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Argues that the depletion of the world's tropical rainforests has caused irreversible ecological damage. Explores the loss of biodiversity, drastic…
climatic changes, and the uprooting of indigenous populations. Describes the debate about the severity of these problems, especially in British Columbia and the Amazon. For senior high and older readersThe opposing viewpoints in this volume concern the environment. Scientists debate the causes and effects of global warming, whether it…
poses a serious threat to human life, and how to preserve the rainforests that are endangered by slowly rising temperatures. For junior and senior high and older readersKatakis defines stewardship as a way of seeing, thinking, and acting on this planet with underpinnings of honor, duty, and…
courage. Reflecting this idea are essays by thirty authors, including Wendell Berry, Gerald Vizenor, and Gary Paul Nabhan. In her contribution, Mary Catherine Bateson discusses the integral part death plays in both forests and families. Some strong languageEssays illustrating the need for humans to learn to live in an environmentally sensitive manner. By authors such as Edward…
Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and Onondaga chief Oren Lyons, the essays are grouped in three sections. The first depicts the current state of nature, the second describes the impact of growth-driven economics and overpopulation, and the third offers some possible solutionsBilled a book for Walden Woods, this collection of essays was compiled to raise money to protect the development-threatened woods…
made famous by Henry Thoreau. The concerned authors include a number of celebrities such as Robert Redford, Cesar Chavez, Tom Hanks, Jimmy Carter, Wallace Stegner, Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley, and Edward Kennedy. They discuss either Walden Woods or other environmental problemsAnticosti: 450 millions d'années de vie
Par Mathieu-Robert Sauvé. 2023
Île d'une beauté à couper le souffle, véritable joyau québécois dans le golfe du Saint-Laurent, Anticosti est un territoire immense…
qui fascine aussi bien les amants de la nature que les chercheurs de ce monde. Son écosystème original en fait un site d'exception. À l'été 2022, dans la foulée de la candidature d'Anticosti pour intégrer la liste du patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO, Mathieu-Robert Sauvé a parcouru l'île en long et en large pour nous la faire découvrir au-delà de ses paysages de carte postale. Au fil des entrevues qu'il a réalisées auprès des scientifiques et des insulaires, il nous dévoile l'épopée fascinante qui a mené tant de géologues, de botanistes, de biologistes et nombre d'experts à se passionner pour cet endroit uniqueOn Borrowed Time: North America's Next Big Quake
Par Gregor Craigie. 2024
Finalist, Balsillie Prize for Public Policy and Victoria Butler Book PrizeA Globe and Mail Top 100 BookThe Big One and…
what we can do to get ready for it.Mention the word earthquake and most people think of California. But while the Golden State shakes on a regular basis, Washington State, Oregon, and British Columbia are located in a zone that can produce the world’s biggest earthquakes and tsunamis. In the eastern part of the continent, small cities and large, from Ottawa to Montréal to New York City, sit in active earthquake zones. In fact, more than 100-million North Americans live in active seismic zones, many of whom do not realize the risk to their community.One Tiny Bubble: The Story of Our Last Universal Common Ancestor
Par Karen Krossing. 2022
Dispersals: On Plants, Borders, and Belonging
Par Jessica J. Lee. 2024
INSTANT TORONTO STAR BESTSELLERThe prize-winning and bestselling author of Two Trees Make a Forest turns to the lives of plants…
entangled in our human world to explore belonging, displacement, identity, and the truths of our shared futureA seed slips beyond a garden wall. A tree is planted on a precarious border. A shrub is stolen from its culture and its land. What happens when these plants leave their original homes and put down roots elsewhere?The themes in these fourteen essays become invigorating and intimate in Lee’s hands, centering on the lives of plants like seaweed, tangelos, and soy, and their entanglement with our human worlds. Lee explores the rich backstory of cherry trees in Berlin; a tea plant that grows in the Himalayan foothills just southwest of China; the world of algae and wakame, and the journeys they’ve made to reach us.Each of the plants considered in this collection are somehow perceived as being "out of place"—weeds, samples collected through imperial science, crops introduced and transformed by our hand. Lee looks at these plant species in their own context, even when we find them outside of it.Dispersals draws a gorgeous, sprawling map of the diaspora of flora. Combining memoir, history, and scientific research in poetic prose, Jessica J. Lee meditates on the question of how both plants and people come to belong, why both cross borders, and how our futures are more entwined than we might imagine.Birds of New Guinea: Second Edition (Princeton Field Guides #97)
Par Thane K. Pratt, Bruce M. Beehler. 2015
The definitive field guide to the marvelous birds of New GuineaThis is the completely revised edition of the essential field…
