Edmund Russell is the Hall Distinguished Professor of US History at the University of Kansas. He works primarily in environmental history and the history of technology. He is the author of Evolutionary History: Uniting History and Biology to Understand Life on Earth (Cambridge University Press, 2011), and co-editor, with Richard Tucker, of Natural Enemy, Natural Ally: Toward an Environmental History of War (2004). Russell's work has won the Edelstein Prize of the Society for the History of Technology, the Rachel Carson Prize, and the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society for Environmental History and the Forum for the History of Science in America.

'An engrossing, unusual social narrative, documenting the close ties between chemical weapons development and 'peaceful' applications in insect warfare.' Kirkus

• 1. Introduction; 2. The long reach of war (1914–17); 3. Joining the chemists' war (1917–18); 4. Chemical warfare in peace (1918–37); 5. Minutemen in peace (1918–37); 6. Total war (1936–43); 7. Annihilation (1943–5); 8. Planning for peace and war (1944–5); 9. War comes home (1945–50); 10. Arms races in the Cold War (1950–8); 11. Backfires (1958–63); 12. Epilogue.