Book Description

Like its predecessor, Biogeography, Second Edition, aims to integrate the specialized subdisciplines that threaten to divide the field. It combines ecological and historical perspectives to show how contemporary environments, earth history, and evolutionary processes have shaped the distributions of species and the patterns of biodiversity. It illustrates general patterns and processes using examples from different groups of plants and animals from diverse habitats and geographic regions.

Biogeography, Second Edition, consists of 19 chapters, organized into five sections. The book is beautifully illustrated with hundreds of figures and maps, and contains a glossary and extensive bibliography. Starting from simple facts and principles, and assuming only a rudimentary knowledge of biology, geography, and earth history, the book seeks to explain the relationships between the patterns of plant and animal distributions and the mechanistic processes that have produced them. Throughout, the emphasis is on the interplay between unifying concepts and the evidence that supports or challenges these ideas. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

An excellent introductory approach to Biogeography
This book written by some of the best authors known in the field comprises a quite extensive overall view of biogeography, its fundaments, beginnings, divisions, schools and relatively new applications and inner relations with other sciences.It contains also a copy of the original zoogeographic regions map created by Wallace. This book resembles the whole biogeography curse taught in the Faculty of Sciences of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, UNAM. which is quite exceptional and has the best scientists-profesors in Latin America. If you are looking for a "has it all" biogeography book this one is a must have for undergraduates and graduates students interested in comparative biology, systematics and distributions of taxa within time and space. The review has only four stars for strictly brand new additions of up to date biogeographical information are not included in this edition, yet, but for a three year old book it is a minor problem. ... Read more

Book Description

People of European descent form the bulk of the population in most of the temperate zones of the world - North America, Australia and New Zealand. The military successes of European imperialism are easy to explain; in many cases they were a matter of firearms against spears. But as Alfred Crosby explains in his highly original and fascinating book, the Europeans' displacement and replacement of the native peoples in the temperate zones was more a matter of biology than of military conquest. ... Read more

Reviews (15)

Stimulating and Worthwhile
The Europeans' displacement and replacement of native peoples in the temperate zones were more a result of "superior" biology than military conquest, according to Crosby in this book.

Europe held an unassailable biotic mix that some native peoples and ecosystems could not withstand. This biota fucntioned as a team wherever Europeans took it. European germs swept aside native peoples. Europe's cattle, pigs and horses filled native biotic niches. European weeds and agriculture squeezed out native plants. This biological expansion of Europe created "Neo-Europes" which still function today in North America, Australia, New Zealand and southern South America.

European imperialism often failed or was considerably delayed in areas where Europe's biota could not prevail. In China much the same biota was already present. Africa, the Amazon and southeast Asia were too hot, too fecund and too disease-ridden for Europe's animals, plants and humans. These areas were among the last to be dominated as a result, and then only briefly, when Europe's technology gave temporary edge to its armies.

Biological losers and winners
'Ecological imperialism: The biological expansion of Europe, 900-1900', by A. W. Crosby, is a cogently argued and well written book. The main thesis of the book is that the expansion by Europeans to the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and a few other enclaves (what Crosby calls the Neo-Europes) wouldn't have succeded if the biota the Europeans brought with them had not suceeded. This biota included not only humans, of course, but pathogens, weeds and grasses, and horses, cattle, goats, and pigs, among the most important. Crosby addresses the reasons why this biota was so succesful in the new territories, and concludes that, in general, the climatic regimes there were sufficiently similar to those of its European origins and the indigenous biota was so 'naive' that 'victory' was almost assured to the invaders. To be sure, this is not an original conclusion, but the wealth of data Crosby uses, along with his synthetic power and sense of humor, makes of this book an enjoyable and thought-provoking read. People interested in searching for the biological causes of the successes (and failures!) of Europeans in the world should read this engaging book.

loved it, strongly recommend it
Cogent, thorough, poignant. Masterful expansive work. Enough adjectives -- it was simply a marvellous trip through history of earth and man, both in large strokes and in small detailed case examples.

Eye-opening, well written, and convincing!
This is one of the most revealing books I have ever read. Crosby has made me gasp in awe more times in one paragraph than I have reading most entire books. He explains not only how Eureopean plants, animals, and people are in so many places, but how they got into such a position, what advantages they started out with, which ones they developed, and why they failed in other places.

His thesis is convincing because he gives several examples to prove his point, to show how his theory worked in each of these cases. I wish there were more books that were written so clearly and irrefutably. Written with the power of a true historian yet with the thrill of an action movie, it's a rare combination of skill.

If you liked the subject of Guns, Germs, and Steel, you'll find this book to be even more exciting and easier to read.

Wide-ranging and intriguing
...A fascinating tale about how and why Eurasian plants and animals were able to out-compete the local fauna in most of the rest of the world--Not just the Americas, but in other places as well, such as New Zealand. Many specific examples. It helped re-ignite a long-dormant interest in natural history that I'm still pursuing today. Very readable, and covers the chosen topic in just the right amount of depth. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

The uncomfortable truth
I first learned of this book when I was working as a volunteer fire fighter in Northern California back in 1989. The subject came up one evening and the dinner table polarized between the Park Service/Forestry workers and the "environmentalist" crowd. (I was just helping out because my house was at risk from the fire and didn't fit into either camp.) The environmentalists hated the book while the professional forestry managers tried to explain to them that Chase had a lot of good points. I was curious enough to seek out the book to read and learned a lot. Chase's main point is that you can't have it both ways - if you don't want to manage these areas actively you are going to end up with the destruction of habitat and species you were trying to avoid - and proves his case in detail using the Yellowstone disaster as an example. His more recent book, In a Dark Wood, provides more evidence (including a depressing acount of how the unmanged elk herds in Yellowstone are destroying entire ecosystems...

Why is this guy taken seriously?
Alston Chase's approach to conservation is that the hands-off approach leads to severely damaged ecosystems, and that intensive human management is needed instead. This may very well be true in areas which have known intensive human domination for decades or centuries, but it is certainly not true in wilderness areas or areas of only light human impact like Yellowstone. Chase here is trying to apply a conservation approach which works well elsewhere (such as in wildlife management areas in the eastern U.S.) to Yellowstone, and it just doesn't work. His claim that Yellowstone park is being destroyed because it is being allowed to exist as wilderness is just silly. It's too bad that this viewpoint even has adherents at all. Wilderness has a right to exist for its own sake, and if allowed to do so, it doesn't die, it thrives; if that ecosystem was damaged in the past due to human activities it will heal itself and move toward stasis. Any honest book on conservation biology will drive that point home. Alston Chase's approach would allow for no wilderness, just heavily managed natural areas that are severely altered from what they would be if left alone.

That aside, some of the other asects of this book are also distasteful, such as his gratuitous attacks on the "California Cosmologists", which is his attempt to lump wilderness advocates in with New Agers. He has nothing good to say about the Park Service, and I doubt that if they did start following his prescriptions that he would have anything good to say about them.

An ideological tract
It has been almost 15 years since Chase published this book. Over this time it has become an ideological tract for those who dislike the Park Service. In order to understand this line of argumentation, all serious students of public land politics should read Chase.

Some of his criticisms are valid, but for those seeking a broader and more objective perspective on Yellowstone, more reading needs to be done.

One book that is particularly good, and which comments on the limited number of historical sources Chase used before concluding that early Yellowstone had few large animals, is Paul Schullery's "Searching for Yellowstone." Houghton-Mifflin. 1997.

Here is a footnote written to my review above (Sept. 2003). Almost all the deleterious effects of excessive and unamanged elk in Yellowstone which Chase describes have been eliminated by the reintroduction of the wolf. The size of the elk herds have declined somewhat, but of equal or greater importance, willows and aspen are showing rapid growth rather than decline for the first time in many years.

The wolves keep the elk moving and out of the dangerous zones (for elk) along the creeks where the willows grow. So the vegetation florishes.

God's Playground for Man to Feel in Control
Chase presents an interesting history of Yellowstone National Park and its human destroyers/protectors. Chase shows the reader how good intentions sometimes do pave the way to bad experiences and worse results. Who could have imagined a national park having fences put up to keep wild animals in? Who would have thought that park rangers would decide that the beavers' dams were too destructive? From my own travels, there is still evidence of beavers and their dams, yet at one point this was nill. That's just one example. Wolves were destroyed because they were seen as a horrible threat, yet now wolves have been reintroduced with brand new controversy. When will we stop playing God? Did we ever not play God in this/and other parks? This is a great read for someone who has interest in national parks and the salvation of these "natural lands." Read it with questions forming, and then go find other sources to answer your questions. This is just one person's research/view point, but Chase gives us a lot to consider and look into. When is it right for humans to interfere? Or is it ever right?

