Earth Sciences, Geography & Environment Books
The University of Chicago Press Killing the Koala and Poisoning the Prairie
Book Synopsis
£21.00
The University of Chicago Press Why Ecology Matters
Book SynopsisGlobal temperatures and seawater levels rise; the world's smallest porpoise species looms at the edge of extinction; and a tiny emerald beetle from Japan flourishes in North Americabut why does it matter? Who cares? With this concise, accessible, and up-to-date book, Charles J. Krebs answers critics and enlightens students and environmental advocates alike, revealing not why phenomena like these deserve our attention, but why they demand it. Highlighting key principles in ecologyfrom species extinction to the sun's role in powering ecosystemseach chapter introduces a general question, illustrates that question with real-world examples, and links it to pressing ecological issues in which humans play a central role, such as the spread of invasive species, climate change, overfishing, and biodiversity conservation. While other introductions to ecology are rooted in complex theory, math, or practice and relegate discussions of human environmental impacts and their societal implications
£22.80
The University of Chicago Press Current Paleoethnobotany Analytical Methods and
Book SynopsisPaleoethnobotany offers powerful tools for reconstructing past cultures by examining the interaction of human populations with the plant world. Plant remains from archaeological sites can provide information for a number of disciplines: archaeologists may use such remains to examine how plants were used, how agriculture changed over time, or how plant offerings in burials signaled social status; ecologists and botanists may use them to study morphological changes in plants due to domestication. Combining case studies and theoretical discussions, Current Paleoethnobotany presents the first full discussion of the major stages and problems of paleoethnobotanical research, from designing and testing equipment, such as flotation machines, to quantification and interpretation. The volume explores a wide range of issues concerning collection techniques, analytical procedures, and interpretive models that will provide accurate information about past human societies from plant remains. The contributors offer data on specific regions as well as more general background information on the basic techniques of paleoethnobotany for the nonspecialist. Throughout, they explicitly examine the assumptions underlying paleoethnobotanical methods and the ways in which those assumptions affect anthropological and ecological research questions. Based on a symposium presented at the 1985 meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Current Paleoethnobotany moves beyond a technique-oriented view of paleoethnobotany to successfully integrate current thinking about both procedures and research goals. The contributors demonstrate the potential value of the field of paleoethnobotany and open the way for further discussion and improvement.
£25.65
The University of Chicago Press The Invention of Religion in Japan Emersion
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£22.80
The University of Chicago Press Conceptualizing Capitalism Institutions Evolution
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£24.70
The University of Chicago Press A Good That Transcends
Book SynopsisSince the birth of the modern environmental movement in the 1970s, the United States has witnessed dramatic shifts in social equality, ecological viewpoints, and environmental policy. With these changes has also come an increased popular resistance to environmental reform, but, as Eric T. Freyfogle reveals in this book, that resistance has far deeper roots. Calling upon key environmental voices from the past and presentincluding Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, David Orr, and even Pope Francis in his Encyclicaland exploring core concepts like wilderness and the tragedy of the commons, A Good That Transcends not only unearths the causes of our embedded culture of resistance, but also offers a path forward to true, lasting environmental initiatives. A lawyer by training, with expertise in property rights, Freyfogle uses his legal knowledge to demonstrate that bad land use practices are rooted in the way in which we see the natural world, value it, and understand our place within it. While social and economic factors are important components of our current predicament, it is our culture, he shows, that is driving the reform crisisand in the face of accelerating environmental change, a change in culture is vital. Drawing upon a diverse array of disciplines from history and philosophy to the life sciences, economics, and literature, Freyfogle seeks better ways for humans to live in nature, helping us to rethink our relationship with the land and craft a new conservation ethic. By confronting our ongoing resistance to reform as well as pointing the way toward a common good, A Good That Transcends enables us to see how we might rise above institutional and cultural challenges, look at environmental problems, appreciate their severity, and both support and participate in reform.
