Earth Sciences, Geography & Environment Books
The University of Chicago Press Animal Body Size
Book SynopsisExplores animal body size from a macroecological perspective, examining species, populations, and other large groups of animals in order to uncover the patterns and causal mechanisms of body size throughout time and across the globe.Trade Review"This diverse collection provides a fascinating glimpse into a fundamental property of animal communities: the distribution of body sizes. With a stimulating integration of ecology and paleobiology that addresses the interplay of structure, function, the environment, and evolutionary history, this compilation is sure to appeal to a broad readership. By bringing to the forefront a suite of unanswered questions, the contributors' efforts will motivate exciting new research into how communities are structured across space and through time." (Rebecca Terry, Oregon State University)"
£44.65
The University of Chicago Press Purging the Poorest
Book SynopsisOffers a narrative of the seventy-five-year struggle to house the deserving poor. This title offers the novel concept of design politics to show how issues of architecture and urbanism are intimately bound up in thinking about policy.Trade Review"Purging the Poorest advances a fresh and convincing periodization of the history of American public housing that illuminates clear patterns in the program's convoluted past. Lawrence J. Vale's treatment of this subject is the most original and significant I have read." (Gail Radford, author of Modern Housing for America)"
£26.60
The University of Chicago Press Building Resilience Social Capital in
Book SynopsisEach year, natural disasters threaten the strength and stability of communities worldwide. This book highlights the critical role of social capital in the ability of a community to withstand disaster and rebuild the infrastructure and ties that are at the foundation of any community.Trade Review"Daniel P. Aldrich has drawn the lens back from the single event to reveal patterns of resilience - and roadblocks to recovery - in four different post-disaster contexts. Building Resilience offers a novel and compelling look at the darker side of social capital as it relates to post-disaster recovery." (Emily Chamlee-Wright, Beloit College)"
£28.50
The University of Chicago Press Global Sex
Book Synopsis"Global sex is the first major work to take on the globalization of sexuality, examining the ways in which desire and pleasure - as well as ideas about gender, political power, and public health - are framed by a global economy in which varied cultures are moving into closer contact.Trade Review"This valuable resource is compelling and easy-to-read, accessible to anyone interested in how technology and the global economy are shaping the ways we think." - Booklist "Altman is a wonderfully clear writer and thinker with a magpie skill for accumulating relevant nuggets of information. This makes Global Sex both illuminating and fascinating.... It is dazzlingly ambitious in its scope, ranging from fellatio in the White House and bulimia in Fiji to AIDS in Africa and transgender in Taiwan." - New Internationalist "A gripping portrait of a world barely able to keep pace with enormous, rapid-fire changes.... Offering neither a dire warning nor a reason to rejoice, his savvy, energetic book truly maintains a global perspective." - Publishers Weekly
£21.00
The University of Chicago Press Marketing Schools Marketing Cities
Book SynopsisDiscuss real estate with any young family and the subject of schools is certain to come up - in fact, it will likely be a crucial factor in determining where that family lives. In this title, the author shows how education policy makes overt attempts to prevent, or at least slow, middle-class flight to the suburbs.Trade Review"Maia Bloomfield Cucchiara provides a very clear and compelling example of the involvement of private people and business in public education and of the ways in which market strategies have been at work here. She offers a major contribution that provides a good, detailed look at how 'market mechanisms' play out in practice." (Lisa Stulberg, New York University)"
£111.28
The University of Chicago Press Marketing Schools Marketing Cities
Book SynopsisDiscuss real estate with any young family and the subject of schools is certain to come up - in fact, it will likely be a crucial factor in determining where that family lives. In this title, the author shows how education policy makes overt attempts to prevent, or at least slow, middle-class flight to the suburbs.Trade Review"Maia Bloomfield Cucchiara provides a very clear and compelling example of the involvement of private people and business in public education and of the ways in which market strategies have been at work here. She offers a major contribution that provides a good, detailed look at how 'market mechanisms' play out in practice." (Lisa Stulberg, New York University)"
£28.50
The University of Chicago Press Bringing in the Future
Book SynopsisHumans are plagued by shortsighted thinking, preferring to put off work on complex, or difficult problems in favor of quick-fix solutions to immediate needs. This book draws on research from psychology, economics, institutional design, and legal theory to suggest strategies to overcome obstacles to long-term planning in developing countries.Trade Review"This is an imaginative and sophisticated treatment of a tremendously important, albeit extremely complicated, collection of topics. Few authors could have carried this off as well as Ascher, given his long and varied career as both a distinguished policy scientist and responsible practitioner. Indeed, he virtually draws on almost everything he knows as he classifies, inventories, and assesses dozens of different ways, means, and strategies to promote what he terms 'farsightedness.'" - Garry D. Brewer, Yale School of Management"
