Webb investigates the 19th-century ecological history of Sri Lanka's Kandyan highlands, when the British began carving permanent corridors through the island's dense rainforest to introduce coffee, cinchona and tea plantations. Kandyan villagers exploited the opportunity in turn by making extensive use of slash-and-burn agriculture. In one century one of the most biologically diverse tropical rainforests in the world was transformed by economic and ecological forces in the form of seeds, tools, animals and ideas, and by 1900 only a few craggy corners and mountain caps had been spared.

Singing to the Jinas: Jain Laywomen, Mandal Singing and the Negotiations of Jain Devotion
M. Whitney Kelting '88
Oxford University Press (2001)

While Western scholars of the Indian religion Jainism have typically focused on religious texts, practices and social expectations that favor male participation, the Jain community relies on laywomen in religious education, in key rituals and as the locus of religious knowledge. In this fieldwork-based study Kelting found that Jain women both accept and rewrite their idealized roles and interpret their religion in a form that honors their participation.

A Stone Bridge North: Reflections in a New Life
Kate Maloy '67
Counterpoint (2002)

To leave her "careful, right-angled, urban existence" in Pittsburgh, Maloy moves to northern Vermont with her teenage son and new lover. A practicing Quaker, Maloy yearns for the radical simplicity of rural Vermont and through the lens of her faith examines childhood traumas, past loves, failed friendships, childrearing, the delights of her new soul mate and global issues like democracy and war. Maloy's faith and her insistence on leading an examined life allow her to willingly accept failure and imperfection as part of the process of self-development.

Maine Environmental Law Handbook, second edition
Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson
ABS Consulting/Government Institutes (2002)

Lawyers, business owners and landowners needing information on Maine's environmental and land use regulations can turn to this comprehensive handbook for details in non-legalese language. In this update co-author and environmental lawyer Gregory M. Cunningham '88 included 12 years of changes in laws, regulations and court decisions in areas from asbestos and water quality to nuclear waste and underground oil storage.