A history of the Love Canal region from the nation's founding and the utopian city planned for the Niagara area to the building of the region's chemistry industry to the environmental disaster at Love Canal and its aftermath.
Richard S. Newman, in his Love Canal: A Toxic History from Colonial Times to the Present, manages to retell the story in a way that is fresh and imbues Love Canal, as place and symbol, with new importance for understanding the history of citizen activism, environmentalism, and environmental regulation in the United States ... essential reading.