£28.50
The University of Chicago Press The Nature of Diversity An Evolutionary Voyage of
Book SynopsisHow does democracy fare when the people governed insist they live in a world with witches? If the government of a people afflicted by witchcraft refuses to punish witches, how does it avoid becoming alienated from the perceived needs of its people or, worse, seen as being in league with witches? In Soweto, South Africa, the constant threat of violent crime, the increase in black socio-economic inequality, the AIDS pandemic, and a widespread fear of witchcraft have converged to create a pervasive sense of insecurity among citizens and a unique public policy problem for government. In Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa, Adam Ashforth examines how people in Soweto and other parts of post-apartheid South Africa manage their fear of 'evil forces' such as witchcraft. Ashforth examines the dynamics of insecurity in the everyday life of Soweto at the turn of the twenty-first century. He develops a new framework for understanding occult violence as a form of spiritual insecurity and documents new patterns of interpretation attributing agency to evil forces. Finally, he analyzes the response of post-apartheid governments to issues of spiritual insecurity and suggests how these matters pose severe long-term challenges to the legitimacy of the democratic state.
£28.50
The University of Chicago Press New Yorks New Edge
Book SynopsisTells the story of New York's west side no longer stars the Sharks and the Jets. This book offers an analysis of the transforming district in New York's New Edge, and the result is a new understanding of how we perceive and interpret culture and the city in New York's gallery district.
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press Building the South Side Urban Space and Civic
Book SynopsisExplores the struggle for influence that dominated the planning and development of Chicago's South Side during the Progressive Era. This work examines the University of Chicago, Chicago's public parks, and the Black Belt to consider how community leaders looked to the physical design of the city to shape its culture and promote civic interaction.Trade Review"Bachin incisively charts the development of key urban institutions and landscapes that helped constitute the messy vitality of Chicago's late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century public realm." - Daniel Bluestone, Journal of American History "This is an ambitious book filled with important insights about issues of public space and its use by urban residents.... It is thoughtful, very well written, and should be read and appreciated by anyone interested in Chicago or cities generally. It is also a gentle reminder that people are as important as structures and spaces in trying to understand urban development." - Maureen A. Flanagan, American Historical Review"
£80.00
The University of Chicago Press Building the South Side Urban Space and Civic
Book SynopsisExplores the struggle for influence that dominated the planning and development of Chicago's South Side during the Progressive Era. This work examines the University of Chicago, Chicago's public parks, and the Black Belt to consider how community leaders looked to the physical design of the city to shape its culture and promote civic interaction.Trade Review"Bachin incisively charts the development of key urban institutions and landscapes that helped constitute the messy vitality of Chicago's late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century public realm." - Daniel Bluestone, Journal of American History "This is an ambitious book filled with important insights about issues of public space and its use by urban residents.... It is thoughtful, very well written, and should be read and appreciated by anyone interested in Chicago or cities generally. It is also a gentle reminder that people are as important as structures and spaces in trying to understand urban development." - Maureen A. Flanagan, American Historical Review"
£26.60
University of Chicago Press La Selva Paper Ecology and Natural History of a
Book SynopsisLa Selva, a nature reserve and field station in Costa Rica, has been the focus of research on rainforest ecology for over 30 years. This volume reviews this research, covering La Selva's geographical history and physical setting, its plant and animal life, and agricultural development and land use.
£61.26
The University of Chicago Press Terrestrial Ecosystems Through Time Evolutionary
Book SynopsisA survey of the entire ecological history of life on land--from the earliest traces of terrestrial organisms over 400 million years ago to the beginning of human agriculture.
£47.50
The University of Chicago Press LightGreen Society Ecology and Technological
Book SynopsisBess traces the technological transformations that shook post-war France, and shows how they led, in turn, to the rise of environmentalist ideas. As technological modernity merged with environmentalism, he contends, the boundaries between nature and society became profoundly blurred.
