Scorched Earth is the first book to chronicle the effects of chemical warfare on the Vietnamese people and their environment, where, even today, more than 3 million people--including 500,000 children--are sick and dying from birth defects, cancer, and other illnesses that can be directly traced to Agent Orange/dioxin exposure. Weaving first-person accounts with original research, Vietnam War scholar Fred A. Wilcox examines long-term consequences for future generations, laying bare the ongoing monumental tragedy in Vietnam, and calls for the United States government to finally admit its role in chemical warfare in Vietnam. Wilcox also warns readers that unless we stop poisoning our air, food, and water supplies, the cancer epidemic in the United States and other countries will only worsen, and he urgently demands the chemical manufacturers of Agent Orange to compensate the victims of their greed and to stop using the Earth's rivers, lakes, and oceans as toxic waste dumps. Vietnam has chosen August 10--the day that the US began spraying Agent Orange on Vietnam--as Agent Orange Day, to commemorate all its citizens who were affected by the deadly chemical. Scorched Earth will be released upon the third anniversary of this day, in honor of all those whose families have suffered, and continue to suffer, from this tragedy.

County Mayo, Ireland, is spectacularly beautiful. Dolphins, whales, and seals frolic in bays, rivers teem with salmon. Into this tranquil, unspoiled region, in early 2002, came Shell Oil, announcing plans to build a gas refinery. Shell promised wonderful things: new jobs, improved roads, money for schools. Church officials called this project a “godsend,” while honest, hard-working families, who had lived in Mayo for generations, certainly saw no harm in the project. But when the citizens of County Mayo realized what Shell actually intended to do, they rose up. Shamrocks & Oil Slicks tells the story of County Mayo—the fishermen, farmers, teachers, business people—who, motivated by love for their environment, their community, and their country, fought one of the planet’s most powerful destroyers to a standstill. To combat the pipelines that Shell planned to build dangerously close to their homes and the toxic chemicals Shell wanted to dump into their drinking water and their bay rich in sea life, the people launched a nonviolent resistance movement that was to last some fifteen years. Residents from all walks of life were beaten by police, threatened by mercenaries, sent to jail and prison. Abandoned by the state and their church, insulted and maligned by the media, they refused to give up fighting to save their environment and their heritage. This is a story of the courage inherent in everyday folk, told with sweeping and lyrical sincerity. It is one of many stories taking place now throughout the world, wherever people struggle to preserve what’s left of their natural world. More people are joining this resistance every day, inspired by uprisings like the one in County Mayo, Ireland.

""Plowshare activists are for more dangerous to the US government than any rapist or murderer or terrorist. Because we are promoting nonviolence.""-Jean Gump, imprisoned for a plowshare action

""What is clear throughout, however, is that members of Plowshares are willing to risk alienation, physical injury, the rupture of relationships and prison, and, as Wilcox observes, like heroes of the past, 'they are greatly hated and feared while they live, a fate reserved for all uncommon martyrs'.""-Hudson Valley Writers Guild

"A Christian who truly walks the radical way of the cross. Phil Berrigan overturns the tables of injustice and summons us to love our enemies and worship the God of peace. Like Thoreau, Ghandi, King, and Dorothy Day, Phil Berrigan exemplifies courage. He is both an inspiration and a challenge to me and countless others. Here is a true hero of our turbulent times.-Martin Sheen

"Few nations in history have had a prophet of Phil Berrigan's stature. With iron intransigency he has stood in the breach leading to nuclear omnicide. The state has tried to quash his witness time after time: arrests, lockups, long sentences, all the paraphenalia of intimidation. Why doesn't it work? What enables this jack-in-thebox prophet to pop up, again and again? Find out. Read this book."-Walter Wink, author, "Engaging the Powers"

"How important it is for our children to know this history of courage, risk, and commitment that they won't find in history books." -Grace Paley

"I have been waiting for Phil Berrigan's autobiography and it is a pleasure to read. His words have the direct, simple eloquence of his actions. He provokes and inspires, and dares to be critical of himself even as he recounts a life committed to peace, justice and community." -Howard Zinn

"One of the best books I have ever read. I loved its honest probing of the thoughts, feelings and actions of an unusually sensitive, occasionally wrong-headed, but clearly not self-righteous pioneer in the struggle for a better world. Its acute analyses of of the periods in which Phil have lived, from before World War II to the present, are invaluable contributions to real history." -David Dellinger, author, "From Yale to Jail"

"It is difficult to be dispassionate about the Berrigans. No one who knows them can doubt that they are heroic individuals, willing to do what many realize should be done, regardless of the personal cost...There are not too many people of whom this can honestly be said."-Noam Chomsky