Earth Sciences, Geography & Environment Books

Book SynopsisA formidable, brave and important book' Robert MacfarlaneAbsolutely brilliantYou cannot read this book and defend the establishment' Alastair Campbell, The Rest is PoliticsWho owns England?Behind this simple question lies this country's oldest and best-kept secret. This is the history of how England's elite came to own our land, and an inspiring manifesto for how to open up our countryside once more. This book has been a long time coming. Since 1086, in fact. For centuries, England's elite have covered up how they got their hands on millions of acres of our land, by constructing walls, burying surveys and more recently, sheltering behind offshore shell companies. But with the dawn of digital mapping and the Freedom of Information Act, it's becoming increasingly difficult for them to hide.Trespassing through tightly-guarded country estates, ecologically ravaged grouse moors and empty Mayfair mansions, writer and activist Guy Shrubsole has used these 21st century tools to uncover a wealth of never-before-seen information about the people who own our land, to create the most comprehensive map of land ownership in England that has ever been made public.From secret military islands to tunnels deep beneath London, Shrubsole unearths truths concealed since the Domesday Book about who is really in charge of this country at a time when Brexit is meant to be returning sovereignty to the people. Melding history, politics and polemic, he vividly demonstrates how taking control of land ownership is key to tackling everything from the housing crisis to climate change and even halting the erosion of our very democracy.It's time to expose the truth about who owns England and finally take back our green and pleasant land.*Guy''s next book The Lie of the Land is out now*Trade Review‘A formidable, brave and important book’ Robert Macfarlane ‘Potentially one of the most important books of the year’ Chris Packham ‘This is going to be a great book, crucial for anyone who seeks to understand this country’ George Monbiot ‘An irrefutable and long overdue call for the enfranchisement of the landless’ Marion Shoard, author of This Land is Our Land ‘The question posed by the title of this crucial book has, for nearly a thousand years, been one that as a nation we have mostly been too cowed or too polite to ask. There has, as a result, been some serious journalistic legwork in Shrubsole’s endeavour. Shrubsole ends his fine inquiry into these issues with a 10-point prospectus as to how this millennium-long problem might be brought up to date, and how our land could be made to work productively and healthily for us all’ Observer, Book of the Week ‘Both detective story and historical investigation, Shrubsole’s book is a passionately argued polemic which offers radical, innovative but also practical proposals for transforming how the people of England use and protect the land that they depend on – land which should be “a common treasury for all”’ Guardian ‘Painstakingly researched … having come to the end of this illuminating and well-argued book it’s hard not to feel that it’s time for a revolution in the way we manage this green and pleasant land’ Melissa Harrison, New Statesman ‘There is an enormous amount to admire’ Times Literary Supplement ‘Shrubsole is an entertaining guide to the history of landownership’ Literary Review

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Book SynopsisThe new edition of the definitive undergraduate guide to contemporary sociological theory, with updated reading selections throughout The fourth edition of Contemporary Sociological Theory offers a thorough introduction to current perspectives and approaches in sociology and social science. Covering a broad range of essential topics, this comprehensive volume provides students with the foundation necessary for understanding the theoretical underpinnings of present-day debates in the diverse field. In-depth yet accessible readings address micro-sociological analysis, symbolic interactionism, network theory, phenomenology, critical theory, structuralism, feminist theory, and more. This classic text is fully revised to incorporate the most representative and up-to-date material, including new readings addressing debates on gender, power, and inequality. New editorial introductions clarify and contextualize the selected readings, while up-to-date examples highlight connections to today'Table of ContentsNotes on the Editors ix Acknowledgements x General Introduction 1 Part I Symbolic Action 27 Introduction to Part I 29 1 The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (from The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life) 36Erving Goffman 2 Symbolic Interactionism (from Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method) 51Herbert Blumer 3 Interaction Ritual Chains (from Interaction Ritual Chains) 62Randall Collins Part II Structure and Agency 77 Introduction to Part II 79 4 A Theory of Group Solidarity (from Principles of Group Solidarity) 88Michael Hechter 5 Metatheory: Explanation in Social Science (from Foundations of Social Theory) 100James S. Coleman 6 Catnets (from Notes on the Constituents of Social Structure) 112Harrison White 7 Some New Rules of Sociological Method (from New Rules For Sociological Method) 123Anthony Giddens Part III Institutions 129 Introduction to Part III 131 8 Economic Embeddedness 136Mark Granovetter 9 The Iron Cage Revisited 145Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell Part IV Power and Inequality 161 Introduction to Part IV 163 10 The Power Elite (from The Power Elite) 172C. Wright Mills 11 Durable Inequality (from Durable Inequality) 179Charles Tilly 12 Power: A Radical View (from Power: A Radical View) 186Steven Lukes 13 Societies as Organized Power Networks (from The Sources of Social Power, Vol I. A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760) 196Michael Mann Part V The Sociological Theory of Michel Foucault 213 Introduction to Part V 215 14 The History of Sexuality (from The History of Sexuality, Vol I: An Introduction) 220Michel Foucault 15 Discipline and Punish (from Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison) 229Michel Foucault Part VI The Sociological theory of Pierre Bourdieu 237 Introduction to Part VI 239 16 Social Space and Symbolic Space (from “Social Space and Symbolic Space: Introduction to a Japanese Reading of Distinction”) 248Pierre Bourdieu 17 Structures, Habitus, Practices (from The Logic of Practice) 257Pierre Bourdieu 18 The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed 270Pierre Bourdieu 19 Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field (from Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field) 286Pierre Bourdieu Part VII Race, Gender, and Intersectionality 297 Introduction to Part VII 299 20 The Theory of Racial Formation (from Racial Formation in the United States) 308Michael Omi and Howard Winant 21 Intellectual Schools and the Atlanta School (from The Scholar Denied: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology) 318Aldon D. Morris 22 The Paradoxes of Integration (from The Ordeal of Integration: Progress and Resentment in Americas “Racial” Crisis) 329Orlando Patterson 23 The Conceptual Practices of Power (from The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge) 337Dorothy E. Smith 24 Black Feminist Epistemology (from Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment) 345Patricia Hill Collins 25 Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex 354Kimberle Crenshaw 26 Practicing Intersectionality in Sociological Research 363Hae Yeon Choo and Myra Marx Ferree 27 The Politics of Erased Migrations 373Rocio R. Garcia Part VIII The Sociological Theory of Jürgen Habermas 385 Introduction to Part VIII 387 28 Modernity: An Unfinished Project (from Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity) 395Jürgen Habermas 29 The Rationalization of the Lifeworld (from The Theory of Communicative Action Volume 2: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason) 401Jürgen Habermas 30 Civil Society and the Political Public Sphere (from Between Facts and Norms: Contribution to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy) 417Jürgen Habermas Part IX Modernity 431 Introduction to Part IX 433 31 The Social Constraint towards Self-Constraint (from The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners and State Formation and Civilization) 439Norbert Elias 32 We Have Never Been Modern (from We Have Never Been Modern) 449Bruno Latour 33 The Civil Sphere (from The Civil Sphere) 462Jeffrey C. Alexander 34 Addressing Recognition Gaps: Destigmatization and the Reduction of Inequality (from American Sociological Review) 472Michèle Lamont Part X Crisis and Change 487 Introduction to Part X 489 35 The Modern World-System in Crisis (from World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction) 498Immanuel Wallerstein 36 Conceptualizing Simultaneity 510Peggy Levitt and Nina Glick Schiller 37 Nationalism (from Nationalism) 519Craig Calhoun 38 The End May Be Nigh, But For Whom? (from Does Capitalism Have a Future?) 529Michael Mann Index 544

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Book Synopsis'One of the greatest mountaineering survival stories never told.' – The Sunday Times Some mountains are high; some mountains are hard. Few are both. On the afternoon of 13 July 1977, having become the first climbers to reach the summit of the Ogre, Doug Scott and Chris Bonington began their long descent. In the minutes that followed, any feeling of success from their achievement would be overwhelmed by the start of a desperate fight for survival. And things would only get worse. Rising to over 7,000 metres in the centre of the Karakoram, the Ogre – Baintha Brakk – is notorious in mountaineering circles as one of the most difficult mountains to climb. First summited by Scott and Bonington in 1977 – on expedition with Paul ‘Tut’ Braithwaite, Nick Estcourt, Clive Rowland and Mo Anthoine – it waited almost twenty-four years for a second ascent, and a further eleven years for a third. The Ogre, by legendary mountaineer Doug Scott, is a two-part biography of this enigmatic peak: in the first part, Scott has painstakingly researched the geography and history of the mountain; part two is the long overdue and very personal account of his and Bonington’s first ascent and their dramatic week-long descent on which Scott suffered two broken legs and Bonington smashed ribs. Using newly discovered diaries, letters and audio tapes, it tells of the heroic and selfless roles played by Clive Rowland and Mo Anthoine. When the desperate climbers finally made it back to base camp, they were to find it abandoned – and themselves still a long way from safety. The Ogre is undoubtedly one of the greatest adventure stories of all time.Trade Review'One of the greatest mountaineering survival stories never told.' – The Sunday Times. Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroductionPART I1. The Mountain2. Ancient History of Exploration3. European Interest in the Region4. The East India Company5. Scottish Contribution to Empire6. The Blanks on the Map7. Early MountaineeringPART II8. The Climbers9. March to Base Camp10. Climbing the Ogre11. The Epic Descent12. The Final StretchAfterwordAcknowledgementsFurther ReadingThe Author

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN''S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022 THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER & REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK*****You don''t fall in love in Cyprus in the summer of 1974. Not here, not now. In 1974, two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided Cyprus, meet at a tavern in the city they both call home. The tavern is the only place that Kostas, who is Greek, and Defne who is Turkish, can meet in secret, hidden beneath the leaves of a fig tree growing through the roof of the tavern. This tree will witness their hushed happy meetings, and will be there when the war breaks out and the teenagers vanish.Decades later in north London, sixteen-year-old Ada has never visited the island where her parents were born. She seeks to untangle years of her family''s silence, but the only connection she has to the land of her ancestors Is a fig tree growing tin the garden of their home . . .*****''This book moved me to tears . . . in the best way. Powerful and poignant'' Reese Witherspoon''A brilliant novel -- one that rings with Shafak''s characteristic compassion'' Robert Macfarlane''This is an enchanting, compassionate and wise novel and storytelling at its most sublime'' Polly Samson*** ELIF SHAFAK''S NEW NOVEL, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW ***Trade ReviewAn outstanding work of breathtaking beauty -- Lemn SissayA writer of important, beautiful, painful, truthful novels -- Marian KeyesLovely heartbreaker of a novel centered on dark secrets of civil wars & evils of extremism: Cyprus, star-crossed lovers, killed beloveds, damaged kids -- Margaret Atwood on TwitterElif Shafak is a unique and powerful voice in world literature -- Ian McEwanOne of the best writers in the world today * Hanif Kureishi *A wise novel of love and grief, roots and branches, displacement and home, faith and belief. The Island of Missing Trees is balm for our bruised times -- David Mitchell, author of Utopia Avenue