£80.00
The University of Chicago Press The LightGreen Society Ecology and Technological
Book SynopsisBess traces the technological transformations that shook post-war France, and shows how they led, in turn, to the rise of environmentalist ideas. As technological modernity merged with environmentalism, he contends, the boundaries between nature and society became profoundly blurred.
£24.70
The University of Chicago Press Tropical Rainforests Past Present and Future
Book SynopsisSynthesizing theoretical and empirical analyses of the processes that help shape these unique ecosystems, Tropical Rainforests looks at the effects of evolutionary histories, past climate change, and ecological dynamics on the origin and maintenance of tropical rainforest communities. Australian contributors.
£134.00
The University of Chicago Press Tropical Rainforests Past Present and Future
Book SynopsisSynthesizing theoretical and empirical analyses of the processes that help shape these unique ecosystems, Tropical Rainforests looks at the effects of evolutionary histories, past climate change, and ecological dynamics on the origin and maintenance of tropical rainforest communities. Australian communities.
£47.50
The University of Chicago Press Demolition Means Progress
Book SynopsisIn 1997, after General Motors shuttered a massive complex of factories in the gritty industrial city of Flint, Michigan, workers placed signs around the empty facility reading. This book suggests that the struggling city could not move forward to greatness until the old plants met the wrecking ball.
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press Maps and Politics
Book SynopsisDo maps objectively represent information, or are they coloured by political purposes? This text returns maps to their social and political context, claiming they cannot be divorced from political aspects, and examines how they have been used in the past and present for political purposes.
£89.56
UNIV OF CHICAGO PR Maps and Politics
Book SynopsisDo maps objectively represent information, or are they coloured by political purposes? This text returns maps to their social and political context, claiming they cannot be divorced from political aspects, and examines how they have been used in the past and present for political purposes.
£31.81
The University of Chicago Press Lifes Splendid Drama Evolutionary Biology the
Book SynopsisPeter J. Bowler seeks to recover some of the lost history of life on earth in this work, giving an account of evolutionary morphology and its relationships with palaeontology and biogeography.Table of ContentsList of Figures Preface Table of Geological Periods and Eras 1: The First Evolutionary Biology A New Biology A Revolution in Science? Transforming Traditions The Professional Framework 2: The Tree of Life Relationships Redefined Form and Function Convergence and Parallelism Ontogeny and Phylogeny The Base of the Tree 3: Are the Arthropoda a Natural Group? The Problem of Arthropod Origins The Genealogy of the Crustacea Peripatus and the Origin of the Tracheata Limulus an Arachnid The Debate Widens The Fossil Record 4: Vertebrate Origins The Ascidian Theory The Annelid Theory The Arthropod Theories Nemertines and the Actinozoa Balanoglossus and the Echinoderms The Environmental Trigger Later Developments 5: From Fish to Amphibian The Origin of Fish The Fin Problem The Origin of the Amphibians From Water to Land 6: The Origin of Birds and Mammals From Reptile to Bird Taking to the Air Monotremes, Marsupials, and Mammals The Mammal-like Reptiles 7: Patterns in the Past Putting Things Together Adaptive Radiation Laws and Trends Rise and Fall Mass Extinctions 8: The Geography of Life Zoological Provinces Lost Worlds Northern Origins Southern Continents 9: The Metaphors of Evolutions Trees and Ladders The Biology of Imperialism? Phylogeny and Modern Darwinism Biographical Appendix Bibliography Index
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press Lifes Splendid Drama Evolutionary Biology and
Book SynopsisHistories of the Darwinian revolution have often paid more attention to theoretical debates than to the researchers who struggled to comprehend the deeper evolutionary significance of fossils. This is an account of evolutionary morphology and its relationship with palaeontology and biogeography.
£30.40
The University of Chicago Press How the Earth Turned Green A Brief
Book SynopsisOn this blue planet, long before pterodactyls took to the skies and tyrannosaurs prowled the continents, tiny green organisms populated the ancient oceans. The author traces the history of these verdant organisms, which many would call plants, from their ancient beginnings to the diversity of green life that inhabits the Earth today.
