David R. Montgomery

Ranging from ancient times to modern-day environmental threats, a natural and cultural history of soil explains how an elimination of protective vegetation and an exposure to wind and rain causes severe erosion of cultivated soils, how the use and abuse of soil has shaped human history, and the how the rise of organic and no-till farming holds hope for the future.

The Erosion of Civilizations

Dirt

Anne Biklé

Prepare to set aside what you think you know about yourself and microbes. The Hidden Half of Nature reveals why good health--for people and for plants--depends on Earth's smallest creatures. Restoring life to their barren yard and recovering from a health crisis, David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé discover astounding parallels between the botanical world and our own bodies. From garden to gut, they show why cultivating beneficial microbiomes holds the key to transforming agriculture and medicine.

The Microbial Roots of Life and Health

The Hidden Half of Nature

An inspiring vision for restoring the soil that feeds us all and turns agriculture into a solution for environmental crises.

Bringing Our Soil Back to Life

Growing a Revolution

Anna Biklé

What Your Food Ate - How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health

Using rocks as proof, a geologist examines the great flood stories found in many cultures and religions and travels across countries and landscapes to discover a place where theology and science converge. 13,000 first printing.

A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood

The Rocks Don't Lie

How to Restore Our Land and Reclaim Our Health

What Your Food Ate

An inspiring vision for restoring the soil that feeds us all and turns agriculture into a solution for environmental crises.

Since the dawn of agriculture, great civilizations have sunk into poverty after destroying their once fertile land. Today, few people realize how close we are to experiencing the same fate if we don't take action. In Growing a Revolution, geologist David R. Montgomery leads us on a journey through history and around the world to see how innovative farmers are ditching the plow, mulching cover crops, and adopting complex rotations to restore the soil. In their stories he finds the foundation for the next agricultural revolution: a soil health revolution.

Cutting through standard debates about conventional versus organic agriculture, Montgomery shows how new regenerative methods heal damaged environments and improve farmers bottom lines. Merging ancient wisdom with modern science, these farmers have developed simple, cost-effective ways to pull carbon from the atmosphere and feed the world. Growing a Revolution flips the script, showing how agriculture can help solve our modern environmental woes.

bringing our soil back to life

Growing a revolution

Paul R. Bierman

Written for introductory geomorphology courses, Key Concepts in Geomorphology offers an integrative, applications-centered approach to the study of the Earth’s dynamic surface. Bierman and Montgomery draw from the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics to help students get a basic understanding of Earth surface processes and the evolution of topography over short and long timescales. The authors also hone in on practical applications, showing how scientists are using geomorphological research to tackle critical societal issues (natural disaster response, safer infrastructure, protecting species, and more).

Key Concepts in Geomorphology

Are you really what you eat? David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé take us far beyond the well-worn adage to deliver a new truth: the roots of good health start on farms. What Your Food Ate marshals evidence from recent and forgotten science to illustrate how the health of the soil ripples through to that of crops, livestock, and ultimately us. The long-running partnerships through which crops and soil life nourish one another suffuse plant and animal foods in the human diet with an array of compounds and nutrients our bodies need to protect us from pathogens and chronic ailments. Unfortunately, conventional agricultural practices unravel these vital partnerships and thereby undercut our well-being. Can farmers and ranchers produce enough nutrient-dense food to feed us all? Can we have quality and quantity? With their trademark thoroughness and knack for integrating information across numerous scientific fields, Montgomery and Biklé chart the way forward. Navigating discoveries and epiphanies about the world beneath our feet, they reveal why regenerative farming practices hold the key to healing sick soil and untapped potential for improving human health. Humanity’s hallmark endeavors of agriculture and medicine emerged from our understanding of the natural world—and still depend on it. Montgomery and Biklé eloquently update this fundamental reality and show us why what’s good for the land is good for us, too. What Your Food Ate is a must-read for farmers, eaters, chefs, doctors, and anyone concerned with reversing the modern epidemic of chronic diseases and mitigating climate change.

What Your Food Ate: How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health

Developed with extensive community involvement and support from the US National Science Foundation, it is about our planet's dynamic surface, a place where Earth and atmosphere meet and life thrives. Key Concepts in Geomorphology takes an integrative science approach that applies principles of physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics in the understanding of Earth surface processes and the evolution of topography over short and long timescales to solve problems important to people and societies. The authors also hone in on practical applications, showing how scientists are using geomorphological research to tackle critical societal issues (natural disaster response, safer infrastructure, protecting species, and more).

Key Concepts in Geomorphology was developed with direct input from the community of geomorphology educators.

Crafts and Skills of Native Americans is a fascinating, practical guide to the skills that have made Native American famous worldwide as artisans and craftsmen. Readers can replicate traditional Native American living by trying a hand at brain tanning, identifying animal tracks, or constructing a horse saddle. Readers can even make distinctive Native American beaded jewelry, a variety of moccasins, headdresses, and gourd rattles. Native American style is unique and popular, especially among young people, historians, and those with a special interest in the American West.

Tipis, Canoes, Jewelry, Moccasins, and More

Crafts and Skills of the Native Americans

How the mystery of the Bible's greatest story shaped geology: a MacArthur Fellow presents a surprising perspective on Noah's Flood. In Tibet, geologist David R. Montgomery heard a local story about a great flood that bore a striking similarity to Noah’s Flood. Intrigued, Montgomery began investigating the world’s flood stories and—drawing from historic works by theologians, natural philosophers, and scientists—discovered the counterintuitive role Noah’s Flood played in the development of both geology and creationism. Steno, the grandfather of geology, even invoked the Flood in laying geology’s founding principles based on his observations of northern Italian landscapes. Centuries later, the founders of modern creationism based their irrational view of a global flood on a perceptive critique of geology. With an explorer’s eye and a refreshing approach to both faith and science, Montgomery takes readers on a journey across landscapes and cultures. In the process we discover the illusive nature of truth, whether viewed through the lens of science or religion, and how it changed through history and continues changing, even today.

The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood

A natural history of the rise and fall of salmon in England, New England, and the Pacific Northwest cites the roles of the regions' changing landscapes and experimentation in the evolution and near-extinction of the species.

The Thousand-Year Run Of Salmon

King Of Fish

"Sure to become a game-changing guide to the future of good food and healthy landscapes." —Dan Barber, chef and author of The Third Plate Prepare to set aside what you think you know about yourself and microbes. The Hidden Half of Nature reveals why good health—for people and for plants—depends on Earth’s smallest creatures. Restoring life to their barren yard and recovering from a health crisis, David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé discover astounding parallels between the botanical world and our own bodies. From garden to gut, they show why cultivating beneficial microbiomes holds the key to transforming agriculture and medicine.

David R. Montgomery

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