Subject Librarian
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
Course description
This course surveys the ecological and historical impacts of U.S.-occupied military bases in Asia and the Pacific Islands, through the activism and scholarship of Asians and Pacific Islanders. It brings together the fields of critical Asian studies, Asian American studies, geography, gender studies, and Indigenous studies to comparatively analyze the place-based forms that U.S. militarism, settler colonialism, and empire can take in U.S.-occupied American Samoa, Bikini Islands, Guåhan/Guam, Hawai\\u02BBi, Korea, Okinawa, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Guided by the course instructor, students will engage Asian and Pacific Islander scholarship through course readings, films, podcasts, poems, and guest lectures featuring Asian and Pacific Islander demilitarization organizers. The course will culminate in a final Story Maps project that analyzes a social movement discussed in class and presents the group’s findings about it in multimedia form.
[Source: ORC/Catalog, 04/11/2025]; Dist:INT or SOC; WCult:NW
In the Library's collections
You can use one of the subject headings below to start your research in the library's online catalog:
Introductory reading(s)
The long shadows: a global environmental history of the Second World War by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780870718793The Long Shadows is the first book to offer global perspectives on the environmental history of World War II. Based on long-term research, the selected essays represent the best available studies in different fields and countries. With contributions touching on Europe, America, Asia, and Africa, the book has a truly global approach. The Long Shadows considers the profound and lasting impact World War II has had on global environments, encompassing polar, temperate, and tropical ecological zones. ...
Natives and exotics: World War II and environment in the southern Pacific by Call Number: Baker-Berry D 767.9 .B46 2009ISBN: 9780824833503Ambitious in its scope and scale, this environmental history of World War II ranges over rear bases and operational fronts from Bora Bora to New Guinea, providing a lucid analysis of resource exploitation, entangled wartime politics, and human perceptions of the vast Oceanic environment. Although the war's physical impact proved significant and oftentimes enduring, this study shows that the tropical environment offered its own challenges: ...
Nature at war: American environments and World War II by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781108889919This anthology is the first sustained examination of American involvement in World War II through an environmental lens. World War II was a total and global war that involved the extraction, processing, and use of vast quantities of natural resources. The wartime military-industrial complex, the 'Arsenal of Democracy,' experienced tremendous economic growth and technological development, employing resources at a higher intensity than ever before. ...
Selected book title(s)
Making peace with nature: ecological encounters along the Korean DMZ by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781478018353The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) has been off-limits to human habitation for nearly seventy years, and in that time, biodiverse forms of life have flourished in and around the DMZ as beneficiaries of an unresolved war. In Making Peace with Nature, Eleana J. Kim shows how a closer examination of the DMZ in South Korea reveals that the area's biodiversity is inseparable from scientific practices and geopolitical, capitalist, and ecological dynamics. ...
Poisoning the Pacific: the US military's secret dumping of plutonium, chemical weapons, and Agent Orange by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781538130339In this devastating exposé, investigative journalist Jon Mitchell reveals the shocking toxic contamination of the Pacific Ocean and millions of victims by the US military. For decades, US military operations have been contaminating the Pacific region with toxic substances, including plutonium, dioxin, and VX nerve agent. Hundreds of thousands of service members, their families, and residents have been exposed--but the United States has hidden the damage and refused to help victims. After World War II, the United States granted immunity to Japanese military scientists in exchange for their data on biological weapons tests conducted in China; in the following years, nuclear detonations in the Pacific obliterated entire islands and exposed Americans, Marshallese, Chamorros, and Japanese fishing crews to radioactive fallout. ...
The war and environment reader by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781682570791While many books have examined the broader topic of military conflict, most neglect to focus on damage military violence inflicts on regional--and global--ecosystems. The War and Environment Reader provides a critical analysis of the devastating consequences of "war on the environment" with perspectives drawn from a wide array of diverse voices and global perspectives. ...
Other library resource(s)
Military geographies and the environment by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199874002Conventional military geographies have tended to approach the environment as military operational space. However, a growing body of critical scholarship has focused more on the complex political ecologies produced by militarization, the environmental effects of military activities, and various forms of political contestation. These interventions have come from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Military environmental impacts include widespread and persistent ecological degradation and toxic contamination, global climate change, public health problems, and damage to cultural resources. ...
Data resource(s)
There are numerous resources for finding data. We subscribe to two resources and they are listed below. You can also search in Data.gov to see what else is available.
PolicyMap by Call Number: Electronic resourcePolicyMap is a fully web-based online data and mapping application that gives you access to over 15,000 indicators related to demographics, housing, crime, mortgages, health, jobs and more.
Social ExplorerCall Number: Electronic resourceTheir objective is to help you visually analyze and understand the demography of the U.S. through the use of interactive maps and data reports. You can map all types of demographic data including immigration.
Finding scholarly articles & journal title(s)
International journal of maritime history by Call Number: Electronic journalThe International Journal of Maritime History (IJMH) is the journal of the International Maritime History Association. The IJMH is a fully-refereed, quarterly publication which addresses the maritime dimensions of economic, social, cultural, and environmental history. Truly international in scope, the IJMH publishes studies of a multidisciplinary nature on a broad range of maritime historical themes, including shipping, shipbuilding, seafaring, ports, resorts and other coastal communities, sea-borne trade, fishing, environment and the culture of the sea. ...
Journal of Pacific history by Call Number: Electronic journalThe Journal of Pacific History is a leading refereed journal dedicated to research concerning the Pacific Islands, their peoples and their pasts. Its remit is broad: from prehistory to the present. It publishes articles in social, cultural, religious, political, economic, geographical, and environmental history; analysis of contemporary developments; critical surveys; and comments. ...
Ocean & coastal management by Call Number: Electronic journalOcean & Coastal Management aims to advance management, policy and/or governance scholarship related to the sustainable development and conservation of the world's oceans and coasts. It publishes rigorously peer-reviewed articles on ocean and coastal management and governance from the natural and social sciences, humanities and law, and design professions, and inter-/trans-disciplinary and co-designed research. ...
Web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Citing and Tracking Your Bibliographic References
Use this guide to help you learn how to correctly cite and keep track of the references you find for your research.
Keeping up with Geography journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Geography? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's, you can download and read the articles you want from the journals for which we have subscriptions.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's also available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.