Includes bibliographical references and index.

Dust to dust: an age beyond extremes -- The first global environmental problem -- Imperialism, white settler colonialism, and the ecological rift -- The white man's burden, soil erosion, and the origins of green capitalism -- Ecological rifts and shifts: the accumulation of catastrophe -- "We're not stakeholders": beyond the langue de coton of capitalist environmental management -- No empires, no dust bowls: toward a deeper ecological solidarity.

"The 1930s witnessed a harrowing social and ecological disaster, defined by the severe nexus of drought, erosion, and economic depression that ravaged the U.S. southern plains. Known as the Dust Bowl, this crisis has become a major referent of the climate change era, and has long served as a warning of the dire consequences of unchecked environmental despoliation. Through innovative research and a fresh theoretical lens, Hannah Holleman reexamines the global socioecological and economic forces of settler colonialism and imperialism precipitating this disaster, explaining ciritical antecedents to the acceleration of ecological degradation in our time. Holleman draws lessons from this period that point a way forward for environmental politics as we confront the growing global crises of climate change, freshwater scarcity, extreme energy, and soil degradation."--