Michael John Bloomfield Books

Is farming funny (punny)? Biodynamic farming? In this lively and wide-ranging selection of twenty-five short vignettes, John Bloom muses amusingly on, if not all, then many things under the sun. Beginning with an inquiring mind, a sharp wit, and a vegetable (in that order), Mr. Bloom bounds from the biodynamic soil of Live Power Farm CSA in California, glides through literature, art, language, and history (all vegetable-related, of course), and lands back down in the rich compost of possibility. Inspired, above all, by his deep appreciation for the CSA model (and the food such farms produce), this collection, informative but lighthearted, points the way toward a more healthful future: from good food and humor, more good things will come.

Gold remains a highly prized and impactful resource within the global economy. From the insatiable demand for gold in the electronics that permeate our day-to-day lives to the environmental desolation driven by gold mining in the Amazon, the gold trade continues to touch the lives and livelihoods of people across the world. Bloomfield and Maconachie tell the intriguing story of the yellow metal, tracing the seismic shifts in the industry over the past few decades. They show how huge purchases of gold reserves by BRICS countries mark the shifting balance of power away from the West, and how rising affluence in India and China has led to a surging demand for gold jewellery, calling into question current approaches to make supply chains more responsible. Explaining why gold is so difficult to regulate and why it is only becoming more so, the authors suggest ways we could, collectively, make practices work better for the countless workers and communities who suffer at the producer end of the supply chain. Linking local to global, producer to consumer, and gold’s extraction from the Earth to the financial centres that fuel it, this book offers a probing analysis that reveals who wins and who loses and what this means for the future of gold.

Gold mining can be a dirty business. It creates immense amounts of toxic materials that are difficult to dispose of. Mines are often developed without community consent, and working conditions for miners can be poor. Income from gold has funded wars. And consumers buy wedding rings and gold chains not knowing about any of this. In Dirty Gold, Michael Bloomfield shows what happened when Earthworks, a small Washington-based NGO, launched a campaign for ethically sourced gold in the consumer jewelry market, targeting Tiffany and other major firms. The unfolding of the campaign and its effect on the jewelry industry offer a lesson in the growing influence of business in global environmental politics.

The incredible story of Iridium - the most complex satellite system ever built, the cell phone of the future and one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in American history - and one man's desperate race to save it

A beautifully written love story set in 1960s Soho amid the revival of fascism'Vivid, cinematic and exciting' Red