Uneasy Alchemy: Citizens and Experts in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor Disputes. Barbara L. Allen. 2003. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 224 pp. $55 cloth, $22 paperback.

Earth Day 1970 is generally recognized as the beginning of the modern environmental movement in the US. Of the many issues that have emerged since then, one of the most complex and polarizing is what has become known as “environmental justice,” the belief that a disproportionate percentage of environmental risk is borne by persons with little or no political power, mostly minority and low-income groups.