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Nature
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the South Pole was the most coveted prize in the fiercely nationalistic modern age of exploration. In the brilliant dual biography, the award-winning writer Roland Huntford re-examines every detail of the great race to the South Pole between Britain's Robert Scott and Norway's Roald Amundsen. Scott, who dies along with four of his men only eleven miles from his next cache of supplies, became Britain's beloved failure, while Amundsen, who not only beat Scott to the Pole but returned alive, was largely forgotten. This account of their race is a gripping, highly readable history that captures the driving ambitions of the era and the complex, often deeply flawed men who were charged with carrying them out. THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH is the first of Huntford's masterly trilogy of polar biographies. It is also the only work on the subject in the English language based on the original Norwegian sources, to which Huntford returned to revise and update this edition.
David Attenborough treks through rain forests and deserts, through city streets and isolated wilderness, to bring us an illuminating panorama of every aspect of birds' lives: from their songs to their search for food, from their eggs and nests to their mastery of the air. Beautifully illustrated with more than two hundred color photographs, the book will delight and inform bird lovers and any general reader with an interest in nature. The book presents birds in all their complexity and glory, revealing in clear and elegant prose Attenborough's infectious sense of wonder about the rich variety of life on Earth.
Like the yellow, pink, and blue irises that had been transplanted from house to house over the years, the stories of poet Ted Kooser's family had been handed down until, as his mother lay ill and dying, he felt an urgency to write them down. With a poet's eye for detail, Kooser captures the beauty of the landscape and the vibrancy of his mother's Iowa family, the Mosers, in precise, evocative language. The center of the family's love is Kooser's uncle, Elvy, a victim of cerebral palsy. Elvy's joys are fishing, playing pinochle, and drinking soda from the ice chest at his father's roadside Standard Oil station. Kooser's grandparents, their kin, and the activities and pleasures of this extended family spin out and around the armature of Elvy's blessed life. Kooser has said that writing this book was the most important work he has ever undertaken because it was his attempt to keep these beloved people alive against the relentless erosion of time.
Highlights Bruce Lee's influence beyond martial arts and film
An Asian and Asian American icon of unimaginable stature and influence, Bruce Lee revolutionized the martial arts by combining influences drawn from around the world. Uncommonly determined, physically gifted, and artistically brilliant, Lee rose to fame as part of a wave of transpacific globalization that bridged the nearly seven thousand miles between Hong Kong and California. Like Water unpacks Lee's global impact, linking his legendary status as a martial artist, actor, and director to his continual traversals across the newly interconnected Asia and America. Daryl Joji Maeda's multifaceted account of Bruce Lee's legacy uniquely traces how movements and migrations across the Pacific Ocean structured the cultures Bruce Lee inherited, the milieu he occupied, the martial art he developed, the films he made, and the world he left behind. A unique blend of cultural history and biography, Like Water unearths the cultural strands that Lee intertwined in his rise to a new kind of global stardom. Moving from the gold rush in California and the British occupation of Hong Kong, to the Cold War and the deployment of American troops across Asia, Maeda builds depth and complexity to this larger-than-life figure. His cultural chronology of Bruce Lee reveals Lee to be both a product of his time and a harbinger of a more connected future. Nearly half a century after his tragic death, Bruce Lee remains an inspiring symbol of innovation and determination, with an enduring legacy as the first Asian American global superstar.
David Roberts has spent his career documenting voyages to the most extreme landscapes on earth. In Limits of the Known, he reflects on humanity's--and his own--relationship to exploration and extreme risk. Part memoir and part history, this book tries to make sense of why so many have committed their lives to the desperate pursuit of adventure. What compelled Eric Shipton to return, five times, to the ridges of Mt. Everest, plotting the mountain's most treacherous territory years before Hillary and Tenzing's famous ascent? What drove Bill Stone to dive 3,000 feet underground into North America's deepest cave? And what is the future of adventure in a world we have mapped and trodden from end to end? In the wake of his diagnosis with throat cancer, Roberts seeks answers with new urgency and "penetrating self-analysis" (Booklist).
