, the high cliffs of Yosemite to the flat deserts and blasted rock of the Nevada Test Range, the American West has long been defined by its environments. The human history of western ecologies extends back thousands of years, writes the historian Sara Dant in her new synthesis, Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West (Wiley Blackwell, 2017). Dant, a professor of history at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, traces the history of how people changed, and in turn were changed by, the American West’s myriad environments. In Losing Eden, Dant describes how pre-contact societies made water flow in the desert, how Spanish colonizers introduced fauna to the region now taken for granted as decidedly “western,” and how American commodification of the non-human world fundamentally altered human perceptions of western landscapes. By the late nineteenth century, the concept of commodification had led to both great material wealth for the United States, and almost irreparable damage to western environments. It was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that, according to Dant, some Americans began to look upon their “lost Eden” and ask, “at what cost?” Losing Eden is a book which, at heart, seeks to disprove the notion that the American West was ever an Eden at all by showing that the history of environmental change in the region is as old as human footsteps on western soil, while also arguing for a new ethic of collective action to reverse some of the most far reaching changes wrought by humans in the American West. Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices