Diana Muir

Diana Muir, also known as Diana Muir Appelbaum, is a Newton, Massachusetts writer and historian. Muir is best known for her 2000 book, Reflections in Bullough's Pond, a history of the impact of human activity on the New England ecosystem.

Muir was born and raised in the small town of Old Lyme, Conn. She attended Barnard College of Columbia University in New York City. Her parents are Elizabeth and Peter Karter. She is married to Paul S. Appelbaum, a psychiatrist and professor at Columbia University with whom she has co-authored articles. They have three adult children.

According to the Daily News Tribune, "Muir's book Reflections in Bullough's Pond reads more like a novel than a history book. In the book, Muir shows the historical relationship between New England's economy and the environment. She expands the relationship into a national and global analysis of America's, and the world's, current environmental and political problems: global warming, ozone depletion, and Middle East oil dependence, to name a few. Muir claims America's oil dependent economy has hit a dead end. Muir argues that Americans can, and must, make economic changes to alleviate their environmental and political problems."

Muir draws on many academic disciplines in her work, as the Boston Globe put it, "She's an economist. Then, again, maybe she's really an ecologist. Although some book critics and readers consider her a New England historian. Actually, Newton author Diana Muir is probably all of the above... Although her book was well received by economic historians who like to look at how industries rise and fall, Muir doesn't call herself a lay economist. 'I'm an historian,' she said. 'And it seems to me that any intelligent person has to enjoy nature and care about the environment, and so those interests all came together.' So, she's a shameless environmentalist, too."

Muir, an environmental historian, is a critic of American choice of "profitability over sustainability." She has been called "Malthusian," and a "shameless environmentalist." She has written a column for the Massachusetts Sierran, the magazine of the Massachusetts Sierra Club.

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