Martin T. Donohoe, MD, is adjunct associate professor in Community Health at Portland State University. He is chief scientific advisor to Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility's Campaign for Safe Foods. Read more »

In The Silent Epidemic, Alan Lockwood, a physician, describes and documents the impacts of the coal fuel cycle on human health. Lockwood’s comprehensive treatment examines every aspect of coal, from its complex chemical makeup to details of mining, transporting, burning, and disposal—each of which generates significant health concerns. Read more »

Back in the 60s peace activists sported a bumper sticker that read: “War is not good for children and other living creatures.” In a way, that sums up Barry S. Levy and Victor W. Sidel’s “War and Public Health,” where 46 experts on everything from epidemiology to international law weigh in on the authors’ central premise: “War and militarism have catastrophic effects on human health and well being.” Read more »

In Prescription for Survival, Bernard Lown tells the remarkable story of how he and Eugene Chazov, cardiologists whose countries were on opposite sides of the Cold War, created and nurtured the organization International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) from its inception in 1980 through its receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. Read more »

Tad Daley is a writing fellow for International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and author of Apocalypse Never, a distinguished piece of literature that outlines the reasons for eliminating nuclear weapons as well as the pathway we must take to achieve this goal. Read more »

Written thoughtfully for a lay audience, this book by PSR Board member Cindy Parker and psychologist and former journalist Steve Shapiro describes in lay terms how climate change will affect our health if it continues unabated. Read more »

This book isn't about nuclear weapons or climate change, but it’s a great clinical epidemiology book that includes 60 fun problems and solutions. Thomas B. Newman, the first author, is a member of the PSR Board of Directors and is donating 100% of his royalties to PSR! Read more »

Published in February, 2009 by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate, is a comprehensive look at the challenges of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Read more »

Author Bob Musil, former PSR executive director and now scholar-in-residence at American University, has written an insightful and informative account about the climate change issue and how it has finally emerged in the public’s mind as a major public health concern. Read more »

Rogers’ version of peace studies is marvelously hard-headed and uses serious policy analysis and history to analyze why current attempts, led by the United States, to quell global violence, insecurity, and terrorism through over reliance on military power projection are not only likely to fail, they will make matters worse. Read more »

This is a beautiful meditative essay on identity by Goncourt Prize-winning French novelist Amin Maalouf. Its main question is central to life after the attack on the World Trade Center. What about how we create identities in a globalized world would lead someone to purposely slaughter thousands of innocent human beings? Read more »

This small, powerful book is a testament to collections of essays. You can read War Talk in one sitting and be reminded of the importance of language, of expression, of passion, of the written word, to political discourse. Read more »

Devra Davis mixes passion, personality, and pollution studies in a compelling narrative that takes the non-scientific reader through an introduction to the highlights and history of environmental health. Read more »

Daniel Ellsberg’s Secrets should be required reading in this season of American omnipotence and preemptive war. Read more »

W.R. Grace is responsible for mining asbestos in Libby, Montana while keeping secret from its workers, their families, and the town that they have known all along that people are dying from the dust that permeates the town. Read more »

Co-author Daniel G. Abel, part of the Catano Litigation Group started by the colorful New Orleans attorney Wendell Gauthier, teamed up with Peter Brown, a journalist, to tell the story of how Gauthier, who had made fame and fortune tackling tobacco companies, decided to take on the gun industry as the next big cause. Read more »

This is a small, short book of essays based on speeches at Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Read more »

This is an important, gripping book about doctors in wartime. Read more »

This is Jonathan Schell's most ambitious book. It is an elegant, extended essay that argues essentially that modern war is obsolete. Read more »

Health and Community Design lays some of the essential groundwork for the growing field of health and the built environment. Read more »