£112.10
The University of Chicago Press Wildlife Conservation in a Changing Climate
Book SynopsisBringing together leaders in the fields of climate change ecology, wildlife population dynamics, and environmental policy, this title examines the impacts of climate change on populations of terrestrial vertebrates. It also includes chapters that assess the details of climate change ecology.Trade Review"Wildlife Conservation in a Changing Climate provides an important, cutting-edge, and forward-looking contribution toward our understanding of climate effects on wildlife species. The strength of the book is that it is a compendium of work by both academic scientists and front-line conservation practitioners who are wrestling with ideas and practical ways to conserve wildlife in the face of changing climate. These essays set the standard for providing scientific insights for the practice of wildlife conservation in an era of changing climate." (Oswald Schmitz, Yale University)"
£124.00
The University of Chicago Press Wildlife Conservation in a Changing Climate
Book SynopsisBringing together leaders in the fields of climate change ecology, wildlife population dynamics, and environmental policy, this title examines the impacts of climate change on populations of terrestrial vertebrates. It also includes chapters that assess the details of climate change ecology.Trade Review"Wildlife Conservation in a Changing Climate provides an important, cutting-edge, and forward-looking contribution toward our understanding of climate effects on wildlife species. The strength of the book is that it is a compendium of work by both academic scientists and front-line conservation practitioners who are wrestling with ideas and practical ways to conserve wildlife in the face of changing climate. These essays set the standard for providing scientific insights for the practice of wildlife conservation in an era of changing climate." (Oswald Schmitz, Yale University)"
£42.75
The University of Chicago Press Phylogeny Ecology and Behavior A Research Program
Book SynopsisA rigorous integration of phylogenetic hypotheses into studies of adaptation, adaptive radiation, and coevolution in evolutionary biology.
£34.20
The University of Chicago Press Macroecology
Book SynopsisThis work demonstrates the advantages of macroecology for conservation, showing how it allows scientists to look beyond endangered species and ecological communities in order to consider the long history and large geographic scale of human impacts.
£26.60
The University of Chicago Press Sprawl A Compact History
Book SynopsisStripping urban sprawl of its pejorative connotations, this book offers a new vision of the city and its growth. The author leads readers to the conclusion that in its complexity and constant change, the city is a wonderful work of mankind.Trade Review"Robert Bruegmann's Sprawl is the most important book on the American landscape since Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities. It will be as influential in helping us to see American cities and suburbs as they actually are, rather than as imagined by the world's ideologues." - Alexander Garvin, Professor of Urban Planning and Management, Yale University, and author of The American City: What Works, What Doesn't"
£32.30
The University of Chicago Press Culture on Tour Ethnographies of Travel
Book Synopsis
£28.50
University of Chicago Press London The Selden Map and the Making of a Global
Book SynopsisIf one had looked for a potential global city in Europe in the 1540s, the most likely candidate would have been Antwerp. Using his discovery of a network of Chinese merchant shipping routes on John Selden's map of China, the author reveals how London also flourished because of its encounters, engagements, and exchanges with East Asian cities.Trade Review"In the course of a tumultuous seventeenth century, London changed from an energetic newcomer on the fringes of old Europe to a global center of trade, power, and interactive knowledge. In a work of amazing erudition and ambition, Robert K. Batchelor shows how new forms of organization and knowledge of more Asian histories and languages shaped this transformation." -John E. Wills, Jr., University of Southern California"
£48.82
The University of Chicago Press Maps of Paradise
£43.00
The University of Chicago Press Politics of Scale A History of Rangeland Science
Book SynopsisRangelands are vast, making up one quarter of the United States and forty percent of the Earth's ice-free land. And while contemporary science has revealed a great deal about the environmental impacts associated with intensive livestock production from greenhouse gas emissions to land and water degradation far less is known about the historic role science has played in rangeland management and politics. Steeped in US soil, this first history of rangeland science looks to the origins of rangeland ecology in the late nineteenth-century American west, exploring the larger political and economic forces that together with scientific study produced legacies focused on immediate economic success rather than long-term ecological well being. During the late 1880s and early 1890s, a variety of forces from the Homestead Act of 1862 to the extermination of bison, foreign investment, and lack of government regulation promoted free-for-all access to and development of the western range, with disastr
£98.80
University of Chicago Press A Brain for All Seasons Human Evolution and
Book SynopsisThe earth's climate changes abruptly every few thousand years, with breathtaking speed, cooling the climate worldwide. For most mammals this has a devastating effect on population. This volume argues that the cycle has instigated the increase in brain size and complexity of human beings.Trade Review"William Calvin uses an adventure across today's Earth to draw laser-sharp insights about our human past, and possibly its future. In A Brain for All Seasons, Calvin shows how gyrating weather patterns may have forged our ancestors' evolutionary path. And since Earth's climate may resume those catastrophic swings at any time, evolution may not be finished with us yet." - David Brin, author of The Transparent Society
£31.52
The University of Chicago Press A Brain for All Seasons Human Evolution and
Book SynopsisIn this unique travelogue, William H. Calvin takes us around the globe and back in time, showing how such cycles of cool, crash and burn provided the impetus for enormous increases in the intelligence and complexity of human beings.
