Overview

The U.S. government, military, and industry once saw ocean incineration as the safest and most efficient way to dispose of hazardous chemical waste. Beginning in the late 1960s, toxic chemicals such as PCBs and other harmful industrial byproducts were taken out to sea to be destroyed in specially designed ships equipped with high-temperature combustion chambers and smokestacks. But public outcry arose after the environmental and health risks of ocean incineration were exposed, and the practice was banned in the early 1990s. Smoke on the Water traces the rise and fall of ocean incineration, showing how a transnational environmental movement tested the limits of U.S. political and economic power. Dario Fazzi examines the anti-ocean-incineration movement that emerged on both sides of the Atlantic, arguing that it succeeded by merging local advocacy with international mobilization. He emphasizes the role played at the grassroots level by women, migrant workers, and other underrepresented groups who were at greatest risk. Environmental groups, for their part, gathered and shared evidence about the harms of at-sea incineration, building scientific consensus and influencing international debates. Smoke on the Water tells the compelling story of a campaign against environmental degradation in which people from marginalized communities took on the might of the U.S. military-industrial complex. It offers new insights into the transnational dimensions of environmental regulation, the significance of nonstate actors in international history, and the making of environmental justice movements.

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Reviews

In a tight, concise narrative history, Smoke on the Water makes a convincing case for the power of trans-local pressure groups to restrain U.S. power and influence globally and to shape environmental policymaking at home and abroad. It also offers an optimistic lesson in how engaged citizens can advance the cause of environmental democracy through collective action – both historically and in our present moment. -- Julia F. Irwin, author of <i>Catastrophic Diplomacy: U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century</i>

In a tight, concise narrative history, Smoke on the Water makes a convincing case for the power of trans-local pressure groups to restrain U.S. power and influence globally and to shape environmental policymaking at home and abroad. It also offers an optimistic lesson in how engaged citizens can advance the cause of environmental democracy through collective action – both historically and in our present moment. -- Julia F. Irwin, author of <i>Catastrophic Diplomacy: U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century</i> A welcome addition to the growing field of international environmental history and a pointed indictment of the late 20th century global neoliberal economic order. Drawing on extensive sources from governmental agencies as well as social and environmental movements, Fazzi offers an insightful analysis of the U.S. practice of ocean incineration. -- Petra Goedde, author of <i>The Politics of Peace: A Global Cold War History</i> In this brilliant book, Fazzi reveals how the incineration of hazardous materials at sea became an engine of empire and environmental politics. Smoke on the Water offers a beacon of hope, showing how in the churn of local and global politics, new standards of environmental justice have issued forth. -- Megan Black, author of <i>The Global Interior: Mineral Frontiers and American Power</i> Smoke in the Water combines impressive transnational research and insightful analysis of global ecopolitics in an engaging narrative account of the multiple strategies that ultimately blocked the burning of hazardous wastes at sea. A compelling read for all who seek to protect the planet.” -- Ellen Griffith Spears, author of <i>Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town</i> Smoke on the Water is a fascinating book about “weird ships doing bad stuff in the oceans.” Dario Fazzi unpacks the complex history of at-sea incineration, revealing the ecological consequences of disposing waste in the oceans as well as the limits and inconsistency of human technologies and environmental governance. -- David Kinkela, author of <i>DDT and the American Century: Global Health, Environmental Politics, and the Pesticide That Changed the World</i> Smoke on the Water weaves a compelling narrative from a dizzying array of strands, laying out the complexities of local and global actions taken to reign in the environmentally disastrous practice of ocean incineration. Fazzi’s wide-ranging research combines with his accessible writing to make for a story that will appeal to scholars across many areas of interest. -- Anne Foster, author of <i>Projections of Power: The United States and Europe in Colonial Southeast Asia, 1919–1941</i>

Author Information

Dario Fazzi is a professor of transatlantic and environmental history at Leiden University and the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies in Middelburg, the Netherlands. He is the author of Eleanor Roosevelt and the Anti-Nuclear Movement: The Voice of Conscience (2016) and has published extensively on transatlantic protests, U.S. global base politics, and anti-toxics campaigns.

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