Rare Book

    In Filters Against Folly, Garrett Hardin shows how the filters of literacy—understanding what words really mean, numeracy—being able to quantify information, and ecolacy—assessment of complex interactions over time, can allow us to make sensible judgments about ecological issues.

    Whether they realize it or not, scientists always choose sides. The Dialectical Biologist explores this political nature of scientific inquiry, advancing its argument within the framework of Marxist dialectic. These essays stress the concepts of continual change and codetermination between organism and environment, part and whole, structure and process, science and politics. Throughout, this book questions our accepted definitions and biases, showing the self-reflective nature of scientific activity within society.

    In an upbeat and original way of thinking Quammen writes about beetles, bats, crows, snakes and other interesting animals.

    The only thing I know is that alcohol is a stronger power than the love of children. It’s a poison, and we are a broken people. We suffer enough inside, and therefore we understand each other.”—Resident of Grassy Narrows "A work of luminous compassion and rigorous analysis. . . . Should be required reading . . . for anyone interested in the bonds of community that make people human." —M.T.  Kelly, Toronto Globe and Mail Grassy Narrows is a small Ojibwa village in northwestern Ontario, Canada. It first captured national attention in 1970, when mercury pollution was discovered in the adjacent English-Wabigoon River. In the course of the assessment of environmental damage, an even more compelling tragedy came to light. For in little more than a decade, the Indian people had begun to self-destruct. This powerful book documents the human costs of massive and extraordinarily rapid change in a people’s way of life. When well-intentioned bureaucrats relocated the Grassy Narrows band to a new reserve in 1963, the results were the unraveling of the tribe’s social fabric and a sharp deterioration in their personal morale – dramatically reflected in Shkilnyk’s statistics on violent death, illness, and family breakdown. The book explores the origins and causes of the suffering in the community life and describes the devastating impacts of mercury contamination on the health and livelihood of the Indian people. In essence, this is an in-depth and comprehensive study of the forces and pressures that can rend a community apart. As such it is of interest not only to those particularly concerned with the fate of aboriginal peoples on the continent but also to those more broadly concerned with human collective response to unprecedented stress.

    

    A comprehensive field guide, fully illustrated with color photographs, to the trees, wildflowers, fishes, insects, birds, and other natural wonders of North America's rivers, lakes, and swamps.

    Beginning with a simple definition of environmentalists as "those who confess a concern for the non-human," he reviews what is inherent in industrial societies to make them so resistant to the concerns of environmentalists. His analysis draws on citing such diverse sources as Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, and TIME, and examines how we tend to think about the world and how we might think about it.The book does not offer solutions to environmental questions, but it does offer the hope that there can be new ways of thinking and flexibility in human/environmental relations. Although humans seem alienated from our the natural world, we can develop a new understanding of self in the world.'The second edition has a new preface and an epilogue in which Evernden analyses the latest environmental catch-phrase: sustainable development.

    Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

    Gruchow recorded his thoughts, observations, and experiences in each season on the prairie, eventually compiling them into this moving chronicle of a sometimes harsh but always stunning landscape. Be it the bitter winds of winter, the return of the geese in spring, or the first pasque flower, the cycles of growth on the prairie have the power to move and inspire lovers of nature.

    Meier delivered a fascinating paper at the 3rd World Wilderness Congress in Inverness, Scotland. "Wilderness and the Search for the Soul of Modern Man" addressed not only the tragedy of our vanishing natural wilderness and the need to preserve it, but also the necessity of preserving man's 'inner wilderness.' A Testament to the Wilderness consists of Meier's original address and thoughtful and provocative responses by nine concerned writers from around the world. (Laurens van der Post, Henderson, Wheelwright ...)

    Text and illustrations with movable flaps introduce the characteristics of a variety of marine animals whose shape and/or coloration helps camouflage them from their enemies.

    The work traces developments in each of these somewhat isolated areas and identifies, where possible, parallels or convergences among them. Dr McIntosh describes how ecology emerged as a science in the context of nineteenth-century natural histor