£21.48
The University of Chicago Press Global Fever
Book SynopsisEvery decade since 1950 has seen more floods and more wildfires on every continent. Deserts are expanding, coral reefs are dying, fisheries are declining, and hurricanes are strengthening. Global warming has made the Earth sick. This book delivers a diagnosis and a prescription.Trade Review"It needs a physician to look at the patient that is our Earth, to make a diagnosis, to measure its rising temperature, to look at the reasons for it, to assess the likely effects, and not least to suggest what now needs to be done. William Calvin's new book does all this and more in simple and telling language. Above all Calvin brings out the need for urgent action if the wonderful Earth that we have inherited will be as wonderful for our children and generations to come." - Sir Crispin Tickell"
£29.45
University of Chicago Press In the Rainforest Report from a Strange
Book Synopsis
£28.37
The University of Chicago Press The Climate of History in a Planetary Age
Book SynopsisTrade Review“With his new masterwork, Chakrabarty confirms that he is one of the most creative and philosophically-minded historians writing today. The oppositions he proposes between the global of globalization and the global of global warming, between the world and the planet, between sustainability and habitability are illuminating and effective for thinking and acting through our highly uncertain and disoriented times.” * François Hartog, author of 'Chronos' *“One of the first thinkers to reckon with the concept of the Anthropocene and its relation to humanism and its critics, Chakrabarty forges new territory in his account of the planetary. If globalism was an era of human and market interconnection, the planetary marks the intrusion of geological forces, transforming both the concept of ‘the human’ and its accompanying sense of agency. This is a tour de force of critical thinking that will prove to be a game changer for the humanities.” * Claire Colebrook, Pennsylvania State University *"Historian Dipesh Chakrabarty confronts the ‘planeticide’ by calling for a humanistic and critical approach to the Anthropocene. . . . Ever alert to the holistic and far reaching vision upheld by ‘deep history,’ the Chicago professor re-raises the old question of the human condition in the new framework of the geobiological history of the planet." * Arquitectura Viva *"The Climate of History in a Planetary Age, by Dipesh Chakrabarty, is in my judgment the most compelling and encompassing book by a humanist on the complexities and asymmetries of the Anthropocene to date." * The Contemporary Condition *“For Chakrabarty, ‘global’ does not refer to the entirety of the world, but rather to a particular mode of thought. . . . In critiquing the global, Chakrabarty offers another mode of thinking that can perhaps provide the philosophical grounding for a truly ecological approach. He terms it the ‘planetary.’ Chakrabarty argues the ‘planetary’ is not a unified totality, but rather ‘a dynamic ensemble of relationships.’ While the global mode of thought retains the centrality of the human observer, the planetary mode of thought decentres the human and its apprehension of the world. The human becomes only one node within a much more complex and multivalent system of actors, both human and non-human.” -- Christopher McAteer * Green European Journal *"In The Climate of History in a Planetary Age, University of Chicago historian and theorist Dipesh Chakrabarty provides an expansive, but hardly exhaustive, overview of the Anthropocene, focusing on how historians, in particular, have grappled with the conditions of a world under physical duress. As humans have become a 'geological force' in this new epoch and the earth has itself become an archive, with human behavior imprinted in the fossil record and ice caps, we are at the cusp of a new understanding of the agency of humankind and other terrestrial beings. This 'planetary' understanding can, in turn, offer a new ethical paradigm for inhabiting this afflicted present, and can apply to remote pasts and possible futures. Such, at least, is the hope expressed in Chakrabarty’s book." * The Hedgehog Review *"Immensely clarifying and illuminating. . . . while Chakrabarty frequently invokes research produced by natural scientists, his argument carves out an important space for humanists in interpreting and responding to the consequences of anthropogenic geological agency." * Isis Journal *"This book provides a thought-provoking, complex discussion of how climate change challenges the humanities, history, and the human sense of time but presupposes a command of intellectual history. . . . Overall, Chakrabarty outlines the overlapping of different histories once thought to be distinct. The planet itself, he argues, is a 'humanist category.'" * Choice *"Environmental humanists... tend to treat 'globe' and 'planet' as synonyms; Chakrabarty shows the critical and generative importance of the distinction. Evoking