J.R. McNeill is Professor of History at Georgetown University, where he held the Cinco Hermanos Chair in Environmental and International Affairs before becoming University Professor in 2006. His book Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World was listed by The Times as one of the best science books ever written. The book was co-winner of the World History Association and Forest History Society book prizes and runner-up for the BP Natural World book prize. McNeill has authored a number of other award-winning books on environmental history, and in 2010 he was awarded the Toynbee Prize for 'academic and public contributions to humanity.' Erin Stewart Mauldin is currently a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University studying American Environmental History with an emphasis on the nineteenth-century South.