£24.70
The University of Chicago Press Our Oldest Task
Book SynopsisThis is a book about nature and culture, Eric T. Freyfogle writes, about our place and plight on earth, and the nagging challenges we face in living on it in ways that might endure. Challenges, he says, we are clearly failing to meet. Harking back to a key phrase from the essays of eminent American conservationist Aldo Leopold, Our Oldest Task spins together lessons from history and philosophy, the life sciences and politics, economics and cultural studies in a personal, erudite quest to understand how we might live on and in accord with the land. Passionate and pragmatic, extraordinarily well-read and eloquent, Freyfogle details a host of forces that have produced our self-defeating ethos of human exceptionalism. It is this outlook, he argues, not a lack of scientific knowledge or inadequate technology, that is the primary cause of our ecological predicament. Seeking to comprehend both the multifaceted complexity of contemporary environmental problems and the zeitgeist as it unfolds, Freyfogle explores such diverse topics as morality, the nature of reality (and the reality of nature), animal welfare, social justice movements, and market politics. The result is a learned and inspiring rallying cry to achieve balance, a call to use our knowledge to more accurately identify the dividing line between living in and on the world and destruction. To use nature, Freyfogle writes, but not to abuse it.
£35.10
The University of Chicago Press Armenia A Historical Atlas
Book SynopsisThis text traces Armenia's past from ancient times to the end of the 20th century through more than 200 colour maps containing information about physical geography, demography, and sociological, religious, cultural and linguistic history.
£228.00
The University of Chicago Press Show Me the Bone
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£41.80
The University of Chicago Press Our Once and Future Planet Restoring the World in
Book SynopsisThe environmental movement is plagued by pessimism. And that's not unreasonable: with so many complicated, seemingly intractable problems facing the planet, coupled with a need to convince people of the dangers we face, it's hard not to focus on the negative But that paints an unbalanced-and overly disheartening-picture of what's going on with environmental stewardship today. There are success stories, and Our Once and Future Planet delivers a fascinating account of one of the most impressive areas of current environmental experimentation and innovation: ecological restoration. Veteran investigative reporter Paddy Woodworth has spent years traveling the globe and talking with people-scientists, politicians, and ordinary citizens-who are working on the front lines of the battle against environmental degradation. At sites ranging from Mexico to New Zealand and Chicago to Cape Town, Woodworth shows us the striking successes (and a few humbling failures) of groups that are attempting to
£22.80
The University of Chicago Press Green Victorians The Simple Life in John Ruskins
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£41.50
The University of Chicago Press Ground Truth
Book SynopsisGround Truth is a guide to living in this condition of changing nature, to paying attention instead of turning away, and to gathering facts from which a fuller understanding of the natural world can emerge over time.Trade Review"Ground Truth is a necessary book, a guide to positive action in a time of paralyzing fear and negativity. Hineline illuminates phenology and climate change in a way that invites all of us to become engaged in the critical work of observing and documenting the changes happening now in nature nearby, to be part of a global community working together to gather data on a world changing in ways that we cannot imagine, but can learn from." --Susan J. Tweit
£19.00
The University of Chicago Press Catastrophic Thinking
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Catastrophic Thinking presents the best introductory account of how the idea of species-wide loss was conceived and established in scientific circles. . . . [Sepkoski] convincingly suggests that ideas about extinction in each historical period reflect broader social and cultural concerns in the modern world, from the intimate connections between extinction and imperialism to current concerns about the global biodiversity crisis. . . . Extinction is no longer a specialized concern. In this climate, David Sepkoski’s accessible guide is most welcome." * Times Literary Supplement *"Convincingly demonstrates that an ecological perspective has profoundly shaped our views of biological and social communities. . . . Sepkoski's magisterial work will hopefully serve as an inspiration for more comprehensive histories of the concept of