Alston Chase Plays God
All you need to know about this book is that Alston Chase has a vendetta against the Park Service. Chase is correct that the Park Service's vision of, and policies for, Yellowstone have changed over time, and have frequently been inconsistent, sometimes silly, and sometimes destructive. But he doesn't grant any leniency for the fact that the earlier, most destructive, policies occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And after all, the Park Service is a government agency - who in their right mind could be surprised that they've made mistakes? Most important, he damns both the early policy of active management and the present policy of letting most things happen naturally. It's clear that no action of the Park Service could ever satisfy Chase, because he doesn't really know what he wants. Chase has no substantive alternative management policy to propose - he's simply one of those annoying people (and we all know some of them) who never have anything helpful to say but are always quick to criticize. ... Read more

Book Description

This book discusses the diversity of mechanisms by which prey avoid attack by predators and questions how such defensive mechanisms have evolved through natural selection. It considers how potential prey avoid detection, how they make themselves unprofitable to attack, how they signal their unprofitability, and how other species have exploited these signals. Using carefully selected examples drawn from a wide range of species and ecosystems, the authors present a critical analysis of the most important published works in the field. Illustrative examples of camouflage, mimicry and warning signals regularly appear in undergraduate ecology textbooks, but these subjects are rarely considered in depth. This book summarizes some of the latest research into these fascinating adaptations, developing mathematical models where appropriate and making recommendations for the most urgently needed outstanding areas of enquiry. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

'right'-ly needed natural history
This book, as all of Prof. Nash's writings, serves as the standard to compare against all others in the growing field of environmental theory and related scholarship. Nash expands upon his codex of natural "rights" in relation to America's foremost natural thinker - Thoreau - in his Afterword to my recently published book "Deep Immersion: Thoreau's Engagement with Water."

thoughtful, intensive, well-written
This is a very informative and crisply written history of environmental thought and politics in the U.S., from John Muir to Peter Singer. It offers a great deal of thoughtful commentary, for example on the gradual shift in focus from tangible benefits for humans (underlying the conservation and national parks movement circa 1900) to inherent rights of nature itself (signalled e.g. by the Endangered Species Act). It's not hard to see that Nash is sympathetic to many of these causes, and clearly this book isn't for folks who prefer to view things in strictly economic terms, but still it is quite well-balanced in tone, and the scholarship is really impressive. I highly recommend it to anyone interested at all in the environmental movement, or American intellectual history generally, or simply looking for some thought-provoking reading. 220 pp., plus 50 pp. of notes. ... Read more

Book Description

Bakkers classic of ecological science now includes threenewchapters on Southern California which make the book more useful thanever.Striking new photographs illustrate the diversity of life, climate, andgeological formation. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A personal guide to California
I did not know what to expect when I was assigned this book to read. Considering myself as someone with a scientific background, I did expect the book to be dry reading because of its subject. As is it turns out, I was pleased to be wrong about that expectation. The author seems to understand the various types of readers. She is enticing enough to keep the non-scientific reader's attention as well as including enough information to satisfy the needs of scientists. What I like about this book is that since I live in an area that borders various ecological communities, I have used this book as my own private, nature guide when I am exploring the beauty that is California.

Required Reading for Californians New and Old
As a naturalist often bored by nature writing, I am stunned by An Island Called California. I first read it two decades ago, and I've just rediscovered it. Bakker's survey of the ecosystems of this massive and diverse state is lyrical, lively, and full of ecological anecdotes. This is the minimum reading to learn what it is we mean when we say "California". Read it. Your eyes will be opened up. Your view of the state will never be the same. Wish I had the money to send a copy to each member of the California state house and senate.

Bakker sees diversity in California landscapes
I've nearly worn out my copy of this book which is a guide to nearly every kind of major natural environment to be found in the Golden State. Bakker describes -- in readable prose -- the animals and plants which make up California wildlands. Her subjects are sometimes as broad as the chaparral-covered hills and sometimes as narrow as a single Joshua Tree. She celebrates life in all its diversity. No reader or traveler to natural California should be without this book. ... Read more

Book Description

Still a revolutionary concept, this Web-enhanced book Living with the Earth: Concepts in Environmental Health Science, Second Edition continues the standard of excellence that earned the first edition the CHOICE award for Outstanding Academic Book in 1999. It incorporates traditional concepts in environmental and health science with new, emerging, and controversial issues associated with environmental threats to human health and ecology. In addition, the Web site, maintained by the author, gives you a technological edge.HERE'S WHAT YOU GET IN TEXT:·Accurate infographic illustrations such as 3-D bar charts, 3-D pie charts, and detailed maps·Tables designed using the most recently available dataHERE'S THE WEB ADVANTAGE:·Words from the World with comments and information from students and professionals around the globe·Live chatroom with the author during the semester·Test bank and study questions giving a thorough understanding of the concepts covered·Microsoft PowerPoint presentation slides in digital formatThe author presents a balanced and objective picture of opposing scientific views on major issues ranging from global warming and the Greenhouse Effect to reproductive problems associated with endocrine disruptors. More than 280 richly detailed graphs, charts, figures, and photographs put the information right at your fingertips. The glossary provides over 300 definitions and a section on acronyms and abbreviations. Kept current via the author's Web site, this is a "living" environmental health book, reflecting the latest information. The Web site is classroom tested, and designed to maximize the use of the Living with the Earth as a text, training tool, or resource for professionals. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Long Overdue Book on a Critical Subject in Biology
This book is long overdue! I highly recommend it to anyone interested in issues of allometry (how characteristics of organisms change with their size), scaling, and how attributes of organisms influence larger scale patterns in ecology and evolution. Scaling is probably the most important problem facing biology and this book is a fabulous launching point to a series of new approaches. The book presents several chapters by several of the leaders in the field - and range from vascular morphology of mammals, physiology, plant physiology and ecology, biomechanics, life-history, ecology and evolutionary biology, and even conservation biology. The long introductory chapter provides a nice introduction, history, and overview of the growing field. Probably the best attribute of the book is the underlying synthesis of biology. Those interested in building linkages between organismal biology, physiology, community ecology, ecology, large scale ecology, or evolutionary biology need to read this book. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Essential reading for understanding "sustainability"
I believe this important book is the first to supply a method for individuals and societies to get a quantitative understanding of what "sustainable" really means. Footprinting allows families, cities, and countries to analyze their "ecological budget", and to learn to live within their fair share of available natural resources. The wonderful cartoons convey key concepts brilliantly, and make a potentially heavy text more fun to read.

Great for the right audience
This is an interesting book. I bought this originally as a gift for my aunt but upon receiving it I decided it was far too technical for her. Its a great book but you need to already have a basic understanding of and interest in sustainability. If you already have this basic understanding then this book is superb - it can help you take that basic understanding to the next level and not just in terms of understanding how local issues fit together but how global issues do. The authgors try in parts of the book to make this whole thing easy and fun but ultimately this is a pretty technical book - getting into things like the environmental impact of a person/community in Norway versus a person/community elsewhere in the world. Really interesting and definitely more complex than the online tools that you can use to measure your individual impact on the world but again, you need to really be interested in the subject of sustainability to enjoy this book. Lots of "meat" in here to chew on, now a quick read by any means.

A book that can change your life.
I have not only read this book but I have had the honour of hearing author William Rees explain the world's current environmental predicament. His analysis -- as stated in the book and by other readers-- is so simple yet profound. I believe the ecological footprint analysis tool offers one of the best ways to explain to people why they must change their lifestyles. I believe so much in the concept, I have started a business to help the corporate sector implement sustainable practices and policies. Our society probably has a better chance of survival if we can change the way influential companies do business, rather than changing one individual at a time. This book provides the basis for understanding why we must change. Then read Natural Capitalism by Hawken and Lovins and you'll understand how much progress has already been made and how much more is achievable.

this guy is a treehugger
I was assigned to read this book for an nature and human values course. And I must say that this book is by far the worst assigned reading, the level of reading is average, but what bothers me the most is how the author talks down to the other side of the spectrum of the arguement. It is also extremely repetive and I found myself dreading the reading of the next chapter, because I didn't want to read the same thing that was stated in the previous chapter.

