Inevitably Toxic

Science can be used to both explicate and obscure the violence of toxic exposures. The scholars in this book offer us careful historical accounts that show how science has been both not enough and sometimes profoundly complicit in toxic histories, themselves undergirded by militarism, racism, and industrialism. Crucially, the essays in this book demonstrate how ubiquitous toxicity is an achievement, not an inevitability—it can and should be otherwise.

* Michelle Murphy, University of Toronto *

In this insightful and eye-opening volume, the contributors draw on previously unexamined histories of risk to skillfully illuminate the many ways that environmental hazards have become a normal part of our everyday lives, how these threats fall disproportionately on marginalized communities, and how we can imagine and create a more sustainable and equitable society.

* David Pellow, University of California Santa Barbara *

In Inevitably Toxic, editors Brinda Sarathy, Vivien Hamilton, and Janet Farrell Brodie bring together contributors in a timely call to place ‘toxicity’ back at the center of public health discussions, exploring different toxic landscapes in North America and Japan to denaturalize the presence of inorganic contaminants in an environment. Revealing toxicity as the outcome of specific material and discursive practices that should be discussed and contested, the volume is an excellent addition to an emerging body of literature that raises vital questions about whose knowledge counts in the public debate over toxicity.

* LSE Review of Books *

Reading [the essays] is like attending an academic conference and absorbing the latest insiders' insights into radiation events and industrial toxins.

* Foreword Revie