This book, named one of Booklist's Top 10 books on sustainability in
2014, is the first to offer a comprehensive examination of the
environmental health movement, which unlike many parts of the
environmental movement, focuses on ways toxic chemicals and other
hazardous agents in the environment effect human health and well-being.
Born in 1978 when Lois Gibbs organized her neighbors to protest the
health effects of a toxic waste dump in Love Canal, New York, the
movement has spread across the United States and throughout the world.
By placing human health at the center of its environmental argument,
this movement has achieved many victories in community mobilization and
legislative reform. In The Rise of the U.S. Environmental Health
Movement, environmental health expert Kate Davies describes the
movement's historical, ideological, and cultural roots and analyzes its
strategies and successes.