Beth Clevenger

Beth Clevenger

Senior Acquisitions Editor, Environment and Urbanism

Beth Clevenger

Beth acquires books on the environment, food, and cities in a variety of fields, including environmental history and humanities, environmental justice, environmental politics and policy, environmental science, food justice, natural history with a futuristic bent, urban planning with attention to sustainability and justice, and urban science.

For trade books, she likes to work with experts who are no longer content to exchange knowledge solely with peers, but who are moved to share what they know—as well as what they think—with general readers. For authors not ready to shed quite as many of their academic tendencies, look to the One Planet series and History for a Sustainable Future series, which feature readable yet rigorous books meant to appeal to scholars and nonspecialists alike.

Textbook proposals in the environmental sciences and urban planning are welcome. Recent textbooks include Introduction to Urban Science by Luís M. A. Bettencourt, Urban Engineering for Sustainability by Sybil Derrible, and the forthcoming Our Urban Future: An Active Learning Guide to Sustainable Cities by Emily Talen and Sabina Shaikh.

Beth signs a couple edited volumes each year. Generally, she’s looking for a volume that unites a burgeoning field in a way that can’t be done as a single-authored work. Course adoption potential is also an important consideration. Quintessential edited volumes on the list are Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability  edited by Alkon and Agyeman, Cycling for Sustainable Cities  edited by Buehler and Pucher, and Acquired Tastes: Stories about the Origins of Modern Food  edited by Cohen, Kideckel, and Zeide.

Initial inquiries can be sent to her (eclev@mit.edu) and Anthony Zannino (zannino@mit.edu). Due to the volume of inquiries received a definitive response may take six to eight weeks. Beth can be found on Twitter at @elleighclev, but she’s a Twitter lurker at her most active.

Series: American and Comparative Environmental Policy, Belfer Center Studies in International Security, Earth System Governance, Essential Knowledge, Food, Health, and the Environment, History for a Sustainable Future, One Planet, Urban and Industrial Environments.

Notable Recent Acquisitions:

Invention and Innovation  by Vaclav Smil, Tenacious Beasts  by Christopher Preston, The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War  by Neta Crawford, A World in a Shell  by Thom van Dooren, They Knew: The US Federal Government's Fifty-Year Role in Causing the Climate Crisis  by James Gustave Speth, Electrify  by Saul Griffith, Form and Flow  by Kian Goh, Discard Studies  by Max Liboiron and Josh Lepawsky, and Mussolini’s Nature  by Marco Armiero, Roberta Biasillo, and Wilko Graf von Hardenberg.

Invention and Innovation

Vaclav Smil

February 14, 2023

The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War

Neta C. Crawford

October 4, 2022

Parenting on Earth

Elizabeth Cripps

April 18, 2023

Tenacious Beasts

Christopher J. Preston

February 21, 2023

A World in a Shell

Thom van Dooren

September 13, 2022

Atlas of Perfumed Botany

Jean-Claude Ellena, Erik Butler

April 5, 2022

Mussolini's Nature

Marco Armiero, Roberta Biasillo, Wilko Graf von Hardenberg, James Sievert

December 13, 2022

Electrify

Saul Griffith

October 4, 2022

They Knew

James Gustave Speth, Julia Olson, Philip Gregory

August 23, 2022

Care-Centered Politics

Robert Gottlieb

August 2, 2022

Form and Flow

Kian Goh

August 17, 2021

Introduction to Urban Science

Luís M. A. Bettencourt

August 17, 2021