

A World Without Soil
The Past, Present, and
Precarious Future of the
Earth Beneath Our Feet
A scientist’s manifesto addressing a soil loss crisis accelerated by poor conservation practices and climate change. This book by celebrated biologist Jo Handelsman lays bare the complex connections among climate change, soil erosion, food and water security, and drug discovery.
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A World Without Soil
wins Association of American Publishers 2022 PROSE Category Award: Government & Politics

Praise for A World Without Soil
“Jo Handelsman is a national treasure, and her clarion call warning of a looming soil-loss catastrophe must be heard. Add her clearly written alarm to other future-shocks: climate change, pandemics, and mass extinctions.”
— Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World out of Balance
“The ground beneath our feet is slipping away as we lose the precious soil that sustains us. Jo Handelsman’s writing—as rich and life supporting as the soil itself—is a riveting warning. She tells us eloquently about the danger we’re in, but also what we can do about it.”
— Alan Alda, actor, writer, and host of the podcast “Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda”
About the Author
Jo Handelsman is the director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and a Vilas Research Professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Handelsman previously served as a science adviser to President Barack Obama.

Media Appearances

Did “Soylent Green’s” Predictions About 2022 Hold Up?
Jo Handelsman talks with Ira Flatow on NPR’s Science Friday about the 1973 film “Soylent Green.” Listen to Flatow, Handelsman, and Museum of the Moving Image curator Sonia Epstein discuss whether “Soylent Green” lives up to it’s 2022 predictions.
INTERVIEW
April 15, 2022

A Q&A with Jo Handelsman on Health Storytelling
Jo Handelsman discusses science policy, soil formation, and soil protection on the Health Storytelling Author Q&A Series with Maryn McKenna.
INTERVIEW
March 29, 2022

New Books in Environmental Studies
For the New Books Network, Jo Handelsman talks with New Books in Environmental Studies host Eyad Houssami on soil diversity, protection, and agriculture.
INTERVIEW
March 7, 2022

Reviews
Science – Searching for solutions to our soil woes
Nature – A call for governments to save soil
The New York Review – The waste land
Learn More About Soil
Check out these books, articles, and websites to learn more about
the precious resource beneath our feet
Soil Science Americana: Chronicles and Progressions 1860─1960 by Alfred E. Hartemink
Te reo o te repo: Kei konei tonu au (The Voice of the Wetland: I Am Still Here) by Yvonne Taura and Bev Clarkson
What’s the Biggest Threat to Our Lives? (video) by Sadhguru and Conscious Planet