David Kinkela is an editor of new book on global environment

David Kinkela, associate professor of History and director of the Honors Program, is one of three editors of the new book, "Nation-States and the Global Environment: New Approaches to International Environmental History,” published by Oxford University Press. Other editors are Erika Marie Bsumek and Mark Atwood Lawrence, both from the University of Texas at Austin.

Kinkela's research focuses on the history of U.S. environmental politics in a global age. His book, "DDT and the American Century: Global Health, Environmental Politics, and the Pesticide That Changed the World" (UNC Press, 2011) examines the interconnections between U.S. environmentalism and U.S. foreign policy.

He is currently working on a new book project called, "An Island of Plastic: A History of Waste, Water, and Petrochemicals." "This project attempts to historicize the multifaceted and transnational history of the largest environmental wasteland in the world, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch," he said.