New Books In Environmental Studies

Anna L. Tsing‘s new book is on my new (as of this post) list of Must-Read-Books-That-All-Humans-Who-Can-Read-Should-Read-And-That-Nonhumans-Should-Find-A-Way-To-Somehow-Engage-Even-If-Reading-Is-Not-Their-Thing. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (Princeton University Press, 2015) joyfully bursts forth in a “riot of short chapters” that collectively open out into a mushroom-focused exploration of what Tsing refers to as a “third nature,” or “what manages to live despite capitalism.” Tsing’s book is based on fieldwork conducted between 2004 and 2011 in the US, Japan, Canada, China, and Finland, plus interviews with scientists, foresters, and matsutake traders in those places and in Denmark, Sweden, and Turkey. The book is an exemplar of the kind of work that can come out of thoughtful and extended scholarly collaboration, here resulting from Tsing’s work with the Matsutake Worlds Research Group. The book tre