A chronicle of decades of neglect by state and federal agencies, allowing the Grace Corporation to reap millions in profits from the largest vermiculite mine in the world while knowingly exposing generations of Montana residents to fatal levels of asbestos-contaminated dust. One in every 40 residents of the valley has died from or suffers from illnesses related to asbestos and many more cases are still expected to surface. Libby's story, which culminates in the criminal trial of the corporation's executives, is here told in all its shocking detail.

Environmental stories have all the elements of a good drama—villains that plunge the world into danger and heroes that fight for positive change. Industrial Disasters and Environmental Policy: Stories of Villains, Heroes, and the Rest of Us illuminates the interplay between environmental policies and the people and groups who influence their development and implementation. Through the stories of four major industrial disasters—the Union Carbide plant explosion, the BP oil spill, the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion, and the asbestos poisoning in Libby, Montana—this book examines the organizational breakdowns and regulatory lapses that caused these disasters, and how attitudes and policies changed as a result. It also explores the achievements of environmental heroes like Gaylord Nelson and Judy Bonds and how their activism has shaped US environmental politics and policies. Industrial Disasters and Environmental Policy concludes with a discussion of how the "rest of us" can participate in everyday environmental actions, hold corporations and the government accountable, and lobby for greater environmental protections. With its compelling stories and calls to action, this book helps students understand how US environmental policies have developed and transformed—and how they can continue to do so.

Radical Conflictaddresses conflict at interpersonal and communal, legal and rhetorical, ethnopolitical, global, and geopolitical levels. The conflicts analyzed are "radical" because in each some intense and often prolonged violence takes place. The chapters address different kinds of violence(s)—physical and gratuitous, structural and socio-economic, legal and symbolic, all with significant ill effects and injustices that spiral in all directions. All share an interest in exploring imaginatively and speculatively what can be done to attenuate such cycles of violence. The volume analyzes how recurrent narratives, mythologies, media(ted) constructions and other discourse(s) of liberal democratic and authoritarian states play a significant role in exacerbating or thwarting violence, exposing, escalating, legitimizing, rationalizing, propagating, but also possibly mitigating violence in all of its forms. Each contributor provides a critical interpretation of the status of the conflict under inquiry, including: a teacher verbally abusing and ridiculing a student then exposing it in social media; a community torn apart by environmental disaster; the incommensurate but not incommensurable conflict between Israelis and Palestinians; the Muslim Brotherhood and the militarized state(s) of Egypt and Libya; urban discourses in cyberspace among Moroccan and Maghreb youth that have become counter-signifying publics against oppression of the state; the role of media and violence in Zimbabwe's political struggle; the impact of the Circassian diaspora in global politics especially in the United States; India's soft power approach to the Kashmir conflict as a way to capitalize on it through tourism; the agonistic discourses that pervade the conflict over the Sahara and deprive Sahrawi people of rights; and how the liberal state is implicated in the gratuitous violence of ISIL. The volume also offers a section on the rhetoric of exclusionary laws associated with intractable conflicts of the abortion conflict, the right to die controversy, and a Burkean perspective on violence in Bangladesh. Contributors suggest what can be done conceptually and politically to mitigate and end violations of those who are most vulnerable, banished, forgotten, damaged, and often silenced.

The Fixer Upper by Judith Arnold released on Dec 1, 2009 is available now for purchase.

Jordan escaped slavery once. Must he escape again? Ashadowy figure lurks on the dark riverfront near the Christina. Libby is sure that it must be the cruel slave trader Riggs, who has vowed that no slave of his will ever escape alive. Does Riggs suspect that the runaway Jordan is hiding on her pa’s steamboat? Track Libby, Caleb, and Jordan in the second book of the Freedom Seeker’s series as they race to keep Jordon free from the clutches of slavery. Libby and Caleb scan the crowds of passengers bound for the Minnesota Territory. Has Riggs slipped by and boarded the Christina unnoticed? From the golden age of steamboats, the rush of immigrants to new lands, and the dangers of the Underground Railroad come true-to-life stories of courage, integrity, and suspense in the Freedom Seekers series.

Readers will learn from Teri Winfield's therapy sessions and memory flashbacks that she was raised in a dysfunctional single-parent family headed by a troubled and emotionally abusive mother. In her youth, she was a shy and introverted girl with very poor self-esteem. Consequently, she was vulnerable to any personal attention that she received from others. That being so, after leaving high school, Teri began a live-in relationship with a manipulative, self-absorbed drug dealer who pulled her into his criminal business and life style. This led to her eventual arrest and incarceration where her shy and introverted demeanor was slowly transformed into an angry and combative personality. After Teri's release from prison, she was lost and afraid, but she continued to cover those feelings with anger and aggression until she finally feared that she would be returned to prison. In her efforts to change herself and her self-destructive lifestyle, she finally seeks clinical treatment with a private psychotherapist who eventually gains her trust and begins leading her on a lengthy personal journey of self-discovery and personal growth. Reader's join Teri's life-altering journey when she has been in treatment for three years. They will get to know her friends very well, especially her best friend of all -- her beloved Bichon Friese dog. Will Teri complete her journey and become the person she desperately wants to be, or succumb again to the forces that seem beyond her personal control? It's a bumpy ride indeed, beset with successes and failures, and sprinkled this curious mysteries.