diversity. . . . Catastrophic Thinking is essential reading for those seeking to understand the origin of one of the most powerful concepts under consideration today." * Science *"A brilliant examination of an urgent subject, with lessons not just for addressing mass extinction but also for reckoning with the intellectual background against which we have failed to do so. Sepkoski is a scientific Maurice Sendak, conjuring a strange world in which the wild things are not the lost animals and plants of the earth’s past so much as the scientists clamouring to study—if not save—them. . . . This book uncovers a pattern of stasis and rupture; ideas, like species, thrive for a time, only to see the context in which they thrived wiped out. Arriving at this particular moment, in a world stalked by extremists and stoked by a profit-driven public square, Sepkoski’s account of where the wild things went makes perfect sense. In an age of rupture, what other way could it have been written? To paraphrase one of Sepkoski’s own sources: Catastrophic Thinking is the extinction story our era deserves." * Social History of Medicine *"Excellent. . . . Catastrophic Thinking is a closely argued, gracefully written book. In fact, it might even be regarded as several books in one: as a history of extinction science, an essay on the origin of a social value, and more subtlety, a piece of cultural criticism. These elements blend together almost seamlessly. Sepkoski achieves just the right mix of historical detachment, scientific sophistication and cultural perceptiveness to carry off his ambitious project. There are plenty of surprises for the reader along the way, and not a little wisdom. In our present age of catastrophes and catastrophizing, it deserves a wide and enthusiastic readership." * Metascience *"Far from a dry recitation of the scientific literature, Sepkoski's meta-analysis of extinction and biological diversity foregrounds ideas and rhetorical choices. . . . Lucidly written and keenly personal, Catastrophic Thinking is engaging from beginning to end. . . . Sepkoski delineates new territory in the discourse of extinction by reviewing and revisiting the most important scientific figures and literature (popular and academic) of each era since catastrophic thinking took hold of the Western imaginary. Readers interested in the scientific history of extinction as a modern concept, particularly as it was formed by human institutions, will find much of interest in Sepkoski's book." * Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society *"This book is impeccably researched, and—rather than a popular science book—does not repackage and distil others' work but provides a novel, academic argument. This fresh take on how we collectively see extinction—and its flipside, loss of diversity—will help readers understand and contextualise the current crisis and the Anthropocene. Sepkoski will give many pause to reflect not just on how our research is influenced by our broader culture, but also how important it is to influence and impact society and politics: to move the needle on the climate and biodiversity crises. . . . Buy a copy of Catastrophic Thinking to better understand—and even be inspired to change—these terrifying times we are living in." * Holocene *"Timely and fascinating. . . . This is a fabulous book, expertly weaving cultural and intellectual history into a rich tapestry of ideas about loss, precarity, and diversity, whose relevance and significance can hardly be overstated. Sepkoski takes readers on an eye-opening journey into a history that remains surprisingly little known despite its obvious importance given the catastrophic biodiversity crisis we currently face. It's an absolute pleasure to read." * Lukas Rieppel, New Books in Science, Technology, and Society *"How do humans perceive the nature of extinction, and how has that shaped how humans perceive each other and aspects of society? This thought-provoking book examines those questions and reveals how knowing that we can lose something forever—and the realization that extinction comes with cultural and ecological costs—motivates us to protect everything else." * Revelator *"Sepkoski has written a book that is as dynamic and paradoxical as extinction and diversity themselves. This is a book about extinction and death, but also about diversity and life. Although extinction is a potentially bleak and distressing territory, Sepkoski guides the reader faithfully through it. . . . He transforms the trenches of extinction into navigable terrain for the reader who is willing to consider their own role in the history of extinction." * Environment and History *"Catastrophic Thinking stands out for the depth of its scholarship. . . . [The book] is positively bristling with fascinating insights. Obviously, this is a must-read for science