guide to the birds of New Guinea. The world's largest tropical island, New Guinea boasts a spectacular avifauna characterized by cassowaries, megapodes, pigeons, parrots, cuckoos, kingfishers, and owlet-nightjars, as well as an exceptionally diverse assemblage of songbirds such as the iconic birds of paradise and bowerbirds. Birds of New Guinea is the only guide to cover all 780 bird species reported in the area, including 366 endemics. Expanding its coverage with 111 vibrant color plates—twice as many as the first edition—and the addition of 635 range maps, the book also contains updated species accounts with new information about identification, voice, habits, and range. A must-have for everyone from ecotourists to field researchers, Birds of New Guinea remains an indispensable guide to the diverse birds of this remarkable region.780 bird species, including 366 found nowhere else111 stunning color plates, twice the number of the first editionExpanded and updated species accounts provide details on identification, voice, habits, and range635 range mapsRevised classification of birds reflects the latest researchTrees of Panama and Costa Rica (Princeton Field Guides #74)
Par Richard Condit, Rolando Pérez, Nefertaris Daguerre. 2011
This is the first field guide dedicated to the diverse tree species of Panama and Costa Rica. Featuring close to…
500 tropical tree species, Trees of Panama and Costa Rica includes superb color photos, abundant color distribution maps, and concise descriptions of key characteristics, making this guide readily accessible to botanists, biologists, and casual nature lovers alike. The invaluable introductory chapters discuss tree diversity in Central America and the basics of tree identification. Family and species accounts are treated alphabetically and describe family size, number of genera and species, floral characteristics, and relative abundance. Color distribution maps supplement the useful species descriptions, and facing-page photographic plates detail bark, leaf, flower, or fruit of the species featured. Helpful appendices contain a full glossary, a comprehensive guide to leaf forms, and a list of families not covered. The only tree guide to cover both Panama and Costa Rica together Covers almost 500 species 438 high-resolution color photos 480 color distribution maps and two general maps Concise and jargon-free descriptions of key characteristics for every species Full glossary and guide to leaf forms includedA sweeping intellectual history of the role of wealth in the church in the last days of the Roman EmpireJesus…
taught his followers that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet by the fall of Rome, the church was becoming rich beyond measure. Through the Eye of a Needle is a sweeping intellectual and social history of the vexing problem of wealth in Christianity in the waning days of the Roman Empire, written by the world's foremost scholar of late antiquity.Peter Brown examines the rise of the church through the lens of money and the challenges it posed to an institution that espoused the virtue of poverty and called avarice the root of all evil. Drawing on the writings of major Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Brown examines the controversies and changing attitudes toward money caused by the influx of new wealth into church coffers, and describes the spectacular acts of divestment by rich donors and their growing influence in an empire beset with crisis. He shows how the use of wealth for the care of the poor competed with older forms of philanthropy deeply rooted in the Roman world, and sheds light on the ordinary people who gave away their money in hopes of treasure in heaven.Through the Eye of a Needle challenges the widely held notion that Christianity's growing wealth sapped Rome of its ability to resist the barbarian invasions, and offers a fresh perspective on the social history of the church in late antiquity.Delphi: A History of the Center of the Ancient World
Par Michael Scott. 2014
A comprehensive narrative history of the ancient world's center, from its founding to its modern rediscoveryThe oracle and sanctuary of…
the Greek god Apollo at Delphi were known as the "omphalos"—the "center" or "navel"—of the ancient world for more than 1,000 years. Individuals, city leaders, and kings came from all over the Mediterranean and beyond to consult Delphi's oracular priestess; to set up monuments to the gods; and to take part in competitions.In this richly illustrated account, Michael Scott covers the history and nature of Delphi, from the literary and archaeological evidence surrounding the site, to its rise as a center of worship, to the constant appeal of the oracle despite her cryptic prophecies. He describes how Delphi became a contested sacred site for Greeks and Romans and a storehouse for the treasures of rival city-states and foreign kings. He also examines the eventual decline of the site and how its meaning and importance have continued to be reshaped.A unique window into the center of the ancient world, Delphi will appeal to general readers, tourists, students, and specialists.Conus of the Southeastern United States and Caribbean
Par Alan J. Kohn. 2014
Conus is the largest genus of animals in the sea, occurring throughout the world's tropical and subtropical oceans and contributing…