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Book Synopsis'This is a great puzzle book, for budding explorers and young adventurers. There's no better way to test your exploration skills without leaving the house!' - Levison Wood Can you pin-point the last-known location of Ernest Shackleton's Endurance?Can you help Amelia Earhart circumnavigate the globe?Are you the next Neil Armstrong?In this unique puzzle book, the Royal Geographical Society brings over a century of maps and expertise to inspire your inner Livingstone and tantalise your budding Columbus. With hundreds of questions on 50 iconic explorers and a mix of mind-boggling maps, word games and trivia questions - it's time to dust off your compass, pack your snow shoes and test your geographical skills against the most legendary adventurers ever to traverse the globe.Trade ReviewHere's another reason to love geography! The Royal Geographical Society Puzzle Book is the subject at its most exciting. * Nicholas Crane, Immediate Past President of the RGS and author of The Making of the British Landscape *A wonderful collection of fiendish puzzles, tricky quizzes and extraordinary stories about some of the greatest explorers to have ever travelled the world. This is the perfect book for aspiring geographers, curious historians and map-lovers everywhere! * Alastair Humphreys, adventurer and author of The Boy Who Biked the World *This is a great puzzle book, for budding explorers and young adventurers. There's no better way to test your exploration skills without leaving the house! * Levison Wood, explorer and author of Walking the Nile and Walking the Himalayas *

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Book SynopsisFrom dinosaurs fighting to their deaths to elephant-sized burrowing ground sloths, this book takes readers on a global journey deep into the earth’s past. Locked in Time showcases fifty of the most astonishing fossils ever found, brought together in five chapters that offer an unprecedented glimpse at the behavior of prehistoric animals.Trade ReviewA rousing romp through the fossil record. Dean R. Lomax's storytelling and Bob Nicholls's artwork reanimate the lifestyles and behaviors of long-extinct species. Revel along as old bones, teeth, and footprints tell the tale of dinosaur mating dances, fighting mammoths, and pterodactyl nurseries. -- Steve Brusatte, University of Edinburgh paleontologist and New York Times best-selling author of The Rise and Fall of the DinosaursVividly told with stunning illustrations, Locked in Time is an essential book for any fossil fan. From the ancient steps of a horseshoe crab to courting dinosaurs, Lomax and Nicholls achieve the closest thing to time travel in bringing the prehistoric back to life. -- Riley Black, author of The Last Days of the DinosaursWhen we think about the animals of the past, we’re drawn to a small handful of movie dinosaurs, but in this fascinating and engaging book, Lomax brings to life incredible moments in the lives of animals from throughout prehistory, discovering the universal in the specific and offering us an insight into our sense of place on this planet. While being immersed in scientific literature, Lomax has a gift for extracting events from millions of years ago and giving them meaning for everyone today. -- Ellie Harrison, presenter of Dinosaur BritainA beetle within a lizard within a snake, a giant beaver that made huge corkscrew burrows three meters deep, a mammal that ate dinosaurs, insects caught in the act of mating, and dinosaurs with cancer . . . Dean R. Lomax presents an extraordinary tour through recent fossil discoveries that shed light on all aspects of the life of the past. These extraordinary scenarios are brought to life in exquisite reconstructions by Bob Nicholls. These are fossils that don’t make it into the textbooks; your appreciation of the history of life will never be the same again! -- Michael J. Benton, professor of vertebrate paleontology, University of BristolA number of exceptional, spectacular fossils show—via the most direct evidence imaginable—that the extinct animals of the past were once very much alive. They preserve animals giving birth, swallowing prey, and even having sex. Others reveal cases where animals died from poisoning, choking, or even when locked in combat. Join Dean Lomax in this beautifully illustrated, thoroughly researched but accessibly written tour of animals forever locked in time. -- Darren Naish, lead scientific consultant for Prehistoric PlanetIlluminates how we pieced together our understanding of behaviors in the animal kingdom. . . . Buckle up—it's a journey. * Inverse *An outstanding and highly original piece of popular science that overflows with Lomax’s enthusiasm and passion. Believe me, you have not seen a book like this before. * Inquisitive Biologist *Meticulously researched and Dr [Dean] Lomax is a most eloquent and well-informed tour guide. Renowned palaeoartist Bob Nicholls provides the sumptuous illustrations that brings Dean’s narrative to life. * Everything Dinosaur *A strikingly illustrated study that will have immense value and appeal for both paleontology students and non-specialist general readers alike, 'Locked in Time: Animal Behavior Unearthed in 50 Extraordinary Fossils' is impressively well written and thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation. Exceptionally well informed and informative, 'Locked in Time: Animal Behavior Unearthed in 50 Extraordinary Fossils' is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended addition to community, college and university library Paleontology collections and supplemental studies curriculums. * Midwest Book Review *Fascinating and highly recommended. * AIPT Science *This informative, educational, and entertaining book will make a good addition to the paleontology aficionado’s library. * Fossil News *Fully achieves what it sets out to do: educate and entertain. * Quarterly Review of Biology *A captivating and accessible read...Highly recommended. * Choice *[Lomax] covers 50 extraordinary fossils, in five fascinating chapters that offer an unprecedented glimpse at the real-life behaviours of prehistoric animals. The book is illustrated by striking and scientifically rigorous illustrations by renowned palaeoartist Bob Nicholls. A great read for those interested in ancient life. * Deposits Magazine *Lomax is an easy narrator, deftly weaving personal reminiscence and passion among the paleontological facts. There’s an abundance of ‘impeccable, large illustrations and photographs.’ I had a blast with this book. -- Ola G * Re-enchantment of the World *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Unlocking the Prehistoric World1. Sex2. Parental Care and Communities3. Moving and Making Homes4. Fighting, Biting, and Feeding5. Unusual HappeningsAcknowledgmentsFurther ReadingIndex

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Book SynopsisDid you know that there are more than 60 active volcanoes in Europe today? Or that the longest-existing lava lake is in Ethiopia? Or that Mount Stromboli off the coast of Italy has been in almost continuous eruption for the past 2000 years? Illustrated with 200 spectacular photographs, Volcano is a fascinating visual journey around the globe, selecting the most striking live and extinct volcanoes from Alaska to Antarctica, from Tanzania to Tasmania, from Kamchatka in Russia’s far east to Indonesia and the Philippines. Alongside famous volcanoes such as Mount Etna in Sicily, Mount Vesuvius on the Italian mainland and Mount St Helens in Washington State, the book features many lesser known but equally interesting volcanoes across all the continents. Each entry is accompanied with a fascinating caption explaining not only the geological forces at work, but also how the volcano has shaped the history of the surrounding areas across millennia. Presented in a landscape format and with more than 190 outstanding colour photographs of around 100 entries, Volcano is a stunning collection of images.Table of ContentsIntroduction EUROPE Kirkjufell, Iceland Holuhraun lava field, Iceland Bárðarbunga, Iceland Eldfell, Heimaey, Iceland Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland Puy de Dôme, France Puy de Pariou, France Piton de la Fournaise, Réunion Island, France Teide, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain Calderón Hondo, Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain Tahiche, Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain Timanfaya, Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain Croscat, Spain Islet of Vila Franca do Campo, São Miguel Island,Azores, Portugal Mount Pico, Portugal Sete Citades, Azores, Portugal Stromboli, Aeolian Islands, Italy Vulcano and Lipari, Aeolian Islands, Italy Mount Etna, Sicily, Italy Mount Vesuvius, Campania, Italy Nisyros, Dodecanese, Greece Nea Kameni, Santorini, Greece Mount Ararat, Turkey AFRICA & THE MIDDLE EAST Pico do Fogo, Fogo, Cape Verde Mount Cameroon, Cameroon Mount Nyiragongo, Democratic Republic of the Congo Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania Ol Doinyo Lengai, Tanzania Muhavura, Uganda/Rwanda Dallol, Danakil Depression, Ethiopia Erta Ale, Ethiopia Nabro, Danakil Depression, Eritrea Zendan-e Soleyman, Iran Taftan, Iran Mount Damavand, Iran ASIA, THE PACIFIC & ANTARCTICA Mutnovsky, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia Karymsky, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia Kambalny, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia Tolbachik, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia Koryaksky, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia Cherpuk, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia Klyuchevskoy Sopka, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia Avachinsky, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia Gorely, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia Kamen, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia Paektu, China/North Korea Komezuka, Aso, Kyushu, Japan Sarychev Peak, Kuril Islands Mount Fuji, Honshu, Japan Mount Aso, Kyushu, Japan Mount Chokai, Honshu, Japan Mayon, Luzon, Philippines Mount Pinatubo, Philippines Chu Dang Ya, Gia Lai province, Vietnam Mount Rinjani, Lombok, Indonesia Kelimutu, Flores, Indonesia Anak Krakatoa, Indonesia Mount Sinabung, Sumatra, Indonesia Merapi, Java, Indonesia Mounts Bromo, Batok and Semeru, Java, Indonesia Manam, Manam Island, Papua New Guinea The Nut, Tasmania, Australia Mount Tongariro, New Zealand White Island/Whakaari, New Zealand Mount Ngauruhoe, New Zealand Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand Mawson Peak, Heard Island, Australia Mount Discovery, Antarctica Brown Bluff, Antarctica Mount Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica NORTH AMERICA & CARIBBEAN Mount Shasta and Black Butte, California Augustine, Alaska Mount Shishaldin, Alaska Mount Si, Washington Mount St Helens, Washington Mount Adams, Washington Mount Rainier, Washington Mount Hood, Oregon Crater Lake, Oregon Devils Tower, Wyoming Lassen Peak, California Cinder Cone, California San Francisco Peaks, Arizona Haleakala, Maui, Hawaii Mount Kilauea, Hawaii Diamond Head, Oahu, Hawaii Hanauma Bay and Koko Crater, Oahu, Hawaii Anahim Peak, British Columbia, Canada Popocatépetl, Mexico Parícutin, Mexico Tacaná, Mexico Nevis Peak, St Kitts, Lesser Antilles Soufrière Hills, Montserrat, Lesser Antilles CENTRAL & SOUTH AMERICA Fuego, Guatemala San Pedro, Guatemala Izalco, El Salvador El Boqueron/San Salvador, El Salvador Tiger Island, Honduras Momotombo, Nicaragua Concepción, Nicaragua Irazu, Costa Rica Turrialba, Costa Rica Arenal, Costa Rica Galeras, Colombia Antisana, Ecuador Tungurahua, Ecuador Cotopaxi, Ecuador Misti, Peru Licancabur and Juriques, Chile Descabezado Grande, Chile Puyehue-Cordon Caulle, Chile Aracar, Argentina Tromen, Argentina

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Book SynopsisThis new edition of Consider a Spherical Cow teaches basic mathematical modeling skills that are widely applicable to a huge range of environmental problems facing the world today. Organized both by modeling tools and environmental topics, this innovative book includes 56 posed problems and worked-out solutions. Readers will find introductions to topics, extensive pedagogic material explaining how to use the relevant modeling tools, and opportunities to think more deeply about or confirm steps in the provided solutions.This new edition includes 101 new quantitative homework exercises, an appendix compendium of updated environmental data, a glossary, and a bibliography, plus entirely new sections on probability, toxics, radiation and radioactivity, and epidemics. With wide topical coverage, Harte teaches the math step by step in the context of actual posed environme

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Book SynopsisWith the rise of coal power, the producers who oversaw its development acquired the ability to shut down energy systems, a threat they used to build the first mass democracies. Oil offered the West an alternative, and with it came a new form of politics. Oil created a denatured political life the central object of which-the economy-appeared capable of infinite growth. What followed was a Western democracy dependent on an undemocratic Middle East. We now live with the consequences: an impoverished political practice, incapable of addressing the crises that threaten to end the age of carbon democracy - namely, the disappearance of cheap energy and the carbon-fuelled collapse of the ecological order.For the updated edition of this classic title, Timothy Mitchell has written a new preface, reassessing its arguments in the light of recent political events.Trade ReviewA challenging, sophisticated, and important book that undermines expectations in the best kind of intellectual provocation. * Foreign Policy *It's a book that tackles a really big subject, in a sweeping but readable fashion, and after reading it, it's hard to imagine thinking about political power the same way again ... This book utterly blew me away. -- Matt Stoller * Naked Capitalism *Timothy Mitchell's Carbon Democracy examines the simultaneous rise of fossil-fuelled capitalism and mass democracy and asks very intelligent questions about the fate of democracy when oil production declines. -- Benjamin Kunkel * New Statesman *A brilliant, revisionist argument that places oil companies at the heart of 20th century history - and of the political and environmental crises we now face...If we're ever to curb such behaviour, and to regain some comprehension of our planet's preciousness, we need first to understand how it came about. Not a book for the season of indulgence, this one. But one that demands to be widely shared. -- Susanna Rustin * Guardian *Carbon Democracy is a sweeping overview of the relationship between fossil fuels and political institutions from the industrial revolution to the Arab Spring, which adds layers of depth and complexity to the accounts of how resource wealth and economic development are linked. * Financial Times *This study of the basis of modern democracy over the past century connects oil-producing states of the Middle East with industrial democracies of the West. Mitchell argues that carbon democracy in the West has been based on the assumption that unlimited oil will produce endless economic growth, and he concludes that this model cannot survive the exhaustion of these fuels and associated climate change. Tim Mitchell has written a remarkable book that deserves a wide audience. -- Mahmood Mamdani, author of Good Muslim, Bad MuslimA remarkable account of the politics of oil and nation building in the Middle East. * The Herald *An insightful historical account of how changes in energy production have expanded and restricted possibilities for democratic governance. Mitchell's provocative approach is a critical intervention into the study of the politics of energy. Recommended. * Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries *

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Book SynopsisIn March 1971, Terence McKenna, his brother Dennis and a small gypsy-like band of friends set off for the Colombian Amazonas. Along the surreal way, they encounter a cast of remarkable characters - including a mushroom, a flying saucer, pirates from outer space, and James Joyce in the guise of poultry.One result of their adventures was McKenna's theory that psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in the stropharia cubensis mushroom, is the missing link in the development of human consciousness and languaTrade ReviewA rollicking intellectual adventure yarn of the highest order. . . -- Tony Stevens, author of STORMING HEAVEN: LSD AND THE AMERICAN DREAMTruly amazing -- THE VILLAGE VOICE

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Book SynopsisFull of wonder and forensic intelligence' Isabella Tree, author of WildingA moving account of Madagascar told by a researcher who has spent over fifty years investigating the mysteries of this remarkable island.Madagascar is a place of change. A biodiversity hotspot and the fourth largest island on the planet, it has been home to a spectacular parade of animals, from giant flightless birds and giant tortoises on the ground, to agile lemurs leaping through the treetops. Some species live on; many have vanished in the distant or recent past. Over vast stretches of time, Madagascar's forests have expanded and contracted in response to shifting climates, and the hand of people is clear in changes during the last thousand years or so. Today, Madagascar is a microcosm of global trends. What happens there in the decades ahead can, perhaps, suggest ways to help turn the tide on the environmental crisis now sweeping the world.The Sloth Lemur's Song is a far-reaching account of Madagascar's pastTrade Review‘Full of wonder and forensic intelligence, The Sloth Lemur’s Song is a love song to the astonishing evolution of Madagascar. It is a fascinating journey from the island’s origins to the complex tensions of the present day, with Alison Richard the most considerate and engaging of guides.’ Isabella Tree, author of Wilding ‘This book is an encyclopedia of wonders, but it’s also a riveting story of evolution through time in a land utterly unique. Madagascar is arguably the most amazing place on Earth. Richard knows it as few outsiders ever will, and its praises have never been better sung.’ David Quammen, author of Spillover ‘Truly mind-blowingly epic … For every adventure you need a perceptive, intelligent and compassionate guide. Ours is author Alison Richard whose life's work has been Madagascar … a tale of enchanting and endangered biodiversity’ Resurgence and Ecologist ‘[A] Masterpiece … Revelatory’ Madagascar Conservation & Development ‘Brilliant … This is simply a wonderful book. Richard tells Madagascar’s often improbable history with vivid detail and personal story based on her research, all backed up with the latest scientific thinking … You will enjoy the stories so much you may not notice that your world is expanding.’ Cool Green Science blog ‘A love story; an ode to Madagascar. Throughout, the author interweaves first-person accounts of her extensive experience as a field biologist, detailed and accurate accounts of the natural history of the island, up-to-the-minute summaries of the latest scientific studies spanning everything from botany to geology to climatology, with the binding ‘through line’ of the Malagasy people and their relationship to the landscape.’ Anne Yoder, Duke University

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Book SynopsisThe fourth edition of this bestselling book explains how to combine professional weather forecasts with information from self-assessment of the signs in the sky, as well as from websites and apps, to arrive at a local forecast of coming weather. The Weather Handbook is the essential guide to how the weather is formed, providing readers with the ability to look at the sky and interpret its signs. This handbook has been the standard reference for over 20 years for skippers and crews of cruising and racing yachts. The fourth edition has been updated and expanded with new photos and explanatory text, addressing new sources of weather information. There are countless websites and apps providing forecast data, and The Weather Handbook guides users in how to use and interpret this information for themselves, taking a general forecast for a wide area to provide a local forecast for a specific location.The perfect introduction to understanding weather - <Trade ReviewAn absolute must for anyone who needs a forecast truly applicable to you, wherever you are. * RNLI magazine *The Weather Handbook is written in a conversational style that helps break down the jargon. And there are helpful summaries ... The handbook would be great to keep onboard, not necessarily as a reference, but as some easy and educational reading. * Sailing (US magazine) *The goal of the book is to teach readers to look at the sky, interpret its signs and leverage their knowledge to asses the coming weather. * Soundings (US) *

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Book SynopsisWhales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. We have hunted them for thousands of years and scratched their icons into our mythologies. They simultaneously fill us with waves of terror, awe and affection yet we know hardly anything about them.Whales tend to only enter our awareness when they die, struck by a ship or stranded in the surf. They evolved from land-roaming, dog-like creatures into animals that move like fish, breathe like us, can grow to 300,000 pounds, live 200 years and roam entire ocean basins. Yet despite centuries of observing whales, we know little about their evolutionary past.Palaeontologist Nick Pyenson takes us to the ends of the earth and to the cutting edge of whale research as he searches for the answers to some of our biggest questions about these graceful giants. His rich storytelling takes us deep inside the Smithsonian's unparalleled fossil collection, to frigid Antarctic waters, and to the arid dTrade Review‘If you don’t care about whales you should still read Spying on Whales. I didn’t give two hoots about them last week but after reading Pyenson’s book, I’m obsessed. Pyenson writes engagingly … this is a lively survey of the past, present and future of these magnificent animals … great stuff.’ The Times ‘Spying on Whales represents the best of science writing. The subject is inherently fascinating, the author is an authentic scientist by virtue of his personal research on the subject, and the text reads like the epic it truly is.’ Edward O. Wilson, Pulitzer Prize-winner and New York Times bestselling author of The Origin of Creativity and The Meaning of Human Existence ‘Reading Spying on Whales leaves a strong impression, based on the principles of ecology, evolution and physiology, that a world including whales seems awesomely improbable. And, of course, wonderful. Nick Pyenson guides us through this world, and in the process achieves that rare state of grace for a writer of science – producing prose that is both scientific and beautiful. This is a moving, informative, evocative book.’ Robert Sapolsky, author of Behave

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Book SynopsisPart lyrical nature writing, part storytelling, part solid scientific evidence, part scholarly research, part memoir, the book is an elegant manifesto, an urgent call to stop trashing the Earth and start healing it. the Guardian Perfect for readers of Wilding, Dirt to Soil and English Pastoral! Call of the Reed Warbler is a clarion call for the global transformation of agriculture, and an in-depth look at the visionary farmers who are revolutionising the way we grow, eat, and think about food. Using his personal experience as a touchstone, starting as a chemical-dependent farmer with dead soils, he recounts his journey carefully regenerating a 2000-hectare property to a state of natural health. Massy lays out the facts behind industrial agriculture and the global profit-obsessed corporations driving it. With evocative stories, he shows how other innovative and courageous farmers are finding a new way. It’s not too late to regenerate the earth. Call of the Reed Warbler offers a path forward for the future of our food, our planet and our health. Charles Massy has written a definitive masterpiece that takes its place along with the writings of Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, Masanobu Fukuoka, Humberto Maturana, and Michael Pollan. No work has more brilliantly defined regenerative agriculture... Paul HawkenTrade ReviewBooklist— "In the last few decades, a growing movement toward pesticide and GMO-free farming practices has been blossoming throughout the world as a counterbalance to corporate-driven agribusinesses. Piggybacking on terms like sustainability and permaculture, veteran sheepherder and author Massy refers to these environmentally friendly methods as “regenerative agriculture,” and he offers inspiring testimony here on how he and many of his fellow food-growing Australians have transformed their farmlands by respecting the native ecosystems that surround them. In three richly informative sections, Massy recounts the background story of how aboriginal sustainable land use eventually gave way to what he calls mechanical agriculture practices; demonstrates how balancing five landscape functions, such as solar energy and water cycles, can revitalize the soil; and gives abundant examples of Aussie farmers, including himself, using these practices with great success….[Massy’s] message about the dire need for sustainability is one that all readers concerned about food and the environment should closely heed." Kirkus Reviews— "An Australian sheepherder and range specialist looks at his home's biotic communities and how to improve their health with a more thoughtful kind of agriculture. Arachnophobes take note: There's a reason you want to see a lot of spiders in the tall grass, for, as Massy (Breaking the Sheep's Back, 2011, etc.) instructs, it means that good things are happening. 'To sustain millions of spiders,' he writes, 'there must be a corresponding diversity in the food chain, and healthy landscape function above and below ground.' Such a healthy landscape, argues the author in considerable detail, cannot come about through what he calls the 'more-on' approach to agriculture, piling chemicals atop increasingly unproductive soil, but instead is the result of a ‘regenerative' agriculture that necessarily happens at a small scale. The larger scale is what modern agronomists insist is needed in order to feed a growing world population, but at a cost that may be too great. As Massy observes, a livestock grower will always seek to save the herd before saving the range, no matter how shortsighted that strategy may be in the end. The author's prose can be arid and technical at times, as when he writes, 'at a global level, non-regeneratively grazed livestock emissions are a huge source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.' At others, he sounds like a modern butterflies-are-free avatar of Charles Reich: 'an Emergent mind combines elements of the previous Organic and Mechanical minds, but its true difference is an openness to the ongoing processes of emergence and self-organization.' The circularity aside, Massy's book is a useful small-is-beautiful argument for appropriate-level farming that people can do without massive machines or petrochemical inputs. Though less elegant than Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson, he certainly falls into their camp, and their readers will want to know Massy's work as well. A solid case for taking better care of the ground on which we stand."“Part lyrical nature writing, part storytelling, part solid scientific evidence, part scholarly research, part memoir, [this] book is an elegant manifesto, an urgent call to stop trashing the Earth and start healing it.”—The Guardian“Charles Massy has written a definitive masterpiece that takes its place along with the writings of Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, Masanobu Fukuoka, Humberto Maturana, and Michael Pollan. No work has more brilliantly defined regenerative agriculture and the breadth of its restorative impact upon human health, biodiversity, climate, and ecological intelligence. There is profound insight here, realized by thirty-five years of farming on the ancient, fragile soils of the Australian continent, discernment expressed with exquisite clarity, seasoned wisdom, and some breathtaking prose of poetic elegance. I believe it takes its place as the single most important book on agriculture today, one that will become a classic text.”—Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest; editor of Drawdown“I first met Charles Massy in 2015 when he visited the ranch of the Africa Centre for Holistic Management in Zimbabwe. Building on the work of many people, Massy has now written a compelling and comprehensive book on the importance of management being holistic—and how that will ultimately lead to a regenerative agriculture capable of restoring even the most degraded ecosystems and marginalized land in any climate and at any scale. He has done this with wonderful stories that take us on a journey of ecological literacy, supported by evocative insights into landscapes, science, and practical farming and living. Call of the Reed Warbler is a massive accomplishment and contribution to our collective work of building a new agriculture, a new Earth, and renewed human society and health.”—Allan Savory, president of the Savory Institute“This book will change the way you think about food, farming, and the place of humans on the planet. Introducing us to leaders of the regenerative agriculture movement, Massy offers real hope that we may yet fashion a society that gives more than it takes.”—Liz Carlisle, author of Lentil Underground; lecturer, School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University“Conceptually rich and filled with examples of diverse innovators, Call of the Reed Warbler is the most comprehensive and engaging book I’ve read on regenerative agriculture. Charlie Massy contends humans have morphed from an ‘Organic mind’ into a ‘Mechanical mind,’ which is now evolving into an ‘Emergent mind’—a change in consciousness that embraces self-organizing processes. He shows how the minds of the innovators in his book were opened to three key processes: First, they began to understand how landscapes function, how ecological system work, and how they are indivisibly connected. Second, they got out of the way to let nature repair, self-organize, and regenerate these functions. Third, they had the humility to ‘listen to their land,’ change, and continue to learn with that same openness. Massy concludes we can heal Earth, but only by transforming ourselves and our connections with the landscapes and communities in which we live. This book is a thoughtful step in that direction.”—Fred Provenza, professor emeritus, Department of Wildland Resources, Utah State University; author of Nourishment“Charles Massy is a leader in the regenerative agriculture movement in Australia with a message of hope for everyone. Using his arid homeland as a touchstone, Massy thoughtfully counterbalances the damage done by industrial agriculture to our land and our prospects with evocative examples from around the world of a hopeful way forward. His beliefs are grounded in practical experience, his vision clear, and his words inspiring. Call of the Reed Warbler is a must-read!”—Courtney White, author of Grass, Soil, Hope“Call of the Reed Warbler not only heralds the sound of an ecosystem functioning but also of a world awakening to regenerative agriculture. Charlie Massy is Australia’s equivalent to Thoreau and Leopold and a practical regenerative farmer to boot. I can’t think of anyone better equipped to pen a book like this, and to do so with such scholarship, integrity, and rollicking prose is a credit to Charlie and those whose journey he’s portrayed. Easily my ‘Book of the Year.’”—Darren J. Doherty, founder, Regrarians Limited