Excellent! A must for everyone concerned with our future.
Professors Rees and Wackernagel have developed a new concept to assess individuals and countries impact on the environment, a quantitative measure which acts as a common denomintor for all peoples, at all levels of affluence or poverty. This will become the yardstick of our future, like the invention of money by the Babylonians or Assyrians has become the unit of exchange in the trade of goods and services. Clearly written, the book is needed to be understood by all politicians, bankers, voters, leaders and living humans. Knowing ideas such as these is crucial and essential for our survival in the biosphere. ... Read more

Book Description

Aquatic ecosystem assessment is a rapidly developing field, and one of the newer approaches to assessing the condition of rivers and lakes is the Reference Condition Approach. This is a significant advancement in biomonitoring because it solves the problem of trying to locate nearby control or reference sites when studying an ecosystem that may be degraded, a problem that bedevils traditional approaches. Rather than using upstream reference sites in a river system or next-bay-over reference sites in a lake, an array of ecologically similar, least-exposed to stress sites scattered throughout a catchment or region is used. Once the reference condition has been established, any site suspected of being impacted can be assessed by comparison to the reference sites, and its status determined. The Reference Condition database, once formed, can be used repeatedly.

The Reference Condition is established by standardized sampling of both the biota and its environment at a number of reference sites. A variety of environmental variables is measured in conjunction with sampling the biota (usually benthic invertebrates). In this book, we describe the basic methods involved in selecting and sampling appropriate reference sites, comparing test sites to appropriate reference sites using predictive modeling, and determining whether or not test sites are in the reference condition. This provides a rapid assessment method that can deal with everything from large-scale, national issues to local-scale problems with the same approach, and often parts of the same database. ... Read more

Book Description

Ecologists need to analyze their field data to interpret relationships within plant and animal communities and with their environments. The purpose of this book is to show ecologists and environmental scientists what numerical and statistical methods are most useful, how to use them and interpret the results from them, and what pitfalls to avoid. Subjects treated include data requirements, regression analysis, calibration (or inverse regression), ordination techniques, cluster analysis, and spatial analysis of ecological data.The authors take pains to use only elementary mathematics and explain the ecological models behind the techniques.Exercises and solution are provided for practice.This is the only book written specifically for ecologists that explains such techniques as logistic regression, canonical correspondence analysis, and kriging (statistical manipulation of data). This is a reissue of a book first published in 1987 by Pudoc (The Netherlands). ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A standard work in vegetation ecology
This is a standard in the discipline of vegetation ecology and probably the best introductiion to the field. This is a thoroughly revised new edition of the original book from 1986. It is a good introduction to the various methods available for analysis of vegetation data, like correspondence analysis, principle components analysis and regression analysis. A good point about this book is that consistently works with the same example dataset for explaining all different analysis methods. This clearly shows the differences in outcome of the different methods. A bad point is that its not always written very clearly and includes some very theoretical parts. ... Read more

Book Description

Environmental conflict resolution (ECR) is a process of negotiation that allows stakeholders in a dispute to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement on their own terms. The tools of ECR, such as facilitation, mediation, and conflict assessment, suggest that it fits well with other ideas for reforming environmental policy. First used in 1974, ECR has been an official part of policymaking since the mid 1990s. The Promise and Performance of Environmental Conflict Resolution is the first book to systematically evaluate the results of these efforts.

The Promise and Performance of Environmental Conflict Resolution presents empirical research along with insights from some of ECR’s most experienced practitioners. Beginning with a primer about concepts and methods, the book describes the kinds of disputes where ECR has been applied, making it clear that "despite the faith of proponents in the power and usefulness of ECR, it is not applicable to all environmental conflicts." The contributions that follow critically investigate the record and potential of ECR, drawing on perspectives from political science, public administration, regional planning, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and law.