historians, but palaeontologists and evolutionary biologists interested in the history of their discipline can also safely pick this up. Furthermore, thanks to the compelling arguments and accessible writing, this book should appeal strongly outside of these disciplines to anyone with an interest in palaeontology, evolution, or mass extinctions." * Inquisitive Biologist *"A solid introduction to one of the most critical issues of today. . . . Recommended." * Choice *"In his wise and meticulously argued new book, Sepkoski explains why every era gets the dinosaur story it deserves, how the threat to biodiversity helped fashion cultural diversity into an ideal, and why extinction has become personal to each and every one of us. An urgent and brilliant exemplar of history of science at its very best, Catastrophic Thinking beautifully shows that the ways we construct the past are always reflections of our hopes and fears for the future." -- Oren Harman, author of Evolutions: Fifteen Myths That Explain Our World"An authoritative, compelling, and insightful account of how biological and cultural diversity has come to be so highly prized in contemporary Western society. This is a definitive history of the cultural and scientific developments, especially in paleontology, that have helped forge our sense of the modern biodiversity crisis. Lucid, historically sweeping, and accessible, Sepkoski's book ably reconstructs key aspects of the larger culture in which ideas about extinction, catastrophe, and diversity emerged." -- Mark V. Barrow, Jr., Virginia Tech"Sepkoski concludes the book with an insightful discussion of neoliberalism and the concept of the Anthropocene that inspires a critical reconsideration of the evidently catastrophic attitude of humans. Indeed, Homo sapiens is ‘the dinosaur and the asteroid’ of our era. Finally, although the book was written before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Catastrophic Thinking seems to provide a very appropriate framework in which to address current questions relating to the major challenges facing human beings on a global scale." * History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences *
£29.45
The University of Chicago Press Raising Cane in the Glades The Global Sugar
Book SynopsisThe Everglades underwent a metaphorical and ecological transition from impenetrable swamp to endangered wetland. This study situates the environmental transformation of the Everglades within the economic and historical geography of global sugar production and trade.Trade Review"Raising Cane in the 'Glades argues that the transformation of Florida's Everglades was less a result of changing cultural values and more an outcome of political struggles that involved international competition, regional political interest, and local struggles. Hollander's method is innovative in the way that regional transformation is traced out through a single commodity in a specific time and place." - Altha Cravey, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill"
£57.63
University of Chicago Press American Boundaries The Nation The States The
Book SynopsisMapping how each state came to have its shape, and how the nation itself formed within its present borders, this title provides historians, geographers, and general readers alike with the story behind those fifty distinctive jigsaw-puzzle pieces that together form the United States.
£72.26
The University of Chicago Press Scenescapes How Qualities of Place Shape Social
Book SynopsisLet's set the scene: there's a regular on his barstool, beer in hand. He's watching a young couple execute a complicated series of moves on the dance floor, while at the table in the corner the DJ adjusts his headphones and slips a new beat into the mix. These are all experiences created by a given sceneone where we feel connected to other people, in places like a bar or a community center, a neighborhood parish or even a train station. Scenes enable experiences, but they also cultivate skills, create ambiances, and nourish communities. In Scenescapes, Daniel Aaron Silver and Terry Nichols Clark examine the patterns and consequences of the amenities that define our streets and strips. They articulate the core dimensions of the theatricality, authenticity, and legitimacy of local scenescafes, churches, restaurants, parks, galleries, bowling alleys, and more. Scenescapes not only reimagines cities in cultural terms, it details how scenes shape economic development, residential pattern
£104.00
The University of Chicago Press Scenescapes