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Book SynopsisA great, rhapsodic, urgent book full of joy, grief, rage and love . . . A must-read'' Helen Macdonald, author of H is for HawkNature has many gifts for us, but perhaps the greatest of them all is joy; the intense delight we can take in the natural world, in its beauty, in the wonder it can offer us, in the peace it can provide - feelings stemming ultimately from our own unbreakable links to nature, which mean that we cannot be fully human if we are separate from it. In The Moth Snowstorm Michael McCarthy, one of Britain''s leading writers on the environment, proposes this joy as a defence of a natural world which is ever more threatened, and which, he argues, is inadequately served by the two defences put forward hitherto: sustainable development and the recognition of ecosystem services.Drawing on a wealth of memorable experiences from a lifetime of watching and thinking about wildlife and natural landscapes, The Moth Snowstorm noTrade ReviewA great, rhapsodic, urgent book full of joy, grief, rage and love. The Moth Snowstorm is at once a deeply affecting memoir and a heartbreaking account of ecological impoverishment. It fights against indifference, shines with the deep magic and beauty of the non-human lives around us, and shows how their loss lessens us all. A must-read * Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk *An important book about an important subject - the loss of biodiversity locally, nationally and internationally, what this means for humanity and how it could possibly be avoided . . . The main argument is that we all have in us the capacity to experience joy and wonder from nature . . . Michael McCarthy is a professional journalist and an accomplished and experienced writer who handles his themes skilfully * Irish Examiner *Impassioned, polemical and personal . . . In the autobiographical passages nature is a marvel and a solace. [McCarthy's] descriptions of the night-time clouds of moths - the moth snowstorms of the title - that we saw in the days before farming ruined so much natural habitat are unforgettable, and his recollections of boyhood bird-watching on the River Dee Bay a delight . . . At its heart, this is a book aiming to persuade those who are broadly sympathetic to think in a different way, and in that it is surely a success - and a joy * Independent *A fascinating and very readable book . . . full of joy and wonder and luminous moments . . . McCarthy is a man who remembers not only the Observer's Book of Birds but the set of Brooke Bond tea cards featuring Charles Tunnicliffe's beautiful bird pictures. But you don't have to be of a similar vintage to enjoy this expansive celebration of a subject too often overlooked in the ongoing discourse about man and nature - sheer joy * Dabbler *McCarthy has for years been the doyen of environmental correspondents . . . he is conversant with the hard facts, the political realities and the moral complexities of the conservation world. But he writes also as a man inspired by the beauty, diversity and abundance of the natural world that we are destroying. This combination of worldly wisdom and deeply felt personal experience makes this a highly original and refreshing account of our current predicament * TLS *Deserves to be widely read * Scotsman *Environmental correspondent Michael McCarthy makes an impassioned plea on behalf of the natural world in this inspiring book * Sunday Express *The natural world, whether birdsong, butterflies or wild flowers, can give us joy. It can bring us peace. The ability of nature to do this, through a sense of awe, is articulated beautifully in a book by Michael McCarthy, The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy. His quest to track down every British butterfly as a tribute to his dead mother brought me to tears * Sunday Times *A deeply troubling book by one of Britain's foremost journalists on the politics of nature. The case he lays bare in the opening chapters is compelling stuff. Essentially he argues that the world of wild creatures, plants, trees and whole habitats - you name it - is going to Hell in a handcart . . . powerful, heartfelt and compelling * The Spectator *As much as joy, it's a beautiful book about love, damage, and the possibility of redemption * Press Association *You could do worse to catch up than to read a single chapter in Michael McCarthy's new book, The Moth Snowstorm . . . the one entitled 'The Great Thinning' . . . powerfully and succinctly summarises the unfolding national story * New Statesman *More than a simple paean to the glories of the wild world. It is also an impassioned protest against its destruction * Daily Mail *In his beautiful book . . . Michael McCarthy suggests that a capacity to love the natural world, rather than merely to exist within it, might be a uniquely human trait * Guardian *A mixture of memoir, elegy to nature, and a call to arms . . . this is a profound urgent book, among its strength an appreciation of the small things - the common precious treasures of birdsong, butterflies and moths that we all, whatever our stance, stand to lose * Country Life *I found joy following McCarthy's stories, particularly those of the futile attempts to return salmon to the Thames and the tragic loss of sparrows from London . . . His personal revelations are moving, and The Moth Snowstorm left me as grief-stricken as any environmental journalist must be after a career digesting facts such as that, by 2020, the volume of urban rubbish generated in China is expected to reach 400m tonnes - equivalent to the entire world's trash in 1997 * Guardian *A bold new defence of a natural world under great threat * BBC Countryfile Magazine *[A] moving memoir * New Statesman *Unquestionably my nature book of the year - an intensely moving and intelligent plea for 'joy' to be counted the most powerful reason for valuing the natural world. McCarthy's starting point is the vivid recollection of a veritable snowstorm of moths in car headlights when he was young. With glorious originality, he makes an unanswerable case for us to start proclaiming 'a new kind of love' from the rooftops. Can you attach a cost-benefit analysis to what a walk in fields listening to birdsong can do for the human spirit? No. That's why everybody should read this angry, beautiful and passionate book * Daily Mail *This is a book about the joy the natural world can engender - even in the face of its decline. McCarthy synthesises the two main literary reposnses to the current crisis, provoking shock at the scale of Britain's recent loss of abundance and a sense of awe and (most importantly) love that may prove nature's best defence. If you read one book from this selection make it The Moth Snowstorm * The Times, Books of the Year *Elegiac * Guardian *Offers a necessary corrective * Irish Times, Books of the Year *Compelling . . . The Moth Snowstorm is an inspiring book * New York Times Book Review *McCarthy's words ring out as a rallying cry which is not only a delight to hear but one we should all seek to follow * Conversation *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"The avifaunal assemblage of East Africa is amongst the most diverse and spectacular in the world. This field guide does this treasure-house full justice and no birder visiting the region, or interested in its birdlife, should be without this volume, which has benefited materially from this revision."---David G. Allan, Association of Field Ornithologists

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Book SynopsisLoved Goodbye Christopher Robin? Learn more about the real place that inspired the beloved stories. Delve into the home of the world’s most beloved bear! The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh explores the magical landscapes where Pooh, Christopher Robin, and their friends live and play. The Hundred Acre Wood—the setting for Winnie-the-Pooh’s adventures—was inspired by Ashdown Forest, a wildlife haven that spans more than 6,000 acres in southeast England. In the pages of this enchanting book you can visit the ancient black walnut tree on the edge of the forest that became Pooh’s house, go deep into the pine trees to find Poohsticks Bridge, and climb up to the top of the enchanted Galleons Lap, where Pooh says goodbye to Christopher Robin. You will discover how Milne's childhood connection with nature and his role as a father influenced his famous stories, and how his close collaboration with illustrator E. H. Shepard brought those stories to life. This charming book also serves as a guide to the plants, animals, and places of the remarkable Ashdown Forest, whether you are visiting in person or from the comfort of your favorite armchair. In a delightful narrative, enriched with Shepard’s original illustrations, hundreds of color photographs, and Milne’s own words, you will rediscover your favorite characters and the magical place they called home.

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Book SynopsisA celebration of the vital role of geography in our understanding of the big issues facing humanity and the planet todayTrade Review[A]n erudite, dark-lit little book by a veteran explorer-broadcaster, distilling a lifetime of thought and travel. It is a hymn to geography, which 'keeps us human' -- Ruth Padel * New Statesman Best Books of 2018 *Destined to become a classic ... a meticulously researched distillation of the geography and history of our planet -- Nigel Winser * Geographical Magazine *

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Book SynopsisFinding your way around the various regions of Japan is a breeze with this handy Tuttle Japan Traveler's Atlas. Designed for the adventurous traveler and containing all the maps you'll need on your explorations, this atlas includes many views that are not available anywhere else.The atlas is conveniently divided into the major regions of Japan: Tokyo Mt. Fuji & Around Tokyo Central Honshu Kyoto Kansai Hiroshima & Western Honshu Northern Honshu Hokkaido Shikoku Kyushu Okinawa & the Southwest Islands Each of the 148 maps in this atlas is presented in a logical, easy-to-follow manner, with emphasis on the most frequently-visited areas. All cities, towns, villages, places of interest including nature reserves are indexed for quick reference.Comprehensive: detailed insets are given for all the major cities, travel destinations and business hubs in Japan.Informative: Precise locations are indicated for all popular sights, hotels, restaurants, temples, shopping malls and other essential locations.Practical: The handy size, well-designed key maps and comprehensive index help you find any place you are looking for quickly.Reliable: No need to worry about cell service or battery—the maps in this atlas are thoroughly researched and regularly updated by the leading publisher of Asia Pacific maps.