ECR is being extended to almost every area of environmental policy. Rosemary O'Leary and Lisa Bingham argue that truly effective use of ECR requires something more than advocacy. The Promise and Performance of Environmental Conflict Resolution provides scholars, policymakers, students, and practitioners with critical assessments, so that ECR can be used to its best advantage. ... Read more

Book Description

Ecoregions applies the principles described in Bailey's Ecosystem Geography to describe and characterize the major terrestrial and aquatic ecological zones of the Earth. Robert Bailey's system for classifying ecoregions has had a major influence, and has been adopted by major organizations such as the US Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy. This book includes numerous photographs of representative ecoregions, and outstanding color figures are complemented by two full-color maps showing the major ecoregions of the continents and of the oceans. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Much contemporary environmental literature names as enemies of the wildcorporate agriculture, logging, mining, and ranching. For mountain guide/philosopherJack Turner, these will not do. He dislikes even more the abstractions that divorce usfrom the natural world, which cause us to create pseudo-wild locales like YellowstoneNational Park and Grand Canyon, places that resemble nothing so much as Disneyland.Wilderness advocates who do not make themselves at home in the wild, he believes,cannot hope to understand the object of their desires, for only from that"complete immersion in place over time" can there arise the"wisdom that cannot emerge from tourism in a relic wilderness." Thissometimes blistering, provocative book is an eco-radical manifesto of a kind, and everyreader concerned with wilderness issues should pay attention to it. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

Read this book! It gets to the roots of conservation.
"From the summits of the Tetons, I see to the west a mosaic of farms scaring the round hills and valleys, as though someone had taken a razor to the face of a beautiful woman."

In THE ABSTRACT WILD, Turner gets to the heart of what it means to be wild, a concept that is often thrown around, but rarely defined. It has been overstepped again and again because nobody really thought that the concept of being wild was important. But as Tuner shows us in THE ABSTRACT WILD, it is the heart of being natural.

Turner found something out there in the wilderness that our society has lost. He had an intense personal experience that opened his eyes to the aura of the environment around him, to the sacred, to the holy, to what it meant to be wild. He found a critical link in our conservation ethic that has been "overstepped" because nobody knew to look there. Once we start to see the importance of the wilderness being self-ordered, autonomous, and wild. We will start to understand what needs to be done to effectively start protecting our natural environment. "As Stephen Jay Gould wrote, 'We cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well-for we will not fight to save what we do not love'"

Deep ecology
The modern paradigms of economics, science, philosophy, social science, and conservation strategies are here critically scrutinized. Turner takes no prisoners, assailing even those institutions and organizations that are near and dear to many environmentalists. Of course, some of his points might be argued against, but this reader finds himself to be most often in agreement with the author. The outdoor "fun hog" whose views of nature are those of Outside magazine (and of a great number of commercial interests which encourage the consumption of nature as a means of self-pleasuring), will find no comfort here. At the very least this book is serious food-for-thought for anyone who loves and attempts to understand the wild.
Turner's description of proximity to a mountain lion in the Tetons, and of his "unreasonable terror" at the thought of being the hunted, struck a common cord with this reader, although in my experience the terror was rather more reasonable. The sense of exhilaration which followed can hardly be articulated and perhaps exceeded that described by Turner (but I digress...).
Says Turner: "... go into a great forest at night alone. Sit quietly for a while. ... smell and hearing and touch reassert themselves. The wild is keenly sensual. ... The majority of Americans no longer know this experience of the wild. We are surrounded by national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife preserves ...We are deluged with commercial images of wildness. There are nature movies ... nature books ... yuppie outdoor magazines ... philosophical magazines, scientific magazines ... Zoos and animal parks and marine lands abound ... From this we conclude that modern man's knowledge and experience of wild nature is extensive. But it is not. Rather, what we have is extensive experience of a severely diminished wilderness ... a caricature."

This kind of writing is rare
I got this book when searching for something for my biodiversity class to read that would hook them to the subject and move them the way "Sand County Almanac" did me back in my college days. Wasn't able to read it at the time, but I picked it up this fall, thought I would read an essay at a time before bed, like I usually do with essay books. Sometime in the wee hours I realized that I had to stop reading or I would head out into the dark night and wander until I found the wilderness again. Few modern writers, or writers of any age, have so clearly and eloquently expressed what it means to love the wild, what we are about to loose, and truly why we are loosing it despite efforts to the contrary. Turner's solution is one I believe in, but rarely find seriously advocated, probably because it would work. Frankly, if you haven't gone wild, you may not "get" this book. If you want to really know what the wild is about though, read this book and if you like the sound of things, go seek it out. If you are wild, this will be one of the few books on the topic you can stand to read these days. I haven't been so enlightened since I read "The Practice of the Wild" by Gary Snyder. Five stars means a great book. Some books are beyond that, this is one for the ages.