significantly to marine biodiversity. The shells of these marine mollusks are prized for their amazing variety and extraordinary beauty. The neurotoxic venoms they produce—injected by a hollow, harpoon-like tooth into prey animals that are then paralyzed and swallowed whole—have a range of pharmaceutical applications, from painkillers to antidepressants. This beautifully illustrated book identifies 53 valid species of the southeastern United States and the Caribbean, a region that supports a diverse but taxonomically challenging group of Conus. Introductory chapters cover the evolution and phylogeny of the genus, and notes on methodology are provided. Detailed species accounts describe key identification features, taxonomy, distribution, ecology, toxicology, life history, and evolutionary relationships. The book includes more than 2,100 photos of shells on 109 splendid color plates; more than 100 additional photos, many depicting live animals in color; and 35 color distribution maps.Identifies 53 valid species—the first reassessment of western Atlantic Conus in more than seventy yearsFeatures more than 2,100 photos of shells on 109 color platesBlends the traditional shell-character approach to identification with cutting-edge shell and radular tooth morphometrics and molecular genetic analysesIncludes color images of live animals as well as color distribution mapsA Written Republic: Cicero's Philosophical Politics
Par Yelena Baraz. 2012
In the 40s BCE, during his forced retirement from politics under Caesar's dictatorship, Cicero turned to philosophy, producing a massive…
and important body of work. As he was acutely aware, this was an unusual undertaking for a Roman statesman because Romans were often hostile to philosophy, perceiving it as foreign and incompatible with fulfilling one's duty as a citizen. How, then, are we to understand Cicero's decision to pursue philosophy in the context of the political, intellectual, and cultural life of the late Roman republic? In A Written Republic, Yelena Baraz takes up this question and makes the case that philosophy for Cicero was not a retreat from politics but a continuation of politics by other means, an alternative way of living a political life and serving the state under newly restricted conditions. Baraz examines the rhetorical battle that Cicero stages in his philosophical prefaces--a battle between the forces that would oppose or support his project. He presents his philosophy as intimately connected to the new political circumstances and his exclusion from politics. His goal--to benefit the state by providing new moral resources for the Roman elite--was traditional, even if his method of translating Greek philosophical knowledge into Latin and combining Greek sources with Roman heritage was unorthodox. A Written Republic provides a new perspective on Cicero's conception of his philosophical project while also adding to the broader picture of late-Roman political, intellectual, and cultural life.The Poetics of Eros in Ancient Greece
Par Claude Calame. 1999
The Poetics of Eros in Ancient Greece offers the first comprehensive inquiry into the deity of sexual love, a power…
that permeated daily Greek life. Avoiding Foucault's philosophical paradigm of dominance/submission, Claude Calame uses an anthropological and linguistic approach to re-create indigenous categories of erotic love. He maintains that Eros, the joyful companion of Aphrodite, was a divine figure around which poets constructed a physiology of desire that functioned in specific ways within a network of social relations. Calame begins by showing how poetry and iconography gave a rich variety of expression to the concept of Eros, then delivers a history of the deity's roles within social and political institutions, and concludes with a discussion of an Eros-centered metaphysics. Calame's treatment of archaic and classical Greek institutions reveals Eros at work in initiation rites and celebrations, educational practices, the Dionysiac theater of tragedy and comedy, and in real and imagined spatial settings. For men, Eros functioned particularly in the symposium and the gymnasium, places where men and boys interacted and where future citizens were educated. The household was the setting where girls, brides, and adult wives learned their erotic roles--as such it provides the context for understanding female rites of passage and the problematics of sexuality in conjugal relations. Through analyses of both Greek language and practices, Calame offers a fresh, subtle reading of relations between individuals as well as a quick-paced and fascinating overview of Eros in Greek society at large.Death to Tyrants!: Ancient Greek Democracy and the Struggle against Tyranny
Par David Teegarden. 2014
Death to Tyrants! is the first comprehensive study of ancient Greek tyrant-killing legislation--laws that explicitly gave individuals incentives to "kill…
a tyrant." David Teegarden demonstrates that the ancient Greeks promulgated these laws to harness the dynamics of mass uprisings and preserve popular democratic rule in the face of anti-democratic threats. He presents detailed historical and sociopolitical analyses of each law and considers a variety of issues: What is the nature of an anti-democratic threat? How would various provisions of the laws help pro-democrats counter those threats? And did the laws work? Teegarden argues that tyrant-killing legislation facilitated pro-democracy mobilization both by encouraging brave individuals to strike the first blow against a nondemocratic regime and by convincing others that it was safe to follow the tyrant killer's lead. Such legislation thus deterred anti-democrats from staging a coup by ensuring that they would be overwhelmed by their numerically superior opponents. Drawing on modern social science models, Teegarden looks at how the institution of public law affects the behavior of individuals and groups, thereby exploring the foundation of democracy's persistence in the ancient Greek world. He also provides the first English translation of the tyrant-killing laws from Eretria and Ilion. By analyzing crucial ancient Greek tyrant-killing legislation, Death to Tyrants! explains how certain laws enabled citizens to draw on collective strength in order to defend and preserve their democracy in the face of motivated opposition.428 AD: An Ordinary Year at the End of the Roman Empire