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Book SynopsisAs the rest of the world worries about what a future might look like under Chinese supremacy, Luttwak worries about China’s own future prospects. Applying the logic of strategy for which he is well known, he argues that the world’s second largest economy may be headed for a fall unless China’s leaders check their military ambitions.Trade ReviewNational security strategist Edward Luttwak's provocative and insightful analysis of the 'logic of strategy' provides a well-documented, contrarian assessment of whether China's 'rise' will be peaceful or polarizing. He stresses the paradox that China's economic strength and territorial aggrandizement are inciting opposition by a growing coalition of states determined to weaken Beijing's power and influence. Luttwak asserts that only by maintaining Deng Xiaoping's policy of 'low posture' development, and downplaying military modernization, can China avoid international 'geo-economic resistance' and attain the domestic growth and global stature it seeks. -- Richard H. Solomon, former President of the U.S. Institute of Peace, Senior Fellow at the RAND CorporationLuttwak presents a rich, persuasive, and lucid analysis of the strategic implications of China's rise and of the anxieties it generates. China's foreign policy and military investments are raising concerns that require the sort of well-informed, precise argumentation that Luttwak delivers. Based on a long-term view of China's strategic inclinations and extensive research on current developments, this book offers medium-term predictions of the likely outcomes that the 'logic of strategy' may dictate, and thus explains with great clarity the issues at stake. Luttwak's work is a must-read for laymen and specialists alike, and an essential contribution to the political debate. -- Nicola Di Cosmo, Institute for Advanced Study, PrincetonWith muscular behavior and rhetoric on the uptick and China pouring money into its military, political strategists have begun to consider Chinese military dominance of the Pacific and a concurrent American decline as foregone conclusions. So it is refreshing to see Edward Luttwak take a different tack in The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy and argue that Chinese military dominance in the Pacific is 'the least likely of outcomes.' China can't simultaneously enjoy a burgeoning economy and a rapidly growing military, he contends, because countries will band together to protect themselves, using military coalitions and trade protectionism to counter China's rise. -- Mary Kissel * Wall Street Journal *Most commentators on China focus on its seemingly inexorable rise and the threat that this poses to other world powers. In this well-argued book, Luttwak takes a different view. He questions whether China's rising power is sustainable. China's continued and rapid growth in economic capacity and military strength and regional and global influence cannot persist, he argues, because of the mounting opposition it is evoking. -- Frank Dillon * Irish Times *Luttwak detects a fundamental conflict between China's search for continuing economic growth, which the Communist Party has made its prime claim to rule, and its quest for military expansion combined with increased foreign policy assertiveness...Luttwak's book, which includes a refreshing put-down of the supposed superiority of traditional Chinese statecraft so admired by Henry Kissinger among others, is timely, coming as it does amid the current maritime confrontations in East Asia. -- Jonathan Fenby * Times Higher Education *The Rise of China vs. The Logic of Strategy is a sober book. Staying with the evidence, it avoids flights of fancy but grips readers' attention all the way through. Here, finally, is an expert on China who knows what he's talking about. -- Caleb Nelson * World *Luttwak's contribution to the China debate is to be welcomed. We need informed outsiders to weigh in with their views, and he has spent years visiting the country and talking to the Chinese, including the People's Liberation Army. Written with his customary panache, his vigorous and highly readable contribution will challenge congealed thinking. -- George Walden * Bloomberg.com *Over the past few decades, Edward Luttwak has gained a reputation as the bad boy of strategic theory and historical scholarship. This time, he has outdone himself. He has debunked Sun Tsu, the Clausewitz of the East and much beloved by teachers of military theory for decades...In The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy, Luttwak goes beyond an attack on Sun Tsu. He argues that the dominant strategic and cultural arrogance of the Han people--the largest ethnic group in China--could undermine efforts to lift the Middle Kingdom to the ranks of true superpower status. Luttwak further argues that this assumption of cultural and intellectual superiority is driving China's neighbors into a camp of strategic containment similar to what Germany created for itself in the years leading up to World War I...It will be interesting to see whether the book is read with interest or banned once it is translated and made available on the Chinese mainland. It is a cautionary tale that deserves Chinese attention. -- Gary Anderson * Washington Times *[Luttwak's] thesis is sensible and not to be discounted lightly. * The Economist blog *Edward Luttwak's book on the limitations of China's ascent to power blends careful observation of recent events with an understanding of its past...The explanatory innovation that lifts Luttwak's book above the ruck of recent books on China's rise is his use of geo-economics--an expression he coined in 1980--to explain global resistance to Beijing's march. He argues that countries across the world, without explicit coordination, will resist China's export-oriented strategy to generate wealth and military power. This "invisible hand" explanation is in refreshing contrast to the usual containment and other political explanations about what may happen in East China in the coming years. -- Siddharth Singh * Mint *Entertaining and provocative...A bold book that flatly predicts that China won't successfully rise as a superpower, indeed that it cannot in its current incarnation...If accurate, Luttwak's theory means Americans don't have to worry too much. China will essentially self-destruct, at least diplomatically. And the list of problems facing China make it seem that this could well be happening right now. -- Ian Johnson * New York Review of Books *[A] though-provoking book. -- Jonathan Mirsky * Prospect *

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Book SynopsisFrom a renowned pioneer of the anti-globalization movement, a primer on working towards a localized world From disappearing livelihoods to financial instability, from climate chaos to an epidemic of depression, we face crises on a number of seemingly unrelated fronts. This well-referenced book traces the common roots of these problems in a globalized economy that is incompatible with life on a finite planet. But Local is Our Future does more than just describe the problem: it describes the policy shifts and grassroots steps – many of them already underway around the world – that can move us towards the local and, thereby, towards a better world.

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Book Synopsis‘There may be no single climate solution that has a greater breadth of benefits than mini-forests…[and] can be done by everyone everywhere.’ Paul Hawken, from the foreword Are you ready to join the movement to restore biodiversity in our cities and towns by transforming degraded and underused urban land into forests that can help heal the planet? In Mini-Forest Revolution, Hannah Lewis presents the Miyawaki Method, a unique approach to reforestation devised by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki. Lewis explains how tiny forests, as small as six parking spaces, can grow quickly and offer rich biodiversity and environmental benefits – much more so than forests planted by conventional methods. Today, the Miyawaki Method is witnessing a worldwide surge in popularity. Lewis shares stories of mini-forests that have sprung up across the globe and the people who are planting them – from a ‘Forest of Thanks’ in East London, to a mini-forest along the concrete alley of the Beirut River in Lebanon, to a backyard project planted by tiny-forest champion Shubhendu Sharma in India. Mini-Forest Revolution offers a revolutionary approach to planting trees and a truly accessible solution to the climate crisis that can be implemented by communities, classrooms, cities, companies, clubs, and families everywhere.Trade Review"My late friend and colleague, Professor Akira Miyawaki, wanted nothing more than to repair the forests of the world. He wanted trees in the ground, as do I. This book would make him happy."—Diana Beresford-Kroeger, author of To Speak for the Trees"We cannot solve problems by succumbing to fear and anger, and yet so much of the climate conversation is powered by the fearful narrative of a dying planet. In Mini-Forest Revolution, Hannah Lewis offers a different story—one that is authentic, honest, and powered by love. Her writing provides the inspiration, motivation, and recipe for working with nature rather than against it; for gathering our courage and creating the world we imagine."—Shubhendu Sharma, founder and director of Afforestt"Imagine a world where every modest scrap of worn-out dirt or asphalt—think tennis-court-size—can become a cooling, moisture-circulating, air-cleansing, wildlife-nurturing forest within a few years. Mini-Forest Revolution shows how ordinary citizens can embrace this trowel-ready solution, and are doing so even under the harshest, sun-bleached conditions."—Judith D. Schwartz, author of The Reindeer Chronicles

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Book SynopsisWith clarity, conscience, and courage, global-systems pioneer Jorgen Randers and his distinguished contributors map the forces that will shape the next four decades. Forty years ago, The Limits to Growth study addressed the grand question of how humans would adapt to the physical limitations of planet Earth. It predicted that during the first half of the 21st century the ongoing growth in the human ecological footprint would stop-either through catastrophic "overshoot and collapse"-or through well-managed "peak and decline." So, where are we now? And what does our future look like? In the book 2052, Jorgen Randers, one of the coauthors of Limits to Growth, issues a progress report and makes a forecast for the next forty years. To do this, he asked dozens of experts to weigh in with their best predictions on how our economies, energy supplies, natural resources, climate, food, fisheries, militaries, political divisions, cities, psyches, and more will take shape in the coming decades. He then synthesized those scenarios into a global forecast of life as we will most likely know it in the years ahead. The good news: we will see impressive advances in resource efficiency, and an increasing focus on human well-being rather than on per capita income growth. But this change might not come as we expect. Future growth in population and GDP, for instance, will be constrained in surprising ways-by rapid fertility decline as result of increased urbanization, productivity decline as a result of social unrest, and continuing poverty among the poorest 2 billion world citizens. Runaway global warming, too, is likely. So, how do we prepare for the years ahead? With heart, fact, and wisdom, Randers guides us along a realistic path into the future and discusses what readers can do to ensure a better life for themselves and their children during the increasing turmoil of the next forty years.Trade ReviewChoice- In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Limits to Growth (CH, Nov'73), Randers (climate strategy, BI Norwegian Business School) forecasts changes in population, consumption, energy use, emissions, quality of life, and climate over the next 40 years. As one of the original contributors to Limits to Growth, the author's current forecast is based on the ‘overshoot and collapse’ scenario. Regional scenarios highlight the distribution of benefits and costs from climate change across the globe, underscoring the distinct consequences on the developed and developing world. The author emphasizes that shortsighted decision making associated with democracy is ill suited to handle climate change, given its long-term outcomes. A novel feature of this work is the inclusion of predictions from more than two dozen experts working in ecology, political science, industry, and economics. These individual contributions are woven into the larger story to provide comparison with the author's predictions. Overall, this work is accessible to a general audience; however, Randers's limited analysis and justification of model assumption restrict the usefulness of this book as a stand-alone text. It could be useful in conjunction with some formal texts on globalization, economics, and the environment. Summing Up: Optional. General readers and undergraduate students.Publishers Weekly- Randers has made it his life's work to caution the world about the dangers of unfettered expansion, and to seek out solutions to current and prospective problems. Beginning with The Limits to Growth in 1972, he has explored possible scenarios for our social, economic, and environmental future. In this global study, Randers presents a forecast for the next 40 years, supported by ‘statistical data, anecdotal stories, impressions from traveling the world…formal analyses of particular developments,’ and short essays by a variety of experts. While he discusses his own opinions—such as his belief that the world economy must shift its focus from ‘fossil-fuelled economic growth’ to ‘sustainable well-being’ — the enormous amount of information and speculation here function additionally as an excellent springboard for a timely discourse. And open and informed conversation seems crucial to Randers's project—indeed, he posits that unchecked climate change is not a technological problem, but a political one. Randers and his colleagues present a portrait of the future that is radically different from today, but not entirely bleak: while he believes that the worst of his predictions are possible, he humbly asks his readers to ‘help make my forecast wrong.’"This thoughtful and thought-provoking book will be inspiring, and challenging, for all who really care about our common future."--Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway; leader, World Commission on Environment and Development"A sober, cogent, and courageous assessment of a future not dictated by fate, or economics, or limits to technology, but by the most egregious leadership failure in history. But there is still time to change course...just enough time and no more."--David W. Orr, Oberlin College, author of Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse"Read 2052 and get the views of a great futurist-one with a fine track record of being right."--Paul R. Ehrlich, author of The Dominant Animal "This is an extraordinary and profoundly important book. Randers' mastery of many fields is impressive, and he presents his 'best guess' future with clarity and force. As a result, he provides a challenging template against which we can judge our own expectations for mid-century."--James Gustave Speth, author of America the Possible"An unconventional and lucid explanation of the likely macroeconomic developments of the world over the next forty years."--Lord Nicholas Stern, author, The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change; chair, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics "With clarity, conscience, and courage, global-systems pioneer Jorgen Randers and his distinguished contributors map the forces that will shape the next four decades. Their sobering but far from despairing insights will encourage all who strive in applied hope to build a society worthy of nature's legacy and humans' potential."--Amory B. Lovins, chairman and chief scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute; senior author, Reinventing Fire; coauthor, Natural Capitalism "It's too late to wonder how different and refreshingly breathable the world would be if everyone had listened hard to Jorgen Randers 40 years ago. The question now is if we'll heed him this time. Here's our chance. Please seize it, everyone."--Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us and Gaviotas Table of ContentsPreface: what will the future bring Part 1: Background. Worrying about the future Five big issues toward 2052 Part 2: My global forecast The logic behind my forecast Population and consumption to 2052 Energy and CO2 to 2052 Food and footprint to 2052 The nonmaterial future to 2052 The Zeitgeist in 2052 Part 3: Analysis Reflections on the future Five regional futures Comparison with other futures What should you do? Closing words

