Taylor, D. E. Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution and Residential Mobility. New York: New York University Press. 2014. 352 pp $79 (cloth) $25 (pbk) $11.99 (ebk) ISBN 978‐1‐4798‐6178‐1

Is housing discrimination a thing of the past? Does internal colonialism explain the disproportional environmental harms found among Native American communities? What is the future of environmental justice research? These are some of the difficult, but pertinent, questions that the book Toxic Communities aims to tackle. Environmental justice research focuses on describing and explaining the inequitable distribution of environmental hazards amongst the population. A key component of this examines why ethnic minority and low-income communities are often disproportionately exposed to health-damaging industrial activities and pollutants. Research into environmental racism originated in the United States during the 1980s. Accordingly, the United States is the focus of Taylor's latest contribution. The author first takes the reader through a number of landmark cases in which minority communities were adversely affected by environmental exposures, which subsequently led to the growth of environmental justice activism. A significant case involved a rural, and predominantly Black, community in Alabama which was subject to dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) contamination arising from a nearby DDT manufacturing plant during the 1970s, which infiltrated the water and fish that the local residents consumed. It took three decades following identification of the problem for authorities to test residents and notify them of the issue, which ultimately led to thousands of lawsuits. Whilst many similar scenarios have been documented, there is little understanding of why minority communities are at increased risk of exposure to environmental hazards and the mechanisms which prevent their residential mobility. The author's intention of the book is to address these gaps and in doing so, increase the awareness of both urban and rural environmental justice issues amongst researchers and encourage more thinking around methods to take into account the complexity of these issues. The author draws on a range of theories which are introduced in the second chapter, including market dynamics, structural racism and internal colonialism, to add to our understanding of why ethnic minority communities become and remain unduly exposed to environmental harms. Each chapter then goes on to explore these different theories using a number of case studies of environmental racism to demonstrate their operation. In terms of internal colonialism, an interesting and in-depth analysis is presented exploring why Native American reservations have accumulated environmental hazards; companies seek out these areas and exploit their resources, people and culture and are sometimes facilitated by local indigenous elites. An important section of the book explores structural racism, including the influence of different institutions in shaping environmental, economic and housing policy that marginalises ethnic minorities. A key strength of the book is its exploration of current issues in light of their historical context. For example, the author argues that discriminatory zoning laws have a key role in shaping current residential patterns and that racially restrictive covenants are not confined to the past. Taylor demonstrates that racially restrictive covenants still shape the demographics of towns and cities within the United States today and that financial institutions continue to influence the distribution of ethnic minorities in gentrified neighbourhoods, such as via the unequal supply of mortgages. A criticism of the text involves its lack of a comprehensive exploration of the social factors, such as employment, which may encourage individuals to reside near hazardous facilitates. In my opinion, the book would also benefit from further synthesis at the end of chapters, as well as in the concluding chapter, as these often seem brief and lacking in depth. It also lacks an exploration of the role that place-based stigma may play in shaping communities and it should be asked whether the title of the book, Toxic Communities, is actually stigmatising in itself. Nevertheless, the book marks an important step forward for environmental justice research. It urges scholars to think more theoretically about why environmental hazards are located in multiply disadvantaged communities and to consider the different mechanisms operating, which often have historical roots and the understanding of which would benefit from drawing on different disciplinary perspectives. In that respect, the book achieves its aims and is likely to be a significant text for researchers and students focused on environmental justice, but also of interest to those researching ethnicity and the mechanisms behind health inequalities. The author's exploration of more subtle forms of structural racism is also of relevance to researchers and policy-makers alike. Its focus on the United States is understandable and it would perhaps be beneficial for environmental justice researchers elsewhere to adopt more of an emphasis on ethnicity in the future. As Taylor convincingly demonstrates, though progress has been made, environmental racism is not an issue which has been confined to the past.

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