With numerous black-and-white images and eight pages of color plates, The Lives of Ants provides a state-of-the-art look at what we now know about these fascinating creatures, portraying a world that is rich and full of surprises, and still full of unsolved mysteries. The authors illuminate the world of the ant, shedding light on such topics as the ant's impressive abilities in direction finding and quite amazing ingenuity when it comes to building their nests, finding supplies, or exploiting other members of the animal kingdom. They show, too, that they are capable of aggression and violence, which can embroil entire colonies in fratricidal or matricidal war. Readers also discover that ants are walking bundles of secretory glands (they have about forty of them), which enable them to emit from ten to twenty different pheromones, each of which has its own "meaning." In addition, ants can emit sound signals, made of a high-pitched squeak, and they can even dance, though not as intricately or as well as bees.
A richly illustrated look at the natural history of moths
Moths are among the most underappreciated insects on the planet, yet they make up the majority of some 180,000 known species of Lepidoptera. Filled with striking images, The Lives of Moths looks at the remarkable world of these amazing and beautiful creatures. While butterflies may get more press than moths, Andrei Sourakov and Rachel Warren Chadd reveal that the lopsided attention is unjust. Moths evolved long before butterflies, and their importance cannot be overestimated. From the tiniest leaf miners to exotic hawk moths that are two hundred to three hundred times larger, these creatures are often crucial pollinators of flowers, including many that bloom at night or in twilight. The authors show that moths and their larvae are the main food source for thousands of animal species, and interact with other insect, plant, and vertebrate communities in ecosystems around the world, from tropical forests and alpine meadows to deserts and wetlands. The authors also explore such topics as evolution, life cycles, methods of communication, and links to humans. A feast of remarkable facts and details, The Lives of Moths will appeal to insect lovers everywhere.
Living on the Wind is a magisterial work of nature writing from author Scott Weidensaul.
Bird migration is the world's only true unifying natural phenomenon, stitching the continents together in a way that even the great weather systems fail to do. Scott Weidensaul follows awesome kettles of hawks over the Mexican coastal plains, bar-tailed godwits that hitchhike on gale winds 7,000 miles nonstop across the Pacific from Alaska to New Zealand, and myriad songbirds whose numbers have dwindled so dramatically in recent decades. Migration paths form an elaborate global web that shows serious signs of fraying, and Weidensaul delves into the tragedies of habitat degradation and deforestation with an urgency that brings to life the vast problems these miraculous migrants now face.
A lyrical tribute to the diversity of trees, their physical beauty, their special characteristics and uses, and their ever-evolving meanings Since the beginnings of history trees have served humankind in countless useful ways, but our relationship with trees has many dimensions beyond mere practicality. Trees are so entwined with human experience that diverse species have inspired their own stories, myths, songs, poems, paintings, and spiritual meanings. Some have achieved status as religious, cultural, or national symbols. In this beautifully illustrated volume Fiona Stafford offers intimate, detailed explorations of seventeen common trees, from ash and apple to pine, oak, cypress, and willow. The author also pays homage to particular trees, such as the fabled Ankerwyke Yew, under which Henry VIII courted Anne Boleyn, and the spectacular cherry trees of Washington, D.C. Stafford discusses practical uses of wood past and present, tree diseases and environmental threats, and trees' potential contributions toward slowing global climate change. Brimming with unusual topics and intriguing facts, this book celebrates trees and their long, long lives as our inspiring and beloved natural companions.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Wager comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction "with all the pace and excitement of a movie thriller"(The New York Times) that unravels the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century--the story of the legendary British explorer who ventured into the Amazon jungle in search of a fabled civilization and never returned.
"[Grann is] one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."--New York Magazine After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, acclaimed writer David Grann set out to determine what happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest for the Lost City of Z. For centuries Europeans believed the Amazon, the world's largest rain forest, concealed the glittering kingdom of El Dorado. Thousands had died looking for it, leaving many scientists convinced that the Amazon was truly inimical to humankind. In 1925 Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization, hoping to make one of the most important discoveries in history. Then he vanished. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called "The Lost City of Z." In this masterpiece, journalist David Grann interweaves the spellbinding stories of Fawcett's quest for "Z" and his own journey into the deadly jungle.
Look for David Grann's latest bestselling book, The Wager!
