Cold, Clear, and Deadly: Unraveling a Toxic Legacy by Melvin J. Visser (review)

162 Michigan Historical Review Melvin J. Visser. Cold, Clear, and Deadly: Unraveling a Toxic Legacy. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2007. Pp. 192. Bibliography. Index. Cloth, $24.95. Cold, Clear, and Deadly chronicles Michigan engineer Melvin Visser's efforts to understand the ongoing pollution of Lake Superior and other northern waters by persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Pollutants, such as DDT, hexachlorane, benzene, chlordane, hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH), toxaphene, dieldrin, aldrin, heptachlor, mirex, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and dioxin, persist despite bans on the use of these chemicals in the United States and many developed nations. Visser argues that POPs are an ongoing problem because developing countries, such as India and China, continue to use them, particularly in agriculture; atmospheric processes transport them globally; and once deposited in northern waters, these pollutants degrade slowly. The book begins with Visser's account of attempts to reduce POPs in the Great Lakes in the 1980s and 1990s. The narrative then transitions to a broader analysis of the scientific literature on POPs and particularly POPs in the Arctic. The book concludes with a plea for readers to advocate aworldwide ban on POPs. Visser does an admirable job of making complex science approachable. He explains the sources, transport, and fate of POPs at a level understandable to readers who are not experts in these matters. For example, to communicate how POPs get from the air into the water, Visser poses a thought experiment. He asks readers to imagine a gallon jug filled with water, air, sediment, and a small amount of PCBs. He explains that, after vigorous shaking, the amount of PCBs in each substance reaches equilibrium; a fixed portion of the PCBs is in each layer: water, air, and sediment. The earth works the same way. PCBs and POPs accrue equally in the air, water, and soil. So, if POPS are added to the global air in one place, such as in developing countries, they are then deposited inwater (and son) all over the globe, including bodies of water such as Lake Superior, thus maintaining the accrual of equal portions of pollutants in air,water, and soil (pp. 80-81). Visser also contributes to an important area of environmental scholarship by illustrating the shortcomings inU.S. environmental policies that seek local, regional, and national solutions to global problems. For example, Visser recounts that in the late 1990s, the United States Environment Protection Agency encouraged research on the relationship between indoor air quality in Chicago and POPs in the Great Lakes. At Book Reviews 163 the same time, however, scientists were concluding that global air pollution controlled POP levels in the Great Lakes (pp. 83-87). Overall, Clear, Cold, and Deadly is an elegant contribution toMichigan environmental history and environmental studies, as well as U.S. and global environmental history and studies. It is enjoyable and informative to read, despite the sober topic, and it could be used in undergraduate teaching. Excerpts could illustrate the dynamics of the environment or of science policy. The entire book could be assigned in order to give students an in-depth understanding of the specific topic of POPs in northern waters. Karin Ellison, Associate Director Center for Biology and Society, Arizona State University Edward Watts. In This Remote Country: French Colonial Culture in the Anglo American Imagination, 1780-1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Pp. 288. Bibliography. Index. Notes. Cloth, $59.95; paper, $19.95. In this excellent book, Edward Watts examines representations of eighteenth-century French colonists in the writings of nineteenth-century Anglo-American authors. These representations were ubiquitous, Watts shows, and were a key site for waging what Watts terms an "antebellum culture war" (p. 223) over the identity of the young American nation. For many writers, the retrograde and "failed" French colonial culture provided a foil against which to valorize a heroic, expansionist, and capitalist culture of Anglo Americans. For others, however, the French colonial way of life was a road not taken, an attractive alternative to the aggressiveness of American capitalism, racism, patriarchy, Indian removal, and manifest destiny. Using insights and tools from postcolonial theory, Watts brings to light an important set of critical voices and a lost dissenting discourse from nineteenth-century...