Book SynopsisLet's set the scene: there's a regular on his barstool, beer in hand. He's watching a young couple execute a complicated series of moves on the dance floor, while at the table in the corner the DJ adjusts his headphones and slips a new beat into the mix. These are all experiences created by a given sceneone where we feel connected to other people, in places like a bar or a community center, a neighborhood parish or even a train station. Scenes enable experiences, but they also cultivate skills, create ambiances, and nourish communities. In Scenescapes, Daniel Aaron Silver and Terry Nichols Clark examine the patterns and consequences of the amenities that define our streets and strips. They articulate the core dimensions of the theatricality, authenticity, and legitimacy of local scenescafes, churches, restaurants, parks, galleries, bowling alleys, and more. Scenescapes not only reimagines cities in cultural terms, it details how scenes shape economic development, residential pattern
£30.40
The University of Chicago Press The Culture of Disaster
Book SynopsisFrom antiquity through the Enlightenment, disasters were attributed to the obscure power of the stars or the vengeance of angry gods. In this title, the author argues that post-Enlightenment culture has been haunted by the sense of emergency that made natural catastrophes and human deeds both a collective crisis and a personal tragedy.Trade Review"Brave and knowledgeable, The Culture of Disaster travels to the frontiers of sense making, where things crumble, crash, and quake only to be recuperated by sense and voracious systems of meaning. I will carry this book with me as my special guide to the catastrophic tropes that rule our clouded horizon." (Avital Ronell, New York University)"
£45.00
The University of Chicago Press The New Urban Renewal
Book SynopsisTwo of the most celebrated black neighborhoods in the United States - Harlem in New York City and Bronzeville in Chicago - were once plagued by crime, drugs, and abject poverty. But now both have transformed. This work explores the factors - local, national, and global - driving the remarkable revitalization of these two iconic black communities.Trade Review"This crisply written elucidation of the forces behind the revitalization of Bronzeville and Harlem is an original and important addition to our understanding of urban politics and black-led gentrification. In particular, Hyra's detailed analysis of the contrasting political styles of Chicago and New York City is unique and insightful. A pleasure to read." - Lance Freeman, author of There Goes the Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up"
£22.80
The University of Chicago Press Backcasts
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£37.05
The University of Chicago Press To Care for Creation The Emergence of the
Book SynopsisControversial megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll proclaimed from a conference stage in 2013, I know who made the environment and he's coming back and going to burn it all up. So yes, I drive an SUV. The comment, which Driscoll later explained away as a joke, highlights what has been a long history of religious anti-environmentalism. Given how firmly entrenched this sentiment has been, surprising inroads have been made by a new movement with few financial resources, which is deeply committed to promoting green religious traditions and creating a new environmental ethic. To Care for Creation chronicles this movement and explains how it has emerged despite institutional and cultural barriers, as well as the hurdles posed by logic and practices that set religious environmental organizations apart from the secular movement. Ellingson takes a deep dive into the ways entrepreneurial activists tap into and improvise on a variety of theological, ethical, and symbolic traditions in order to issue
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press To Care for Creation The Emergence of the
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£24.70
The University of Chicago Press Species and Speciation in the Fossil Record
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£53.20
The University of Chicago Press Evolutionary Paleobiology
Book SynopsisRepresenting current research in evolutionary paleobiology, this book provides an overview of this rapidly changing field. Contributors to this volume present results of original research and aim to provide directions for future studies.
£42.75
University of Chicago Press Evolutionary Patterns Growth Form Tempo in the
Book SynopsisThis text demonstrates the rich variety of clues to evolution that can be gleaned from the fossil record. Contributors explore modes of development, the tempo of speciation and extinction, and macroevolutionary patterns and trends.
£124.00
The University of Chicago Press Evolutionary Patterns Growth Form and Tempo in
Book SynopsisThis text demonstrates the rich variety of clues to evolution that can be gleaned from the fossil record. Contributors explore modes of development, the tempo of speciation and extinction, and macroevolutionary patterns and trends.