geological time is de rigueur; he shows what it means to dwell with that time without displacing it onto world historical time. Rapturous treatments of multispecies agency abound; he challenges the latent anthropocentrism and even paternalism of some new materialisms." * American Literary History *"The Climate of History in a Planetary Age is a breathtaking book. Chakrabarty challenges us to reimagine the human from a planetary perspective, a deep history—an infinite horizon of human history—in order to come to terms with the climate crisis that human actions have precipitated." * The Book Review India *"Chakrabarty’s approach to the Anthropocene is a rich collage of intellectual influences primarily from India, Europe, Australia and North America. The book is an exemplary illustration that the magnitude and scope of the Anthropocene is not only challenging. For many academics, it is an inviting opportunity to take stock of one’s lessons learnt through research and personal experience. At this stage of the academic debate, the Anthropocene offers plenty of room for thematic manoeuvres. Chakrabarty displays a version of such intellectual playfulness in an overall sense-making attempt." * British Journal for the History of Science *"It's no overstatement to think of this book as having clanged the bell for a new normal in the humanities and social sciences when it comes to telling the story of ourselves, that is, when it comes to human history. Responsible history should today be geological even when recounting the human record. Chakrabarty raised a series of open-ended, difficult questions about a range of core concerns in the humanities and social sciences from how we can understand ourselves and society to how we ought to think about political economy and morality." * Environmental Philosophy *"Our academic engagements with law and development and social sciences more broadly must attempt to make sense of the rifts between the global and the planetary, even if such endeavours transcend and disrupt disciplinary confines and assumptions... The objective should be to displace the ideological supremacy of human species, Euroamerican and universalistic cosmologies, and simultaneously further the plurality of human-nonhuman relations, minority thought and just political action. Chakrabarty's book is one essential step in this direction." * Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law *"In contrast to most of the interventions that we can read about the ecological catastrophe, Chakrabarty does not rush to give us solutions, but rather seeks to sharpen the problem... By locating this difficulty at the intersection of the two great critical events of our history, decolonization on the one hand and global warming on the other, and by identifying the problematic node from these two distinct figures of totalization that are globalization and planetarization, Chakrabarty inscribes himself in an original way in a body of contemporary research in which the legacy of the critique of colonization and ecological awareness are mixed... Chakrabarty is an Aufklärer, and in this book as in the previous one, a single question is at work: how to inherit the Enlightenment? How to prolong the cosmopolitical project?" * Critique *"Chakrabarty’s argument about what postcolonial studies has to offer the environmental humanities goes well beyond the established appeals to inequality that constitute climate justice discourse . . . As such, this book comes highly recommended for anyone working in the environmental humanities." * Ecozon@ *"The new book by Dipesh Chakrabarty, The Climate of History in a Planetary Age, is to my mind currently the best available introduction to the new challenges for political thinking in the Anthropocene." * Postcolonial Studies *"The challenge of Anthropocene research is not that it compels determining which view is the singly correct one; the challenge is that almost all views (if not all of them) are to some extent correct. How, then, do we go about addressing these multiple (potentially and partially correct) views? Open the pages of The Climate of History in a Planetary Age and see for yourself." * History and Theory *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Intimations of the PlanetaryPart I: The Globe and the Planet 1 Four Theses 2 Conjoined Histories 3 The Planet: A Humanist CategoryPart II: The Difficulty of Being Modern 4 The Difficulty of Being Modern 5 Planetary Aspirations: Reading a Suicide in India 6 In the Ruins of an Enduring FablePart III: Facing the Planetary 7 Anthropocene Time 8 Toward an Anthropological Clearing Postscript: The Global Reveals the Planetary: A Conversation with Bruno Latour Acknowledgments Notes Index
£78.85
The University of Chicago Press A Journey through Afghanistan
Book SynopsisThis volume tells the story of David Chaffetz's experience of Afghanistan shortly before the Soviet invasion. His account is an intimate portrait of the Afghan people and the vast landscape which surrounds them.