Par Giusto Traina. 2009
This is a sweeping tour of the Mediterranean world from the Atlantic to Persia during the last half-century of the…
Roman Empire. By focusing on a single year not overshadowed by an epochal event, 428 AD provides a truly fresh look at a civilization in the midst of enormous change--as Christianity takes hold in rural areas across the empire, as western Roman provinces fall away from those in the Byzantine east, and as power shifts from Rome to Constantinople. Taking readers on a journey through the region, Giusto Traina describes the empires' people, places, and events in all their simultaneous richness and variety. The result is an original snapshot of a fraying Roman world on the edge of the medieval era. The result is an original snapshot of a fraying Roman world on the edge of the medieval era. Readers meet many important figures, including the Roman general Flavius Dionysius as he encounters a delegation from Persia after the Sassanids annex Armenia; the Christian ascetic Simeon Stylites as he stands and preaches atop his column near Antioch; the eastern Roman emperor Theodosius II as he prepares to commission his legal code; and Genseric as he is elected king of the Vandals and begins to turn his people into a formidable power. We are also introduced to Pulcheria, the powerful sister of Theodosius, and Galla Placidia, the queen mother of the western empire, as well as Augustine, Pope Celestine I, and nine-year-old Roman emperor Valentinian III. Full of telling details, 428 AD illustrates the uneven march of history. As the west unravels, the east remains intact. As Christianity spreads, pagan ideas and schools persist. And, despite the presence of the forces that will eventually tear the classical world apart, Rome remains at the center, exerting a powerful unifying force over disparate peoples stretched across the Mediterranean.The Last of Its Kind: The Search for the Great Auk and the Discovery of Extinction
Par Gísli Pálsson. 2024
How an iconic bird&’s final days exposed the reality of human-caused extinctionThe great auk is one of the most tragic…
and documented examples of extinction. A flightless bird that bred primarily on the remote islands of the North Atlantic, the last of its kind were killed in Iceland in 1844. Gísli Pálsson draws on firsthand accounts from the Icelanders who hunted the last great auks to bring to life a bygone age of Victorian scientific exploration while offering vital insights into the extinction of species.Pálsson vividly recounts how British ornithologists John Wolley and Alfred Newton set out for Iceland to collect specimens only to discover that the great auks were already gone. At the time, the Victorian world viewed extinction as an impossibility or trivialized it as a natural phenomenon. Pálsson chronicles how Wolley and Newton documented the fate of the last birds through interviews with the men who killed them, and how the naturalists&’ Icelandic journey opened their eyes to the disappearance of species as a subject of scientific concern—and as something that could be caused by humans.Blending a richly evocative narrative with rare, unpublished material as well as insights from ornithology, anthropology, and Pálsson&’s own North Atlantic travels, The Last of Its Kind reveals how the saga of the great auk opens a window onto the human causes of mass extinction.Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America: A Photographic Guide
Par Steve N. Howell. 2012
A complete illustrated guide to these enigmatic seabirdsPetrels, albatrosses, and storm-petrels are among the most beautiful yet least known of…
all the world's birds, living their lives at sea far from the sight of most people. Largely colored in shades of gray, black, and white, these enigmatic and fast-flying seabirds can be hard to differentiate, particularly from a moving boat. Useful worldwide, not just in North America, this photographic guide is based on unrivaled field experience and combines insightful text and hundreds of full-color images to help you identify these remarkable birds.The first book of its kind, this guide features an introduction that explains ocean habitats and the latest developments in taxonomy. Detailed species accounts describe key identification features such as flight manner, plumage variation related to age and molt, seasonal occurrence patterns, and migration routes. Species accounts are arranged into groups helpful for field identification, and an overview of unique identification challenges is provided for each group. The guide also includes distribution maps for regularly occurring species as well as a bibliography, glossary, and appendixes.The first state-of-the-art photographic guide to these enigmatic seabirdsIncludes hundreds of full-color photos throughoutFeatures detailed species accounts that describe flight, plumage, distribution, and moreProvides overviews of ocean habitats, taxonomy, and conservationOffers tips on how to observe and identify birds at sea