"[Grann is] one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."--New York Magazine After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, acclaimed writer David Grann set out to determine what happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest for the Lost City of Z. For centuries Europeans believed the Amazon, the world's largest rain forest, concealed the glittering kingdom of El Dorado. Thousands had died looking for it, leaving many scientists convinced that the Amazon was truly inimical to humankind. In 1925 Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization, hoping to make one of the most important discoveries in history. Then he vanished. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called "The Lost City of Z." In this masterpiece, journalist David Grann interweaves the spellbinding stories of Fawcett's quest for "Z" and his own journey into the deadly jungle.
Look for David Grann's latest bestselling book, The Wager!
"What a wilderness walk for a man to take alone!...Here was traveling of the old heroic kind over the unaltered face of nature." -Henry David Thoreau Over a period of three years, Thoreau made three trips to the largely unexplored woods of Maine. He climbed mountains, paddled a canoe by moonlight, and dined on cedar beer, hemlock tea and moose lips. Taking notes constantly, Thoreau was just as likely to turn his observant eye to the habits and languages of the Abnaki Indians or the arduous life of the logger as he was to the workings of nature. He acutely observed the rivers, lakes, mountains, wolves, moose, and stars in the dark sky. He also told of nights sitting by the campfire, and of meeting men who communicated with each other by writing on the trunks of trees. In The Maine Woods, Thoreau captured a wilder side of America and revealed his own adventurous spirit.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Reclaiming crops and culture on Turtle Island
Manomin, more commonly known by its English misnomer "wild rice," is the only cereal grain native to Turtle Island (North America). Long central to Indigenous societies and diets, this complex carbohydrate is seen by the Anishinaabeg as a gift from Creator, a "spirit berry" that has allowed the Nation to flourish for generations. Manomin: Caring for Ecosystems and Each Other offers a community-engaged analysis of the under-studied grain, weaving together the voices of scholars, chefs, harvesters, engineers, poets, and artists to share the plant's many lessons about the living relationships between all forms of creation.
Grounded in Indigenous methodologies and rendered in full colour, Manomin reveals and examines our interconnectedness through a variety of disciplines--history, food studies, ethnobotany, ecology--and forms of expression, including recipes, stories, and photos. A powerful contribution to conversations on Indigenous food security and food sovereignty, the collection explores historic uses of Manomin, contemporary challenges to Indigenous aquaculture, and future possibilities for restoring the sacred crop as a staple.
In our time of ecological crisis, Manomin teaches us how to live well in the world, sustaining our relations with each other, our food, and our waterways.
"Five thousand years of history were here and the pattern was still unchanged." During the years he spent among the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq, Wilfred Thesiger came to understand, admire and share a way of life that had endured for many centuries. Travelling from village to village by canoe, he won acceptance by dispensing medicines and treating the sick. In this account of his time there, he pays tribute to the hospitality, loyalty, courage and endurance of the people, describes their impressive reed houses, the waterways and lakes teeming with wildlife, the herding of buffalo and hunting of wild boar, moments of tragedy and moments of pure comedy, all in vivid, engaging detail. Untouched by the modern world until recently, these independent people, their way of life and their surroundings suffered widespread destruction under the regime of Saddam Hussein. Wilfred Thesiger's magnificent account of his time spent among them is a moving testament to their now threatened culture and the landscape they inhabit.
First published in 1935 by Kegan Paul of London, this rare and unusual book takes us into the virtually unknown world of Mongolia, a country historically cloaked in secrecy which has only recently opened up to the west.
Haslund takes us to the lost city of Karakota in the Gobi desert and meets the Bodgo Gegen, a god-king Mongolia similar to the Dalai Lama of Tibet;
Dambin Jansang, the dreaded warlord of the Black Gobi. Most incredibly, he writes about the Hi-mori, an "airhorse" that flies through the sky and carries with it the sacred stone of Chintamani. And there is plenty of just plain adventure: camel caravans; initiation into Shamanic societies; reincarnated warlords; and the violent birth of modern Mongolia. This rare and exciting book is now back in print!
Haslund takes us to the lost city of Karakota in the Gobi desert and meets the Bodgo Gegen, a god-king Mongolia similar to the Dalai Lama of Tibet;
Dambin Jansang, the dreaded warlord of the Black Gobi. Most incredibly, he writes about the Hi-mori, an "airhorse" that flies through the sky and carries with it the sacred stone of Chintamani. And there is plenty of just plain adventure: camel caravans; initiation into Shamanic societies; reincarnated warlords; and the violent birth of modern Mongolia. This rare and exciting book is now back in print!
