WINNER OF THE TATA LITERATURE LIVE FIRST BOOK AWARD (NON-FICTION) 2021 Maharashtra, India's richest state by GDP, has its eyes set on becoming the country's first trillion-dollar economy by 2025. At the same time, Marathwada - a historically backward part of the state adjoining the distressed Vidarbha region - has seen a surge in farmer suicides. At the heart of the crisis is a cyclical drought that has persisted for almost a decade. Relief packages and loan waivers have not reversed the trend. On the contrary, the stories of dystopia grow more tragic every year as thousands of farmer families flee to the big cities, while those who stay back are plagued by bad credit and crop loss. Landscapes of Loss tells the story of Marathwada through the accounts of its people: marginal farmers, Dalits, landless labourers, farm widows and children. It lays bare the complex factors that have brought the region to this pass - a story representative, in many ways, of the agrarian unrest in large parts of rural India.

In Landscapes of Loss, Naomi Greene makes new sense of the rich variety of postwar French films by exploring the obsession with the national past that has characterized French cinema since the late 1960s. Observing that the sense of grandeur and destiny that once shaped French identity has eroded under the weight of recent history, Greene examines the ways in which French cinema has represented traumatic and defining moments of the nation's past: the political battles of the 1930s, the Vichy era, decolonization, the collapse of ideologies. Drawing upon a broad spectrum of films and directors, she shows how postwar films have reflected contemporary concerns even as they have created images and myths that have helped determine the contours of French memory. This study of the intricate links between French history, memory, and cinema begins by examining the long shadow cast by the Vichy past: the repressed memories and smothered unease that characterize the cinema of Alain Resnais are seen as a kind of prelude to a fierce battle for national memory that marked so-called rétro films of the 1970s and 1980s. The shifting political and historical perspectives toward the nation's more distant past, which also emerged in these years, are explored in the light of the films of one of France's leading directors, Bertrand Tavernier. Finally, the mood of nostalgia and melancholy that appears to haunt contemporary France is analyzed in the context of films about the nation's imperial past as well as those that hark back to a "golden age," a remembered paradis perdu, of French cinema itself.

As the world population grows, so does the demand for food, putting unprecedented pressure on agricultural lands. In many desert dryland regions, however, intensive cultivation is causing their productivity to decline precipitously. "Rewilding" the least productive of these landscapes offers a sensible way to reverse the damage, recover natural diversity, and ensure long-term sustainability of remaining farms and the communities they support. This accessibly written, groundbreaking contributed volume is the first to examine in detail what it would take to retire eligible farmland and restore functioning natural ecosystems. The lessons in Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes will be useful to conservation leaders, policymakers, groundwater agencies, and water managers looking for inspiration and practical advice for solving the complicated issues of agricultural sustainability and water management.

Restoring Disturbed Landscapes is a hands-on guide for individuals and groups seeking to improve the functional capacity of landscapes. Abundantly illustrated with photos and figures, Restoring Disturbed Landscapes is an engaging and accessible work designed specifically for restoration practitioners with limited training or experience in the field. It uses a five-step adaptive procedure to tell restorationists where to start, what information they need to acquire, and how to apply this information to their specific situations. Cosponsored by the Society for Ecological Restoration International and Island Press, this series offers a foundation of practical knowledge and scientific insight that will help ecological restoration become the powerful reparative and healing tool that the world needs

“An intriguing amalgam of personal memoir, philosophical speculation, natural lore, cultural history, and art criticism.” —Los Angeles Times From the award-winning author of Orwell's Roses, a stimulating exploration of wandering, being lost, and the uses of the unknown Written as a series of autobiographical essays, A Field Guide to Getting Lost draws on emblematic moments and relationships in Rebecca Solnit's life to explore issues of uncertainty, trust, loss, memory, desire, and place. Solnit is interested in the stories we use to navigate our way through the world, and the places we traverse, from wilderness to cities, in finding ourselves, or losing ourselves. While deeply personal, her own stories link up to larger stories, from captivity narratives of early Americans to the use of the color blue in Renaissance painting, not to mention encounters with tortoises, monks, punk rockers, mountains, deserts, and the movie Vertigo. The result is a distinctive, stimulating voyage of discovery.

Habitat loss and degradation that comes as a result of human activity is the single biggest threat to biodiversity in the world today. Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change is a groundbreaking work that brings together a wealth of information from a wide range of sources to define the ecological problems caused by landscape change and to highlight the relationships among landscape change, habitat fragmentation, and biodiversity conservation. The book: synthesizes a large body of information from the scientific literature considers key theoretical principles for examining and predicting effects examines the range of effects that can arise explores ways of mitigating impacts reviews approaches to studying the problem discusses knowledge gaps and future areas for research and management Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change offers a unique mix of theoretical and practical information, outlining general principles and approaches and illustrating those principles with case studies from around the world. It represents a definitive overview and synthesis on the full range of topics that fall under the widely used but often vaguely defined term "habitat fragmentation."

West tells the story of Jim Perrin's life against the lives and deaths of his cherished wife and son, and the landscapes through which they traveled together. It is a complex and sensual love story, a celebration of the beauty and redemptive power of wild nature, and an extraordinary account of one man's journey towards the acceptance of devastating personal loss.