His book COMFORTABLY UNAWARE introduces us to our responsibility in global depletion, and encourages us to think about our food choices with every bite.

    Congress declared the locust “the single greatest impediment to the settlement of the country between Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains.” Throughout the nineteenth century, swarms of locusts regularly swept across the American continent, turning noon into dusk, devastating farm communities, and bringing trains to a halt. The outbreaks subsided in the 1890s, and then, suddenly—and mysteriously—the Rocky Mountain locust vanished. A century later, entomologist Jeffrey Lockwood vowed to discover why.Locust is the story of how one insect shaped the history of the western United States. A compelling personal narrative drawing on historical accounts and modern science, this beautifully written book brings to life the cultural, economic, and political forces at work in America in the late nineteenth century, even as it solves one of the greatest extinction mysteries of our time.

    First published in 1982.

    A shot rang out, and the Redcoats replied with a devastating volley.But the day that started so well for the king's troops would end in catastrophe: seventy-three British soldiers dead, two hundred wounded, and the survivors chased back into Boston by the angry colonists. Drawing on diaries, letters, official documents, and memoirs, William H. Hallahan vividly captures the drama of those tense twenty-four hours and shows how they decided the fate of two nations.

    Yet this enigmatic animal is more complex than the legends that surround it. With a shrinking wilderness and global warming, the future of the wolverine is uncertain. The Wolverine Way reveals the natural history of this species and the forces that threaten its future, engagingly told by Douglas Chadwick, who volunteered with the Glacier Wolverine Project. This five-year study in Glacier National Park – which involved dealing with blizzards, grizzlies, sheer mountain walls, and other daily challenges to survival – uncovered key missing information about the wolverine’s habitat, social structure and reproduction habits. Wolverines, according to Chadwick, are the land equivalent of polar bears in regard to the impacts of global warming. The plight of wolverines adds to the call for wildlife corridors that connect existing habitat that is proposed by the Freedom to Roam coalition.

    Essays. Preservationist. Inventor. Lobbyist. John Muir was many things at once, and he is California's best-known icon- so much so that his image was chosen to appear on the new state quarter. But the best way to know the man who founded the Sierra Club and helped create Yosemite National Park is to read his own words. ESSENTIAL MUIR is the second volume in the California Legacy Essentials Collection. Taking the best of John Muir's writings on nature- in which he waxes ecstatic even as he accurately describes the scientific attributes of a flower-as well as his thoughts on religion and society, this book presents a fresh look at one of California's greatest literary figures. His love for nature was so powerful-and his description of it so compelling-it still inspires us a century later.

    From their ability to adapt, to their understanding of the strength of networks and mutually beneficial relationships, they put us to shame with their natural ability to thrive, even when they find themselves in less than ideal environments. This beautifully illustrated book brings together sixty universal life lessons taken from the infinite wisdom of trees. We learn about the importance of asking for help when you need it from elms, who call in an army of parasitic wasps when they're being attacked by caterpillars. And acacias, who look out for each other by producing a gas when they're being nibbled on by herbivores to warn their nearby friends, while the Chinese pistache show us the power in pacing yourself, and why slow growth can lead to stronger foundations.From the importance of patience, to drawing strength from others, to weathering the storm, to dealing with life's most persistent irritants - this is a celebration of the heroes of the forest, and an essential companion for dipping into when we need a little inspiration.

    Gould is planning to bring down the curtain on his nearly thirty-year stint as a monthly essayist for "Natural History" magazine, the longest-running series of scientific essays in history. This, then, is the next-to-last essay collection from one of the most acclaimed and widely read scientists of our time. In this work of twenty-three essays, selected by "Booklist" as one of the top ten science and technology books of 2000, Gould covers topics as diverse as episodes in the birth of paleontology to lessons from Britain's four greatest Victorian naturalists. The Lying Stones of Marrakech presents the richness and fascination of the various lives that have fueled the enterprise of science and opened our eyes to a world of unexpected wonders.