Goethe's influential text, newly illustrated with stunning color photographs.
The Metamorphosis of Plants, published in 1790, was Goethe's first major attempt to describe what he called in a letter to a friend "the truth about the how of the organism." Inspired by the diversity of flora he found on a journey to Italy, Goethe sought a unity of form in diverse structures. He came to see in the leaf the germ of a plant's metamorphosis--"the true Proteus who can hide or reveal himself in all vegetal forms"--from the root and stem leaves to the calyx and corolla, to pistil and stamens. With this short book--123 numbered paragraphs, in the manner of the great botanist Linnaeus--Goethe aimed to tell the story of botanical forms in process, to present, in effect, a motion picture of the metamorphosis of plants. This MIT Press edition of The Metamorphosis of Plants illustrates Goethe's text (in an English translation by Douglas Miller) with a series of stunning and starkly beautiful color photographs as well as numerous line drawings. It is the most completely and colorfully illustrated edition of Goethe's book ever published. It demonstrates vividly Goethe's ideas of transformation and interdependence, as well as the systematic use of imagination in scientific research--which influenced thinkers ranging from Darwin to Thoreau and has much to teach us today about our relationship with nature.
The Metamorphosis of Plants, published in 1790, was Goethe's first major attempt to describe what he called in a letter to a friend "the truth about the how of the organism." Inspired by the diversity of flora he found on a journey to Italy, Goethe sought a unity of form in diverse structures. He came to see in the leaf the germ of a plant's metamorphosis--"the true Proteus who can hide or reveal himself in all vegetal forms"--from the root and stem leaves to the calyx and corolla, to pistil and stamens. With this short book--123 numbered paragraphs, in the manner of the great botanist Linnaeus--Goethe aimed to tell the story of botanical forms in process, to present, in effect, a motion picture of the metamorphosis of plants. This MIT Press edition of The Metamorphosis of Plants illustrates Goethe's text (in an English translation by Douglas Miller) with a series of stunning and starkly beautiful color photographs as well as numerous line drawings. It is the most completely and colorfully illustrated edition of Goethe's book ever published. It demonstrates vividly Goethe's ideas of transformation and interdependence, as well as the systematic use of imagination in scientific research--which influenced thinkers ranging from Darwin to Thoreau and has much to teach us today about our relationship with nature.
A rich and surprising exploration of the intelligence of bees
Most of us are aware of the hive mind--the power of bees as an amazing collective. But do we know how uniquely intelligent bees are as individuals? In The Mind of a Bee, Lars Chittka draws from decades of research, including his own pioneering work, to argue that bees have remarkable cognitive abilities. He shows that they are profoundly smart, have distinct personalities, can recognize flowers and human faces, exhibit basic emotions, count, use simple tools, solve problems, and learn by observing others. They may even possess consciousness. Taking readers deep into the sensory world of bees, Chittka illustrates how bee brains are unparalleled in the animal kingdom in terms of how much sophisticated material is packed into their tiny nervous systems. He looks at their innate behaviors and the ways their evolution as foragers may have contributed to their keen spatial memory. Chittka also examines the psychological differences between bees and the ethical dilemmas that arise in conservation and laboratory settings because bees feel and think. Throughout, he touches on the fascinating history behind the study of bee behavior. Exploring an insect whose sensory experiences rival those of humans, The Mind of a Bee reveals the singular abilities of some of the world's most incredible creatures.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A harrowing, moving first-person account of the 1972 plane crash that left its survivors stranded on a glacier in the Andes--and one man's quest to lead them all home--by Nando Parrado, a subject of the Oscar-nominated film Society of the Snow Featuring a new introduction by the author to commemorate of the fiftieth anniversary of the crash "In straightforward, staggeringly honest prose, Nando Parrado tells us what it took--and what it actually felt like--to survive high in the Andes for seventy-two days after having been given up for dead."--Jon Krakauer, author of Into the Wild "In the first hours there was nothing, no fear or sadness, just a black and perfect silence." Nando Parrado was unconscious for three days before he woke to discover that the plane carrying his rugby team to Chile had crashed deep in the Andes, killing many of his teammates, his mother, and his sister. Stranded with the few remaining survivors on a lifeless glacier and thinking constantly of his father's grief, Parrado resolved that he could not simply wait to die. So Parrado, an ordinary young man with no particular disposition for leadership or heroism, led an expedition up the treacherous slopes of a snowcapped mountain and across forty-five miles of frozen wilderness in an attempt to save his friends' lives as well as his own. Decades after the disaster, Parrado tells his story with remarkable candor and depth of feeling. Miracle in the Andes, a first-person account of the crash and its aftermath, is more than a riveting tale of true-life adventure; it is a revealing look at life at the edge of death and a meditation on the limitless redemptive power of love.