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Book SynopsisTo understand modern principles of sustainable management and the conservation of wildlife species requires intimate knowledge about demography, animal behavior, and ecosystem dynamics. This book weaves together these disparate elements for senior undergraduate and graduate students.Trade Review“I recommend the book unreservedly to wildlife managers, park rangers, biological resource managers, and those working in ecotourism.” (Tahrcountry, 10 August 2014)Table of ContentsPreface xi About the companion website xiii 1 Introduction: goals and decisions 1 1.1 How to use this book 1 1.2 What is wildlife conservation and management? 2 1.3 Goals of management 3 1.4 Hierarchies of decision 6 1.5 Policy goals 7 1.6 Feasible options 7 1.7 Summary 8 Part 1 Wildlife ecology 9 2 Food and nutrition 11 2.1 Introduction 11 2.2 Constituents of food 11 2.3 Variation in food supply 14 2.4 Measurement of food supply 17 2.5 Basal metabolic rate and food requirement 20 2.6 Morphology of herbivore digestion 23 2.7 Food passage rate and food requirement 26 2.8 Body size and diet selection 27 2.9 Indices of body condition 28 2.10 Summary 33 3 Home range and habitat use 35 3.1 Introduction 35 3.2 Estimating home range size and utilization frequency 36 3.3 Estimating habitat availability and use 38 3.4 Selective habitat use 40 3.5 Using resource selection functions to predict population response 42 3.6 Sources of variation in habitat use 42 3.7 Movement within the home range 45 3.8 Movement among home ranges 48 3.9 Summary 51 4 Dispersal, dispersion, and distribution 53 4.1 Introduction 53 4.2 Dispersal 53 4.3 Dispersion 55 4.4 Distribution 56 4.5 Distribution, abundance, and range collapse 61 4.6 Species reintroductions or invasions 62 4.7 Summary 67 5 Population growth and regulation 69 5.1 Introduction 69 5.2 Rate of increase 69 5.3 Geometric or exponential population growth 73 5.4 Stability of populations 73 5.5 The theory of population limitation and regulation 76 5.6 Evidence for regulation 81 5.7 Applications of regulation 85 5.8 Logistic model of population regulation 86 5.9 Stability, cycles, and chaos 88 5.10 Intraspecific competition 90 5.11 Interactions of food, predators, and disease 93 5.12 Summary 93 6 Competition and facilitation between species 95 6.1 Introduction 95 6.2 Theoretical aspects of interspecific competition 96 6.3 Experimental demonstrations of competition 98 6.4 The concept of the niche 103 6.5 The competitive exclusion principle 106 6.6 Resource partitioning and habitat selection 106 6.7 Competition in variable environments 113 6.8 Apparent competition 113 6.9 Facilitation 114 6.10 Applied aspects of competition 119 6.11 Summary 122 7 Predation 123 7.1 Introduction 123 7.2 Predation and management 123 7.3 Definitions 123 7.4 The effect of predators on prey density 124 7.5 The behavior of predators 125 7.6 Numerical response of predators to prey density 129 7.7 The total response 130 7.8 Behavior of the prey 136 7.9 Summary 138 8 Parasites and pathogens 139 8.1 Introduction and definitions 139 8.2 Effects of parasites 139 8.3 The basic parameters of epidemiology 140 8.4 Determinants of spread 143 8.5 Endemic pathogens 144 8.6 Endemic pathogens: synergistic interactions with food and predators 144 8.7 Epizootic diseases 146 8.8 Emerging infectious diseases of wildlife 147 8.9 Parasites and the regulation of host populations 150 8.10 Parasites and host communities 151 8.11 Parasites and conservation 152 8.12 Parasites and control of pests 155 8.13 Summary 156 9 Consumer–resource dynamics 157 9.1 Introduction 157 9.2 Quality and quantity of a resource 157 9.3 Kinds of resource 157 9.4 Consumer–resource dynamics: general theory 158 9.5 Kangaroos and their food plants in semi-arid Australian savannas 161 9.6 Wolf–moose–woody plant dynamics in the boreal forest 167 9.7 Other population cycles 172 9.8 Summary 175 10 The ecology of behavior 177 10.1 Introduction 177 10.2 Diet selection 177 10.3 Optimal patch or habitat use 183 10.4 Risk-sensitive habitat use 186 10.5 Social behavior and foraging 187 10.6 Summary 190 11 Climate change and wildlife 191 11.1 Introduction 191 11.2 Evidence for climate change 191 11.3 Wildlife responses to climate change 192 11.4 Mechanisms of response to climate change 196 11.5 Complex ecosystem responses to climate change 199 11.6 Summary 201 Part 2 Wildlife conservation and management 203 12 Counting animals 205 12.1 Introduction 205 12.2 Total counts 205 12.3 Sampled counts: the logic 207 12.4 Sampled counts: methods and arithmetic 212 12.5 Indirect estimates of population size 220 12.6 Indices 227 12.7 Harvest-based population estimates 228 12.8 Summary 231 13 Age and stage structure 233 13.1 Introduction 233 13.2 Demographic rates 233 13.3 Direct estimation of life table parameters 235 13.4 Indirect estimation of life table parameters 236 13.5 Relationships among parameters 238 13.6 Age-specific population models 239 13.7 Elasticity of matrix models 242 13.8 Stage-specific models 243 13.9 Elasticity of the loggerhead turtle model 245 13.10 Short-term changes in structured populations 246 13.11 Environmental stochasticity and age-structured populations 246 13.12 Summary 249 14 Experimental management 251 14.1 Introduction 251 14.2 Differentiating success from failure 251 14.3 Technical judgments can be tested 252 14.4 The nature of the evidence 255 14.5 Experimental and survey design 257 14.6 Some standard analyses 262 14.7 Summary 271 15 Model evaluation and adaptive management 273 15.1 Introduction 273 15.2 Fitting models to data and estimation of parameters 274 15.3 Measuring the likelihood of the observed data 276 15.4 Evaluating the likelihood of alternate models using AIC 278 15.5 Adaptive management 281 15.6 Summary 284 16 Population viability analysis 285 16.1 Introduction 285 16.2 Environmental stochasticity 285 16.3 PVA based on the exponential growth model 286 16.4 PVA based on the diffusion model 287 16.5 PVA based on logistic growth 290 16.6 Demographic stochasticity 291 16.7 Estimating both environmental and demographic stochasticity 294 16.8 PVA based on demographic and environmental stochasticity 296 16.9 Strengths and weaknesses of PVA 296 16.10 Extinction caused by environmental change 298 16.11 Extinction threat due to introduction of exotic predators or competitors 298 16.12 Extinction threat due to unsustainable harvesting 300 16.13 Extinction threat due to habitat loss 302 16.14 Summary 302 17 Conservation in practice 305 17.1 Introduction 305 17.2 How populations go extinct 305 17.3 How to prevent extinction 315 17.4 Rescue and recovery of near-extinctions 316 17.5 Conservation in National Parks and reserves 317 17.6 Community conservation outside National Parks and reserves 322 17.7 International conservation 323 17.8 Summary 324 18 Wildlife harvesting 325 18.1 Introduction 325 18.2 Fixed-quota harvesting strategy 325 18.3 Fixed-proportion harvesting strategy 329 18.4 Harvesting in practice: dynamic variation in quotas or effort 332 18.5 No-harvest reserves 334 18.6 Age- or sex-biased harvesting 335 18.7 Commercial harvesting 340 18.8 Bioeconomics 340 18.9 Game cropping and the discount rate 344 18.10 Summary 346 19 Wildlife control 347 19.1 Introduction 347 19.2 Definitions 347 19.3 Effects of control 348 19.4 Objectives of control 348 19.5 Determining whether control is appropriate 349 19.6 Methods of control 350 19.7 Summary 356 20 Evolution and conservation genetics 357 20.1 Introduction 357 20.2 Maintenance of genetic variation 358 20.3 Natural selection 359 20.4 Natural selection and life history tradeoffs 361 20.5 Natural selection due to hunting 363 20.6 Natural selection due to fishing 365 20.7 Selection due to environmental change 367 20.8 Ecological dynamics due to evolutionary changes 372 20.9 Heterozygosity 374 20.10 Genetic drift and mutation 375 20.11 Inbreeding depression 376 20.12 How much genetic variation is needed? 377 20.13 Effective population size 378 20.14 Effect of sex ratio 379 20.15 How small is too small? 380 20.16 Summary 380 21 Habitat loss and metapopulation dynamics 381 21.1 Introduction 381 21.2 Habitat loss and fragmentation 381 21.3 Ecological effects of habitat loss 384 21.4 Metapopulation dynamics 386 21.5 Territorial metapopulations 389 21.6 Mainland–island metapopulations 390 21.7 Source–sink metapopulations 391 21.8 Metacommunity dynamics of competitors 392 21.9 Metacommunity dynamics of predators and prey 393 21.10 Corridors 394 21.11 Summary 398 22 Ecosystem management and conservation 399 22.1 Introduction 399 22.2 Definitions 400 22.3 Gradients of communities 400 22.4 Niches 400 22.5 Food webs and intertrophic interactions 400 22.6 Community features and management consequences 402 22.7 Multiple states 404 22.8 Regulation of top-down and bottom-up processes 405 22.9 Ecosystem consequences of bottom-up processes 407 22.10 Ecosystem disturbance and heterogeneity 408 22.11 Ecosystem management at multiple scales 410 22.12 Biodiversity 411 22.13 Island biogeography and dynamic processes of diversity 413 22.14 Ecosystem function 415 22.15 Summary 417 Appendices 419 Glossary 423 References 435 Index 489