£24.70
The University of Chicago Press Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and
Book SynopsisOriginally published anonymously in 1844, "Vestiges" was the first attempt to connect the natural sciences to a history of creation. This volume includes Chambers's earliest works on cosmology, an essay on Darwin and an autobiographical essay. It also features a new introduction by James Secord.
£35.15
The University of Chicago Press Chicagos Urban Nature A Guide to the Citys
Book SynopsisChicago - whose motto is City in a Garden - is at the forefront of a global movement to end the division between town and country. This book provides an illustrated guide to the city's stunning blend of nature and architecture. It reveals the connections woven through the fabric of the city. It includes maps, recommended tours and photos.Trade Review"Chicago is the city meant to be looked at. Justifying that with inspiring clarity, this book surveys the urban vistas as the aesthetic unity of architecture and landscape - and raises the guidebook to new heights of the genre." - William Conger, artist and professor emeritus, Northwestern University "There is no other book-length guide to the built landscapes of Chicago.... It will appeal to Chicagoans and visitors looking for an informed guide to the city's outdoor spaces." - William Thompson, editor, Landscape Architecture"
£25.11
The University of Chicago Press Ratio Correlation A Manual for Students of
Book Synopsis'
£21.00
The University of Chicago Press Large Carnivore Conservation
Book SynopsisDrawing on six case studies of wolf, grizzly bear, and mountain lion conservation in habitats stretching from the Yukon to Arizona, this book argues that conserving and coexisting with large carnivores is as much a problem of people and governance.
£56.00
The University of Chicago Press CloseUp How to Read the American City Phoenix
Book SynopsisGrady Clay looks hard at the landscape, finding out who built what and why, noticing who participates in a city's success and who gets left in a 'sink,' or depressed (often literally) area. Clay doesn't stay in the city; he looks at industrial towns, truck stops, suburbsnearly anywhere people live or work. His style is witty and readable, and the book is crammed with illustrations that clarify his points. If I had to pick up one book to guide my observations of the American scene, this would be it.Sonia Simone, Whole Earth ReviewThe emphasis on the informal aspects of city-shapingtopographical, historical, economic and socialdoes much to counteract the formalist approach to American urban design. Close-Up...should be required reading for anyone wishing to understand Americans and their cities.Roger Cunliffe, Architectural ReviewClose-Up is a provocative and stimulating book.Thomas J. Schlereth, Winterthur PortfolioWithin this coherent string of essays, the urban dweller or observer, as
£25.65
The University of Chicago Press The Earthquake Observers Disaster Science from
Book SynopsisEarthquakes have taught us much about our planet's hidden structure and the forces that have shaped it. This title explains how observing networks transformed an instant of panic and confusion into a field for scientific research, turning earthquakes into natural experiments at the nexus of the physical and human sciences.Trade ReviewNature "Crowd-sourced science has rarely been so thrilling. As Deborah R. Coen reveals, the rumbustious history of seismology began with roving scientists gathering locals' accounts of shocks, shudders and thumps. Luminaries from Charles Darwin to Alexander von Humboldt reported, too; Charles Dickens likened a quake to a great beast 'shaking itself and trying to rise.' Coen argues for a hybridized 'disaster science,' factoring in such responses from 'human seismographs' with geology and instrumental data." Luciana Astiz, University of California, San Diego; Times Higher Education "The cleverly ambiguous title of this book plays with the many uncertainties that surround our experience of earthquakes. Just who are these 'observers': are they scientists, farmers, or city dwellers? In answering this question, Deborah Coen offers a wealth of information in a book that reads with the appeal of fiction. In ten chapters, from "The Human Seismograph" to "A True Measure of Violence: California 1906 - 1935", she spins a compelling yarn of how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scientists gathered accounts by observers of seismic events that could furnish quantifiable information." Gregory C. Beroza, Science "The book is well written, the documentation meticulous, and the depth of research impressive. At many points in the narrative, I marveled at the extent of the relevant material Coen has unearthed... [F]ascinating." David K. Chester, University of Liverpool, Environment and History "Scholarly and well-written... Highly recommended for both library and private purchase. Deborah Coen is to be congratulated for producing a first class introduction to a much-neglected theme within the history of earthquake science which should appeal, not only to seismologists, but also to historians of science and the hazard research community more generally. This is a successful volume by a highly talented academic writer. Carla Nappi, New Books in Science, Technology, and Society "A fascinating multisited study of the changing nature of material and human instruments through which communities have understood modern disasters." T. L. T. Grose, Colorado School of Mines, Choice "The superb writing in this book is engaging and outstanding for its insight into the human reaction to environmental disturbances. Highly recommended." Theodore M. Porter, University of California, Los Angeles "This superb book enables us to recognize seismology as a human science. Deborah R. Coen shows how earthquakes were assigned magnitudes according to a scale defined by human experience, and how people dispersed across the countryside learned to deploy precisely a language of earthquake description. Most strikingly of all, she situates these observers as active participants in processes of scientific data-gathering that formed the basis for a physics of seismic events and, with it, a scientific culture of democratic public reason." Andre Wakefield, Pitzer College "This is not merely a book about the past; it prompts the question: how will society cope with the inevitable natural disasters of the future? Deborah R. Coen's finely woven story reveals that there have been, and could be, entirely different ways of studying and coping with earthquakes than those we have become accustomed to imagining." Roger M. W. Musson, British Geological Survey "The Earthquake Observers is more than just a history of seismology: it tells the story of how ideas about earthquakes influenced human culture in the modern era. Deborah R. Coen is as entertaining as she is erudite. This fascinating study should appeal to a wide readership; strongly recommended." Daniel J. Kevles, Yale University "Deborah R. Coen brings to vivid life the human seismographic networks in four different countries, whose members were a principal source of data about earthquakes before the 1930s. She treats her subject with a capacious interpretive vision, revealing that, in relying on human reports, early earthquake science encompassed not just the measurable movements of the earth but also the human experience of the unsteady ground, including fear and terror. This is a stunningly original work, at once an eye-opening history and an implicit guide to how we might advantageously approach contemporaneous threats of disasters."
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press The Fate of the Mammoth
Book SynopsisFrom cave paintings to the latest Siberian finds, woolly mammoths have fascinated people across the world for centuries. In this volume the large mammal is reconstructed through its history in science, myth and popular culture.Trade Review"Some groping attempts to tell the history of paleontology through a mammoth's eyes have been made before, but only as a lick and promise, and largely by amateur enthusiasts with (perhaps) adequate knowledge of fossils, but little understanding of the subtleties or larger contexts in the history of science. But, in this truly pathbreaking book, the mammoth has finally met its match in Claudine Cohen." - from the Foreword by Stephen Jay Gould
£34.20
The University of Chicago Press Hope on Earth
£24.12
University of Chicago Press The Western Flyer Steinbecks Boat the Sea of
Book SynopsisWith a timely tale of a boat and the people it carried, of fisheries exploited, and of fortunes won and lost, this book offers an environmental history, a journey through time and across the sea, charting the ebb and flow of the cobalt waters of the Pacific coast.Trade Review"From shrimp in the Sea of Cortez to sardines and Pacific Ocean perch on the West Coast, from salmon to king crab, the story of these fisheries is consistent with the spread of fisheries-and overfishing-in general, from coastal waters near major population centers to areas that are increasingly farther offshore, deeper, and more remote. Along with the effects this approach has had on marine life, The Western Flyer also illuminates the impact it has had on coastal communities. Bailey uses this boat to help people see how we have serially depleted one population of marine life after another, and how we have repeated the rationale justifying it all across time and place without learning from past experiences." (John Hocevar, Oceans campaign director, Greenpeace USA)
£18.90
The University of Chicago Press Having People Having Heart Charity Sustainable
Book SynopsisThrough detailed studies of two different orphan support organizations in Uganda, the author shows how many Ugandans view material forms of Catholic charity as deeply intertwined with their own ethics of care and exchange. She reassesses the generally assumed paradox of material aid as both promising independence and preventing it.Trade Review"A fascinating and original book that unsettles preconceptions-and social science theories-about the evils of charity. Scherz convincingly shows how Ugandan nuns' practices of charity, which center not upon autonomy but on interdependence, are a better fit with the relational ethics of the region than are NGO workers' practices of development. This regional ethics of interdependence prescribes correct (and correctly flexible) relations between patron and client. In such a worldview charity is no insult and independence from others no laudable goal." (Claire Wendland, University of Wisconsin-Madison)"
£80.00