"Can we put the wild back in wilderness?"
This is a book about wildness. Not about the wilderness where it exists. More importantly this book is about you and me and how we think about wilderness.

I have single-handed my sailboat to Catalina Island many times and watched the dolphins with fascination as they played at the bow of my boat. You cannot help feeling a sense of connection with them as you watch them only a few feet away as they share their ocean with you.

As a young man I stood on top of Mt Whitney and looked out across the many mountain ranges of the High Sierras.

I purchased this book at the visitor's center while camping in Anza Borrego State Park in California. What an appropriate place to buy this book!

I have visited many National and State Parks and National Monuments crowded with people.

So, I have experienced the wildness that Jack Turner talks about and I have also visited the controlled spaces of our current managed wilderness areas that this book addresses.

Because the author has traveled in wilderness areas worldwide and a former philosophy professor from Cornel University and a long time climbing guide in the Tetons of Wyoming this book is an absolute jewel - well researched, eloquently written and straight from the heart.

What can I now write to get you to read this wonderful book? It is more than his opinion. It is a way of thinking about the world we live in and the true meaning of wilderness.

I sometimes end a review with some original poetry. Unfortunately, I am still trying to get my mind around this book. It is such great food for thought.

Here is a quote from the book:

"Do you want to change the world?
I don't think it can be changed.

The world is sacred.
It can't be improved.
If you tamper with it, you will ruin it.
If you treat like an object, you will lose it.
.....
The Master sees things as they are,
With out trying to control them.
He let's them go their own way,
and resides at the center of the circle."

Lao Tzu

Yes, this reads like a Zen koan. Don't meditate on it too long -read this book and then keep it in your backpack or sea bag.

A book with clarity and guts.
This book is such a welcome deviation from so much "environmental" judgmentalism, finger-pointing, and theoretical whining. Its basic premise is: how can we relate to the "wilderness" we wish to preserve when we don't even spend time with it? And: what, in fact, are we working to preserve?

There is a rawness and intensity to how the writer expresses himself that has a marvelous feeling of sincerity about it. He is not afraid to point up the shadow side of the very ecological programs he subscribes to. Reading, I had the feeling of sitting next to him by a campfire somewhere, or in front of the fireplace in his home in the Grand Teton, hearing him talk from the heart about things that concern him deeply. ... Read more

Book Description

* Clear, accessible and illuminating introduction to the fundamental concepts and issues of sustainable development * Ideal introductory course book for a wide range of courses in environmental sciences, social sciences, geography and ecology * Contains extensive examples, case studies and includes exercises

"This book is a valuable step toward making human ecology a subject that everyone can and should understand. Its scope and clarity make it accessible and informative to a wide readership. It provides a clear and comprehensible account of concepts that can be applied in our individual and collective lives to pursue the promising and secure future to which we all aspire." -- Maurice Strong, Chairman of the Earth Council and Secretary General of the 1992 Earth Summit

Human ecology is the study of how human social systems relate to and interact with the ecological systems on which they depend. As the study of how to achieve ecologically sustainable development becomes more and more important in courses in human and natural sciences, it is becoming a fundamental introductory subject.

"Human Ecology" is the first introductory textbook of its kind. It provides a comprehensive, clear and engaging introduction designed to meet student and teaching needs. It explains how ecosystems are organized and function; the interactions of human social systems with them; and how social institutions and processes contribute to or conflict with sustainability. It integrates long-standing ecological principles with more recent concepts from complex systems theory. Simple diagrams, examples and exercises make the concepts easily understood.

It should become the standard text in the area. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Eye Opening
I read this book because it was required for Session's Philosophy course at Sierra College. Those of you who can read it without experiencing Professor Sessions have a great advantage. He put together an excellent book, unfortunately he is a real jerk. I have never had an instructor talk down to students the way he did. That being said, Deep Ecology is a fascinating topic. Reading the essays in this book will open your eyes to a very different philosophy on life. The simple arguments carried out by main-stream environmentalists and their counterparts become almost useless. If you are looking for an alternative to the money motivated lobbying of many contemporary organizations or if you just want to read a different viewpoint, I recommend this book!

Deep Ecology for the Twenty-First Century
Absolutely spectacular anthology! I lost my copy and could barely keep from crying. Great information for those new to Deep Ecology. Terrific reading for those familiar with it. ... Read more