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Book SynopsisThe authors explain why Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, and show his Machiavellian role in masterminding it (which Chinese publications conceal). In its critical analysis of Chairman Mao and its portrait of a culture in turmoil, this book offers the most authoritative and compelling account to date of this seminal event in Chinese history.Trade ReviewThe two leading experts in the West on the Cultural Revolution offer a powerful--and awful--tale, tackled on a grand scale. One can see the corrosive effect of Mao Zedong on just about everyone with whom he came in contact at this time. This perceptive study of the Cultural Revolution is a strong achievement. -- Jonathan SpenceGiven the hostile biographies and debunking histories that have recently appeared, it's safe to say that Mao's overlong honeymoon is over. In this exhaustive critique of the terrifying Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976, when Mao unleashed the Red Guards on his people, MacFarquhar and Schoenhals deliver the divorce papers. [They] cover the unceasing, pointless intrigues between Mao and his chief henchmen as the violence and denunciations, the staged humiliations and mass executions raged out of control, and the country lurched into turmoil. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *Supple prose, impeccable scholarship, and a Great Wall of bibliography...MacFarquhar and Schoenhals confirm our suspicions that without the disaster of the Cultural Revolution, China would not have been so eager to motor down the 'capitalist road,' and that Mao himself, purging comrades with 'deliberate opaqueness,' called every bloody shot. -- John Leonard * Harper's *An exhaustive history of China's Cultural Revolution. -- Benjamin Healy and Benjamin Schwarz * The Atlantic *[A] detailed, important book...For anyone interested in the period it contains real insights into the Cultural Revolution, when hundreds of thousands were killed, many dying without knowing what they had done wrong. The book communicates an amazing sense of escalation as Mao's 'Red Terror' spread through the campuses and schools of Beijing and then into factories, the countryside and people's homes. Intent on preserving power, Mao constructed elaborate intrigues around himself and the book captures the hysteria of the era in its descriptions of Red Guards, leftist students and schoolchildren roaming the streets attacking intellectuals, screaming denunciations of 'rightists' and 'revisionists,' forcing their elders to wear dunce hats, beating them up and exiling them to the country...Mao's Last Revolution leaves the reader in no doubt that Mao was a monster, but its dispassionate tone points a way towards understanding the genesis of that evil. Showing how Mao conceived and carried out the Cultural Revolution is crucial to building a broader understanding of that tumultuous period in Chinese history and also what China's future means for the world. This book brings that understanding closer. -- Clifford Coonan * Irish Times *[MacFarquhar and Schoenhals’s] account is authoritative, and presented with powerful narrative sweep. -- Michael Kenney * Boston Globe *I expect this will be the definitive study in English for some time to come. -- Scott McLemee * History News Network *[Mao's Last Revolution], gracefully, and with a necessary forensic flair, weaves a web of fact from disparate sources. The result is a detailed mosaic of this baffling era. The two political scientists build a picture that shocks with its cool detail. -- Didi Kirsten Tatlow * South China Morning Post *What emerges from the exhaustive research in this book is an understanding of the Cultural Revolution less as a coherent ideological movement and more as divide-and-rule political tactics...Mao's Last Revolution is a fascinating study of Mao's colossal, yet cunning, misadventure. -- Ben Arnoldy * Christian Science Monitor *[A] sweeping panorama of the Cultural Revolution...MacFarquhar and Schoenhals are both leading authorities on Chinese Communist Party history...The story they do tell is absorbing. -- Jonathan Spence * New York Review of Books *Marshalling an impressive range of source materials, Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals have gone a long way in their impressive new study...With their scholarly credentials, their assiduous selection and use of sources and their even-handed approach, Messrs MacFarquhar and Schoenhals have produced a work that will hold up...The heart of the book is a detailed chronicle of how Mao cynically twisted ideology and manipulated those around him, setting off hysterical and murderous attacks on everything from Confucian morals and bourgeois culture to intellectuals, 'capitalist roaders' and 'class enemies.' Using sources that range from official party and government documents to letters, diaries and interviews with surviving participants and victims, the authors document the orders that went out, the mayhem that resulted and the fear it all struck in the hearts of people across the country. And it is chilling stuff. * The Economist *Today, the Red Guards lie buried in the Chinese psyche like the clay warriors of Xian. Their ecstatic ranks flicker in black-and-white newsreels, and their misdeeds have been distorted to make history suit the victors of a dynastic power struggle. But truth will out, and, in the hands of the authors of Mao's Last Revolution, the drama needs no exaggeration. Mao's calculated decision to purge his rivals and purify the Chinese revolution in the late 1960s brought the country to the brink of ruin...The history that the authors have unearthed is remarkable. For a controlled society, Mao's China was a riot of periodicals, pamphlets, manifestos, poems, plays, songs and essays; all of which the two scholars handle with utter mastery. -- Michael Sheridan * Sunday Times *MacFarquhar and Schoenhals successfully synthesize the many plotlines of the Cultural Revolution in a narrative that shuttles from the endless micromaneuvers of the Party élite to the marauding teens of the Red Guard; and from the Revolution's macro-economic fallout to such bizarre manifestations as the cannibalizing of counter-revolutionaries in Guangxi. Carefully orchestrating the pandemonium and fuelling it with his 'deliberate opaqueness' is the figure of Mao Zedong. * New Yorker *Mao's Last Revolution...is an eloquent but damning description of the destruction wrought by the Cultural Revolution. -- Clifford Coonan * The Statesman *Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals’s book, Mao’s Last Revolution, the first major history of the elite politics of the period, may generate a wave of Cultural Revolution scholarship within China and encourage healthy debate over state manipulation of historical memory. -- Judith Shapiro * New York Times Book Review *A comprehensive study of perhaps the worst decade in China's history...Harvard's Roderick MacFarquhar, the leading Western authority on the period, and Michael Schoenhals, of the University of Lund, whose reputation is also considerable, are both authors of numerous path-breaking studies on the Cultural Revolution. Here, they sum up everything they have learned. -- Jonathan Mirsky * Times Literary Supplement *It has been enthralling to read Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals's exhaustively researched new book on China's Cultural Revolution--a sensation akin to returning to a Chinese painting in which a mist-shrouded landscape has miraculously cleared to reveal what was obscured beyond...MacFarquhar and Schoenhals have provided the most definitive roadmap to date of China's odyssey through those tumultuous times...MacFarquhar and Schoenhals have drawn from a truly impressive array of materials, including documents, wall posters, autobiographies, journalistic reports, interviews, speeches, academic studies and personal reminiscences. But here a cautionary word is in order. The field is awash with "wild" (rather than "official") histories and sources, which include autobiographies, memoirs, reminiscences and reflections filled with recovered memories and reconstructed dialogue of questionable provenance and accuracy. But the sources for this impressive book are more solid and varied than for any previous effort. One can only lament that Mao's Last Revolution will not be available in China, where the party's aversion to probing into such sensitive topics makes it unlikely that a similar historical research project will be forthcoming anytime soon. -- Orville Schell * Washington Post Book World *Mao's goals in the Cultural Revolution were threefold: to restore his position as unrivalled leader, to cut down his rivals and to ensure a 'revolutionary successor generation' that would keep China on a Marxist path. To achieve those goals, he was willing to wreck the state and party apparatus, and to tolerate murder and vandalism on a vast scale. Roderick MacFarquhar, a professor of history and political science at Harvard, and Michael Schoenhals, a lecturer on modern China at Sweden's Lund University, describe the unfolding catastrophe in meticulous detail. -- Fred Edwards * Toronto Star *This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the start of China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution...Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals have performed a great service in providing a masterful history of this important--and puzzling--event...They have created an unforgettable account of exceedingly traumatic events...MacFarquhar and Schoenhals bring to life the self-righteous anger of the Red Guards and the worker rebels, the suffering of their victims, the daily rituals of the Mao cult, the efforts of ordinary people to make sense out of what was happening and to bend their minds to believe in it...Hard as it is to believe after reading this masterful and sickening book, large parts of Mao's vision still live. -- Andrew J. Nathan * The Nation *At home, people are not allowed to commemorate Mao's horrors, because the current leaders sustain their regime through the same internal secrecy and arbitrary repression that made the Cultural Revolution possible. Abroad, people think that China has changed so much that its old tragedies are no longer relevant...And so Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals have performed a great service in providing a masterful history of this important--and puzzling--event...Together they are exquisitely alive to the signals sent by nuances of timing, the editing of photographs, invitations to and exclusions from meetings, and small changes in formulaic utterances. They have created an unforgettable account of exceedingly traumatic events...MacFarquhar and Schoenhals bring to life the self-righteous anger of the Red Guards and the worker rebels, the suffering of their victims, the daily rituals of the Mao cult, he efforts of ordinary people to make sense out of what was happening and to bend their minds to believe in it...Such stories rescue us from regarding the Cultural Revolution as something past and canned. They portray real people in real time who did not know what was going to happen next. -- Andrew J. Nathan * New Republic *This book is not simply for China specialists, but for anyone interested in the ways regimes led by men such as Stalin, Hitler, or Mao not only kept themselves in power but also sought to draw their people into the terrifying dystopias of their visions. -- Nicholas Clifford * Commonweal *The most comprehensive and authoritative account of the Cultural Revolution yet to appear, Mao’s Last Revolution, was recently published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. The two authors of the book, Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, are among the world’s foremost experts on Chinese politics underMao. Their book is so meticulous and draws on such a wealth of sources that it is likely to remain the deªnitive work for many years to come. -- Lynn White and Steven I. Levine * Journal of Cold War Studies *MacFarquhar and Schoenhals’s work, studded by astounding access to documents handed over in secret, or ferreted out through diligent trawls through flea markets in Beijing, is likely to remain the standard account of the Cultural Revolution for a generation or more, at least until voices within China can tell their own story freely. As such, the book serves as an immensely important record for the Chinese who can gain access to a copy (one assumes a Hong Kong translation will be swiftly smuggled into China), as well as for western readers who will find it meticulous, balanced and fair...The nearly 500 pages take the reader through a maze of intrigue, ideology and unending violence, but they are leavened throughout by a black, coruscating wit. Lu Xun, generally considered China’s greatest 20th-century author, was noted for his dark, despairing humour about his countrymen’s failings. Although Mao’s Last Revolution is meticulously researched history, not fiction, the wry voices of its authors make it a worthy successor to the writings of Lu Xun, Gogol, or any other author who sees irony in the darker side of human nature. -- Rana Mitter * Reviews in History (Inst. of Historical Research) *Table of ContentsPreface Abbreviations Introduction 1. The First Salvos 2. The Siege of Beijing 3. Confusion on Campuses 4. The Fifty Days 5. Mao's New Successor 6. The Red Guards 7. Red Terror 8. Confusion Nationwide 9. Shanghai's "January Storm" 10. Seizing Power 11. The Last Stand of the Old Guard 12. The Wuhan Incident 13. The May 16 Conspiracy 14. The End of the Red Guards 15. Cleansing the Class Ranks 16. Dispatching Liu Shaoqi 17. The Congress of Victors 18. War Scares 19. The Defection and Death of Lin Biao 20. Mao Becalmed 21. Zhou under Pressure 22. Deng Xiaoping Takes Over 23. The Gang of Four Emerges 24. The Tiananmen Incident of 1976 25. The Last Days of Chairman Mao Conclusion Glossary of Names and Identities A Note on Sources Notes Bibliography Illustration Credits Index