The moth snowstorm, a phenomenon Michael McCarthy remembers from his boyhood when moths "would pack a car's headlight beams like snowflakes in a blizzard," is a distant memory. Wildlife is being lost, not only in the wholesale extinctions of species but also in the dwindling of those species that still exist. The Moth Snowstorm is unlike any other book about climate change today; combining the personal with the polemical, it is a manifesto rooted in experience, a poignant memoir of the author's first love: nature. McCarthy traces his adoration of the natural world to when he was seven, when the discovery of butterflies and birds brought sudden joy to a boy whose mother had just been hospitalized and whose family life was deteriorating. He goes on to record in painful detail the rapid dissolution of nature's abundance in the intervening decades, and he proposes a radical solution to our current problem: that we each recognize in ourselves the capacity to love the natural world. Arguing that neither sustainable development nor ecosystem services have provided adequate defense against pollution, habitat destruction, species degradation, and climate change, McCarthy asks us to consider nature as an intrinsic good and an emotional and spiritual resource, capable of inspiring joy, wonder, and even love. An award-winning environmental journalist, McCarthy presents a clear, well-documented picture of what he calls "the great thinning" around the world, while interweaving the story of his own early discovery of the wilderness and a childhood saved by nature. Drawing on the truths of poets, the studies of scientists, and the author's long experience in the field, The Moth Snowstorm is part elegy, part ode, and part argument, resulting in a passionate call to action.
Mountain biking presents unique challenges, and noted expert Joe Friel addresses them all in his latest book. Covering every aspect of training, he helps riders maximize their experience and minimize problems.
An anthology of mountain-inspired literature. It features folktales, myths, essays, travelogues, and poetry of both ancient and modern times. It features the mountain experiences that range from the altitude-induced vision of Simon Bolivar atop Mount Chimborazo, to a Victorian-era pleasure trip in the Alps.
A great hero of America's conservation movement, John Muir (1838-1914) was active in establishing the Yosemite Valley as a protected national park and in awakening interest in the importance of safeguarding natural resources. In this tribute to the grandeur of the Sierras, Muir recounts his journeys by foot through the Yosemite Valley, Mount Whitney, the famed sequoia forests, King's Canyon, and other wilderness areas.
With a natural historian's keen eye for flora, geography, and geology, Muir describes glaciers, lakes, trees, and the daily lives of the region's inhabitants. His lyrical narrative, imbued with the deepest understanding and respect for nature, examines the ways in which natural forces shape the landscape and the effects of the changing seasons. The zesty travelogue is accompanied by splendid illustrations of maps, plants, and animals. Originally published in 1894, The Mountains of California continues to delight and inform readers.
With a natural historian's keen eye for flora, geography, and geology, Muir describes glaciers, lakes, trees, and the daily lives of the region's inhabitants. His lyrical narrative, imbued with the deepest understanding and respect for nature, examines the ways in which natural forces shape the landscape and the effects of the changing seasons. The zesty travelogue is accompanied by splendid illustrations of maps, plants, and animals. Originally published in 1894, The Mountains of California continues to delight and inform readers.
With 50 new paintings and entries for the collective nouns of animals, birds and insects, artist and author Steve Palin presents a fresh take on his best-selling A Murmuration of Starlings.
Some are beautifully illustrated classics: a pride of lions, even a raft of otters perhaps - but what about a business of ferrets or a descent of woodpeckers?
Many collective nouns have their roots in medieval times, in particular applied to those creatures hunted by man, and subject to the etiquette of their proper group names.
This elegant hardback gift book will appeal to all those with a fascination for the English language, those who want the answers for quizzes and crossword puzzles, and those with an interest in animals and birds.
Some are beautifully illustrated classics: a pride of lions, even a raft of otters perhaps - but what about a business of ferrets or a descent of woodpeckers?
