To most, the flush of a toilet seems a routine motion to banish waste and ensure cleanliness: safe, efficient, necessary, nonpolitical, and utterly unremarkable. However, Jamie Benidickson's examination of the social and legal history of sewage in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom demonstrates that the uncontroversial reputation of flushing is deceptive. In a time when community water quality can no longer be taken for granted, this book is particularly relevant, as it delves into and clarifies the murky issues surrounding the evolution of the culture of...

The Archive of Place weaves together a series of narratives about environmental history in a particular location -- British Columbia's Chilcotin Plateau. In the mid-1990s, the Chilcotin was at the centre of three territorial conflicts. Opposing groups, in their struggle to control the fate of the region and its resources, invoked different understandings of its past -- and different types of evidence -- to justify their actions. These controversies serve as case studies, as William Turkel examines how people interpret material traces to reconstruct past events, the conditions under...