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Book SynopsisA three-thousand-year history of the Yellow River and the legacy of interactions between humans and the natural landscapeTrade Review“A survey of three millennia, based on an innovative historical geographic-information system.”—Andrew Robinson, Nature, “Best Science Pick of the Week”“The author achieves the notable feat of telling this vast, complex history in a single readable volume.”—Christopher Ruane, Asian Affairs“The Yellow River is a thought-provoking contribution to environment history and, more specifically, Chinese river history.”—Pichamon Yeophantong, European Journal of East Asian StudiesWinner of the Joseph Levenson Prize (China, Pre-1900), sponsored by the Association for Asian Studies“No other scholar has produced such a systematic, comprehensive account of the long-term changes in the river’s function and structure. I consider it to be the definitive work on the topic of the Yellow River to date.”—Peter C. Perdue, author of China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia“Ruth Mostern masterfully explores the ‘natural and unnatural’ impacts of the Yellow River. Her approach, emphasizing continuity and change over the longue durée, reveals a complex river that connects, dissects, transports, and displaces.”—David A. Pietz, author of The Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China“This unique book is testimony to the great value of spatial analysis and digital approaches. Read it for methodological innovation and let that change how you study history, humanities, and beyond!”—Ling Zhang, author of The River, the Plain, and the State: An Environmental Drama in Northern Song China, 1048–1128“In her three-thousand-year history of the Yellow River, Ruth Mostern provides a genuinely new take, full of surprising insights, that makes compelling reading. A pioneering example of quantitatively informed environmental history.”—Valerie Hansen, author of The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World—and Globalization Began“An outstanding merger of science and history, giving us a deeper understanding of the long, often tragic history of efforts to manage the Yellow River and the land it flows through.”—Kenneth Pomeranz, author of The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy

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Book SynopsisFrom dinosaurs fighting to their deaths to elephant-sized burrowing ground sloths, this book takes readers on a global journey deep into the earth’s past. Locked in Time showcases fifty of the most astonishing fossils ever found, brought together in five chapters that offer an unprecedented glimpse at the behavior of prehistoric animals.Trade ReviewA rousing romp through the fossil record. Dean R. Lomax's storytelling and Bob Nicholls's artwork reanimate the lifestyles and behaviors of long-extinct species. Revel along as old bones, teeth, and footprints tell the tale of dinosaur mating dances, fighting mammoths, and pterodactyl nurseries. -- Steve Brusatte, University of Edinburgh paleontologist and New York Times best-selling author of The Rise and Fall of the DinosaursVividly told with stunning illustrations, Locked in Time is an essential book for any fossil fan. From the ancient steps of a horseshoe crab to courting dinosaurs, Lomax and Nicholls achieve the closest thing to time travel in bringing the prehistoric back to life. -- Riley Black, author of The Last Days of the DinosaursWhen we think about the animals of the past, we’re drawn to a small handful of movie dinosaurs, but in this fascinating and engaging book, Lomax brings to life incredible moments in the lives of animals from throughout prehistory, discovering the universal in the specific and offering us an insight into our sense of place on this planet. While being immersed in scientific literature, Lomax has a gift for extracting events from millions of years ago and giving them meaning for everyone today. -- Ellie Harrison, presenter of Dinosaur BritainA beetle within a lizard within a snake, a giant beaver that made huge corkscrew burrows three meters deep, a mammal that ate dinosaurs, insects caught in the act of mating, and dinosaurs with cancer . . . Dean R. Lomax presents an extraordinary tour through recent fossil discoveries that shed light on all aspects of the life of the past. These extraordinary scenarios are brought to life in exquisite reconstructions by Bob Nicholls. These are fossils that don’t make it into the textbooks; your appreciation of the history of life will never be the same again! -- Michael J. Benton, professor of vertebrate paleontology, University of BristolA number of exceptional, spectacular fossils show—via the most direct evidence imaginable—that the extinct animals of the past were once very much alive. They preserve animals giving birth, swallowing prey, and even having sex. Others reveal cases where animals died from poisoning, choking, or even when locked in combat. Join Dean Lomax in this beautifully illustrated, thoroughly researched but accessibly written tour of animals forever locked in time. -- Darren Naish, lead scientific consultant for Prehistoric PlanetIlluminates how we pieced together our understanding of behaviors in the animal kingdom. . . . Buckle up—it's a journey. * Inverse *An outstanding and highly original piece of popular science that overflows with Lomax’s enthusiasm and passion. Believe me, you have not seen a book like this before. * Inquisitive Biologist *Meticulously researched and Dr [Dean] Lomax is a most eloquent and well-informed tour guide. Renowned palaeoartist Bob Nicholls provides the sumptuous illustrations that brings Dean’s narrative to life. * Everything Dinosaur *A strikingly illustrated study that will have immense value and appeal for both paleontology students and non-specialist general readers alike, 'Locked in Time: Animal Behavior Unearthed in 50 Extraordinary Fossils' is impressively well written and thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation. Exceptionally well informed and informative, 'Locked in Time: Animal Behavior Unearthed in 50 Extraordinary Fossils' is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended addition to community, college and university library Paleontology collections and supplemental studies curriculums. * Midwest Book Review *Fascinating and highly recommended. * AIPT Science *This informative, educational, and entertaining book will make a good addition to the paleontology aficionado’s library. * Fossil News *Fully achieves what it sets out to do: educate and entertain. * Quarterly Review of Biology *A captivating and accessible read...Highly recommended. * Choice *[Lomax] covers 50 extraordinary fossils, in five fascinating chapters that offer an unprecedented glimpse at the real-life behaviours of prehistoric animals. The book is illustrated by striking and scientifically rigorous illustrations by renowned palaeoartist Bob Nicholls. A great read for those interested in ancient life. * Deposits Magazine *Lomax is an easy narrator, deftly weaving personal reminiscence and passion among the paleontological facts. There’s an abundance of ‘impeccable, large illustrations and photographs.’ I had a blast with this book. -- Ola G * Re-enchantment of the World *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Unlocking the Prehistoric World1. Sex2. Parental Care and Communities3. Moving and Making Homes4. Fighting, Biting, and Feeding5. Unusual HappeningsAcknowledgmentsFurther ReadingIndex

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Book SynopsisCally Hall is a geology expert and an author of educational guidebooks that make the subject accessible to a variety of readers. In addition to DK Handbook: Gemstones, she has also written science-themed books aimed at younger audiences.

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Book SynopsisIn the first days of spring, birds undergo a spectacular metamorphosis. After a long winter of migration and peaceful coexistence, they suddenly begin to sing with all their might, varying each series of notes as if it were an audiophonic novel. They cannot bear the presence of other birds and begin to threaten and attack them if they cross a border, which might be invisible to human eyes but seems perfectly tangible to birds. Is this display of bird aggression just a pretence, a game that all birds play? Or do birds suddenly become territorial – and, if so, why? By attending carefully to the ways that birds construct their worlds and ornithologists have tried to understand them, Despret sheds fresh light on the activities of both and, at the same time, enables us to become more aware of the multiple worlds and modes of existence that characterize the planet we share in common with birds and other species.Trade Review“fascinating”The Environmental Magazine‘Without forgetting the dangers of violence and extinction, Despret’s writing always makes the world more generous, open, surprising, and generative. Living as a Bird inquires about and engages with “territory” and “territoriality” in exquisite specificity and concrete detail, exploring these birds, these writers and observers of birds, these sounds and calls, these rituals and affects. In the process, this potent little book describes and proposes a polyphonic score. Readers learn how to pay attention, to attend, to tune the senses and to open the imagination. What emerges are bird-rich, science-rich stories that are less deterministic, less self-satisfied with Explanation, more open to manoeuvre, both for birds and for humans who tune themselves to complex avian performances of their becoming in place.’Donna Haraway, Professor Emerita at the University of California, Santa CruzTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsFirst chord CounterpointChapter 1Territories Counterpoint Chapter 2 The power to affectCounterpoint Chapter 3 OverpopulationCounterpoint Second chord Counterpoint Chapter 4 PossessionsCounterpoint Chapter 5 AggressionCounterpoint Chapter 6 Polyphonic scoresCounterpoint PostscriptsA Poetic of Attention – Stéphane DurandGathering up the knowledge which has fallen from the nest – Baptiste MorizotNotes

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Book SynopsisWITH A FOREWORD BY TIM HARFORD See the world anew with this unique and beautifully designed infographic atlas Which nations have North Korean embassies? Which region has the highest number of death metal bands per capita? How many countries have bigger economies than California? Who drives on the 'wrong' side of the road? And where can you find lions in the wild? Revelatory, thought-provoking and fun, Brilliant Maps is a unique atlas of culture, history, politics and miscellanea, compiled by the editor of the iconic Brilliant Maps website. As visually arresting as Information is Beautiful and as full of surprising facts and figures as any encyclopaedia, Brilliant Maps is a stunning piece of cartography that maps our curious and varied planet. For graphic design enthusiasts, compulsive Wikipedia readers and those looking for the sort of gift they buy for someone else and wind up keeping for themselves, this book will change the way you see the world and your place in it. 'Thoughtful, fun and beautifully illustrated guide to our constantly surprising planet... terrifically interesting stuff' Big IssueTrade ReviewThis lovely [book]... pulls together fascinating statistics, which are illustrated superbly using a wonderful array of maps... the key to the book's success is the mixture of serious, fun and thought-provoking maps... thoughtful, fun and beautifully illustrated guide to our constantly surprising planet... terrifically interesting stuff * Big Issue *A brilliant collection ... Absolutely absorbing stuff, beautifully laid out * Four Shires Magazine *

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Book SynopsisThis critically acclaimed and definitive permaculture design book was the inspiration that BBC2's Brigit Strawbridge (of Its Not Easy Being Green) needed to attend her first permaculture design course with Patrick Whitefield, setting her and her family off on a voyage of discovery which is helping to introduce and inspire others. Already hailed in the UK, Europe and America as definitive, and reprinted by popular demand, The Earth Care Manual offers an inspirational yet practical vision of a sustainable future invaluable to those new to the subject as well as to the experienced practitioner. The permaculture movement started in the 1970s as a sustainable alternative to modern industrial agriculture, taking its inspiration from natural ecosystems. It initially placed an emphasis on gardening, with proponents of permaculture since expanding on its principles; addressing all subjects vital to sustainability, from building and community design to food, energy, water, microclimate and shelter. All of these topics and more are addressed in The Earth Care Manual, demonstrating that permaculture is an interconnecting framework linking a diversity of green ideas.Its aims are a low input, high output efficient use of resources, and genuine sustainability. The Earth Care Manual gives a vision of a sustainable future and the practical steps we can take towards it, both large and small, urban and rural. Written by Patrick Whitefield, one of Europes foremost teachers and practitioners of temperate permaculture, it explains in depth how to apply permaculture to any situation, from the smallest of buildings or apartments, to houses, gardens, orchards, farms and woodlands.Trade ReviewThe Earth Care Manual, put simply, is fantastic. It is what I have been waiting for for years, and it is what those of us in temperate climates have urgently needed. Patrick's considerable experience in the fields of woodlands and fruit growing shine through especially strongly, but the whole book is rich with vision and experience. What it offers is common sense solutions rooted in the culture and climate of these islands. This book is a clear and unarguable road map to where we need to go, an A-Z to sanity and common sense. Patrick has created a manual with which we can repair this beautiful jewel of a planet which we are fortunate enough to inhabit, and in so doing has given us a truly precious gift. Rob Hopkins, Co-founder of the Transition Movement

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Book SynopsisThe Charter of the United Nations was signed in 1945 by 51 countries representing all continents, paving the way for the creation of the United Nations on 24 October 1945. The Statute of the International Court of Justice forms part of the Charter. The aim of the Charter is to save humanity from war; to reaffirm human rights and the dignity and worth of the human person; to proclaim the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small; and to promote the prosperity of all humankind. The Charter is the foundation of international peace and security.

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