Many collective nouns have their roots in medieval times, in particular applied to those creatures hunted by man, and subject to the etiquette of their proper group names.
This elegant hardback gift book will appeal to all those with a fascination for the English language, those who want the answers for quizzes and crossword puzzles, and those with an interest in animals and birds.
In the summer of 1869, John Muir made his first long trip to Yosemite. When a friend offered him the chance to accompany his flock of sheep and a shepherd to the high pastures of the Sierra, it was an opportunity Muir could not resist. My First Summer in the Sierra is the journal he kept of those summer days, of the wildlife and plant life, and of his explorations into the magical places of the mountains.
John Muir's beloved adventure in the Sierra reissued to entertain, encourage, and inspire contemporary naturalists. Considered one of the patron saints of twentieth-century environmental activity, John Muir's appeal to modern readers is that he not only explored the American West but also fought for its preservation. My First Summer in the Sierra is Muir's account of his adventures and observations while working as a shepherd in the Yosemite Valley, which later became Yosemite National Park as a direct result of Muir's writings and activism. Muir's heartfelt and often humorous descriptions of his first summer spent in the Sierra will captivate and inspire long-time fans and novice naturalists alike.
In this beautifully illustrated book that's Song of Achilles meets Secret Life of Trees, readers will discover the plants cultivated by the Greek Gods-many of which can still be experimented with today-for a myriad of uses.
In Greek mythology, plants were used for tools, intoxication, warfare, food, medicine, magic, and rituals. When Prometheus stole fire from the Olympian gods and gave it to mankind, he hid it in a stalk of giant fennel. Ancient Greeks waiting to question the oracles were given cannabis as part of their cleansing rituals. A quince fruit started the Trojan war. The goddess Demeter was so distraught when Hades kidnapped her daughter that she caused winter to blanket the earth, killing all plants. Mythic Plants focuses on how the ancient Greeks used plants in their lives and loves and conquests--some of which we can still use. Includes tips throughout for bringing these ancient plants into your garden.
"Lively writing about science and nature depends less on the offering of good answers, I think, than on the offering of good questions," said David Quammen in the original introduction to Natural Acts. For more than two decades, he has stuck to that credo. In this updated version of curiosity leads him from New Mexico to Romania, from the Congo to the Amazon, asking questions about mosquitoes (what are their redeeming merits?), dinosaurs (how did they change the life of a dyslexic Vietnam vet?), and cloning (can it save endangered species?).
This revised and expanded edition best-loved "Natural Acts" columns, which first appeared in Outside magazine in the early 1980s, and includes recent pieces such as "Planet of Weeds," an influential new Natural Acts is an eye-opening journey that will please both Quammen fans and newcomers to his work.
A new pathway to a thriving future rooted in our relationships with the living world and each other
Reimagining environmentalism as an act of doing and a way of being in the world and climate action as a shared goal, not an individual burden, Natural Connection draws on the legacies and ongoing resistance of marginalised communities around the globe to guide us toward a more sustainable relationship with the living world. Joycelyn Longdon defines six conceptual roots--rage, imagination, innovation, theory, healing and care--that can help us to transform environmentalism from the ground up and cultivate the natural connection so essential to creating a safe and thriving shared future. Rage is a necessary response to systems of oppression but impedes progress if it isn't transformed into action. Imagination is essential to resisting the logics of colonialism and exploitation. Theory is a means of building collective wisdom. Longdon illuminates these and other principles, practices and teachings, highlighting the voices and stories of marginalised communities who have revolutionized the landscape of environmentalism, such as the Afro-Indigenous Brazilian quilombolas who fought to defend their ancestral lands, Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine of Nigeria who lost their lives in the struggle against environmental destruction by fossil fuel giants, and the women of the Indian Himalayas who sparked a mass movement of nonviolent protest against deforestation by hugging trees. Along the way, this lyrical, provocative and deeply humane book interweaves powerfully resonant ideas from writers, philosophers, environmentalists, activists and other changemakers, such as Rebecca Solnit, Poppy Okotcha, Robert Macfarlane, Katherine May and Olafur Eliasson. Rooted in the profound knowledge that we only have each other and the earth itself, Natural Connection cultivates hope in growing a better future together.
