In 2003 Fred Delcomyn imagined his backyard of two and a half acres, farmed for corn and soybeans for generations, restored to tallgrass prairie. Over the next seventeen years, Delcomyn, with help from his friend James L. Ellis scored, seeded, monitored, reseeded, and burned these acres into prairie. In A Backyard Prairie: The Hidden Beauty of Tallgrass and ... Show More
Today
Erica Morawski, "Development Design: Hotels and Politics in the Hispanic Caribbean" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025)
Underneath picturesque views of palm trees, fruity cocktails in hotel lounges, and day trips to preserved colonial zones lies a history of tourism design that intersects with larger projects of development and national and cultural identity formation. Locating modernity and colon ... Show More
44m 57s
Mar 6
Catherine Boland Erkkila, "Spaces of Immigration: American Ports, Railways, and Settlements" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025)
Spaces of Immigration: American Ports, Railways, and Settlements (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025) follows the travel routes of immigrants during a foundational period of American infrastructure—from ports of arrival to train cars and depots to settlements—showing how the built environ ... Show More
39m 47s
Sep 2021
Susanna Phillips Newbury, "The Speculative City: Art, Real Estate, and the Making of Global Los Angeles" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
Underlying every great city is a rich and vibrant culture that shapes the texture of life within. In The Speculative City: Art, Real Estate, and the Making of Global Los Angeles (U Minnesota Press, 2021), Susanna Phillips Newbury teases out how art and Los Angeles shaped one anot ... Show More
35m 21s
Jul 2023
Sarah L. Hall, "Sown in the Stars: Planting by the Signs" (UP of Kentucky, 2023)
"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted."—Ecclesiastes 3:1–2
The Appalachian region is deeply rooted in customs that have been handed down f ... Show More
54m 36s
Sep 2022
Laurie R. King, "Back to the Garden: A Novel" (Bantam, 2022)
Today I talked to Laurie R. King about her new novel Back to the Garden: A Novel (Bantam, 2022).
Inspector Raquel Liang of the San Francisco Police Department has reached a crossroads in her career. A recent incident ended with her transfer to the Cold Cases Unit and instructions ... Show More
40m 9s
Dec 2021
23. Oostvaardersplassen: A Wild Idea
Flevoland, the Netherlands, 1968. A new patch of land is being carved out of the sea. Destined initially for agriculture or industry, when nature begins to take over, authorities decide to protect the new Earth as a nature reserve - the Oostvaardersplassen.In this episode of Side ... Show More
28m 58s
Jul 2018
Courtney Fullilove, “The Profit of the Earth: The Global Seeds of American Agriculture” (U Chicago Press, 2017)
The Profit of the Earth: The Global Seeds of American Agriculture (University of Chicago Press, 2017) examines the social and political history of how agricultural knowledge was created in the 19th century. Over the course of the 19th century, rural America transformed into the ... Show More
37m 5s