This lusciously written grand tour of the realm of the senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica and a professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kisses and tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planet Earth. "Delightful. . . . Gives the reader the richest possible feeling of the worlds the senses take in." --The New York Times A Natural History of the Senses is a vibrant celebration of our ability to smell, taste, hear, touch, and see. Poet, pilot, naturalist, journalist, essayist, explorer, Diane Ackerman weaves together scientific fact with lore, history, and voluptuous description. The resulting work is a startling and enchanting account of how human beings experience and savor the world. It asks and answers such questions as: How do perfumers know which scents allure? Why does music move us? How did kissing on the mouth begin? What is our craving for chocolate? It illuminates the phenomenon of pheromones and looks into the question of whether they control us. Incorporated in its superb reporting and splendid prose are fascinating facts: Humans have about 10,000 taste buds, cows 25,000. What are they tasting, and what are we missing? It probes such everyday mysteries as why leaves turn color in the fall and why we see them in color; and what it is that causes lovers to feel delight when they touch. A Natural History of the Senses is at once an ingenious exploration of the physical processes underlying our perceptions and an eloquent ode to life.
An essential and timely collection of wise and compelling essays from one of the longtime leaders of the sustainable agriculture movement in America. Wes Jackson, "a well-known and admired advocate for sustainability especially as it relates to agriculture, has the rare ability to transform his convictions into captivating prose . . . Jackson's thoughts are still as significant and profound as they were nearly 20 years ago" (Publishers Weekly) and can teach us many things about the land, soil, and conservation, but what most resonates is this: The ecosphere is self-regulating, and as often as we attempt to understand it, we are not its builders, and our manuals will often be faulty. The only responsible way to learn the nuances of the land is to study the soil and vegetation in their natural state and pass this knowledge on to future generations. "[A] small book rich in ideas" (The New York Times Book Review), Nature as Measure collects Jackson's essays from Altars of Unhewn Stone and Becoming Native to This Place, presenting ideas of land conservation and education that are written from the point of view of a man who has practiced what he's preached and proven that it is possible to partially restore much of the land that we've ravaged. Wes Jackson lays the foundation for a new farming economy, grounded in nature's principles and located in dying small towns and rural communities. Exploding the tenets of industrial agriculture, Jackson seeks to integrate food production with nature in a way that sustains both. His longtime friend Wendell Berry provides an informative, contextual Introduction. "For those concerned about what will be left and how many billion will be starving in twenty years, this is a must read." --Register of the Kentucky Historical Society "A good introduction to a thinker whose ideas on agriculture are radical both in their technical approach to food production as well as in terms of the economic, social, and cultural context within which it is practiced." --Review of Radical Political Economics
"As long as humans have been around, we've had to move in order to survive." So arises that most universal and elemental human longing for home, and so begins Greta Gaard's exploration of just precisely what it means to be at home in the world. Gaard journeys through the deserts of southern California, through the High Sierras, the Wind River Mountains, and the Northern Cascades, through the wildlands and waterways of Washington and Minnesota, through snow season, rain season, mud season, and lilac season, yet her essays transcend mere description of natural beauty to investigate the interplay between place and identity. Gaard examines the earliest environments of childhood and the relocations of adulthood, expanding the feminist insight that identity is formed through relationships to include relationships to place. "Home" becomes not a static noun, but an active verb: the process of cultivating the connections with place and people that shape who we become. Striving to create a sense of home, Gaard involves herself socially, culturally, and ecologically within her communities, discovering that as she works to change her environment, her environment changes her. As Gaard investigates environmental concerns such as water quality, oil spills, or logging, she touches on their parallels to community issues such as racism, classism, and sexism, uncovering the dynamic interaction by which "humans, like other life on earth, both shape and are shaped by our environments." While maintaining an understanding of the complex systems and structures that govern communities and environments, Gaard's writing delves deeper to reveal the experiences and realities we displace through euphemisms or stereotypes, presenting issues such as homelessness or hunger with compelling honesty and sensitivity. Gaard's essays form a quest narrative, expressing the process of letting go that is an inherent part of an impermanent life. And when a person is broken, in the aftermath of that letting go, it is a place that holds the pieces together. As long as we are forced to move--by economics, by war, by colonialism--the strategies we possess to make and redefine home are imperative to our survival, and vital in the shaping of our very identities.