£42.75
The University of Chicago Press Rainbow Dust Three Centuries of Butterfly Delight
£30.40
The University of Chicago Press Messages from Islands A Global Biodiversity Tour
Book SynopsisFrom a small island in the Baltic Sea to the large tropical islands of Borneo and Madagascar, Messages from Islands is a global tour of these natural, water-bound laboratories. In this career-spanning work, Ilkka Hanski draws upon the many islands on which he has performed fieldwork to convey key themes in ecology. By exploring the islands' biodiversity as an introduction to general issues, Hanski helps us to learn how species and communities interact in fragmented landscapes, how evolution generates biodiversity, and how this biodiversity is maintained over time. Beginning each chapter on a particular island, Hanski dives into reflections on his own field studies before going on to pursue a variety of ecological questions, including: What is the biodiversity crisis? What are extinction thresholds and extinction debts? What can the biodiversity hypothesis tell us about rapidly increasing allergies, asthma, and other chronic inflammatory disorders?The world's largest island, Greenland,
£82.65
The University of Chicago Press Demolition Means Progress Flint Michigan and the
Book SynopsisIn 1997, after General Motors shuttered a massive complex of factories in the gritty industrial city of Flint, Michigan, signs were placed around the empty facility reading, Demolition Means Progress, suggesting that the struggling metropolis could not move forward to greatness until the old plants met the wrecking ball. Much more than a trite corporate slogan, the phrase encapsulates the operating ethos of the nation's metropolitan leadership from at least the 1930s to the present. Throughout, the leaders of Flint and other municipalities repeatedly tried to revitalize their communities by demolishing outdated and inefficient structures and institutions and overseeing numerous urban renewal campaigns many of which yielded only more impoverished and more divided metropolises. After decades of these efforts, the dawn of the twenty-first century found Flint one of the most racially segregated and economically polarized metropolitan areas in the nation. In one of the most comprehensive works yet written on the history of inequality and metropolitan development in modern America, Andrew R. Highsmith uses the case of Flint to explain how the perennial quest for urban renewal even more than white flight, corporate abandonment, and other forces contributed to mass suburbanization, racial and economic division, deindustrialization, and political fragmentation. Challenging much of the conventional wisdom about structural inequality and the roots of the nation's urban crisis, Demolition Means Progress shows in vivid detail how public policies and programs designed to revitalize the Flint area ultimately led to the hardening of social divisions.
£24.70
The University of Chicago Press Earths Deep History
Book SynopsisEarth has been witness to mammoths and dinosaurs, global ice ages, continents colliding or splitting apart, and comets and asteroids crashing catastrophically to the surface, as well as the birth of humans who are curious to understand it. But how was all this discovered? How was the evidence for it collected and interpreted? And what kinds of people have sought to reconstruct this past that no human witnessed or recorded? In this sweeping and accessible book, Martin J. S. Rudwick, the premier historian of the Earth sciences, tells the gripping human story of the gradual realization that the Earth's history has not only been unimaginably long but also astonishingly eventful. Rudwick begins in the seventeenth century with Archbishop James Ussher, who famously dated the creation of the cosmos to 4004 BC. His narrative later turns to the crucial period of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when inquisitive intellectuals, who came to call themselves geologists, began to in
£22.80
The University of Chicago Press The Grasping Hand Kelo v. City of New London and
Book SynopsisIn 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that the city of New London, Connecticut, could condemn fifteen residential properties in order to transfer them to a new private owner. Although the Fifth Amendment only permits the taking of private property for public use, the Court ruled that the transfer of condemned land to private parties for economic development is permitted by the Constitution even if the government cannot prove that the expected development will ever actually happen. The Court's decision in Kelo v. City of New London empowered the grasping hand of the state at the expense of the invisible hand of the market. In this detailed study of one of the most controversial Supreme Court cases in modern times, Ilya Somin argues that Kelo was a grave error. Economic development and blight condemnations are unconstitutional under both originalist and most living constitution theories of legal interpretation. They also victimize the poor and the politically weak for the benefit of powerful interest groups and often destroy more economic value than they create. Kelo itself exemplifies these patterns. The residents targeted for condemnation lacked the influence needed to combat the formidable government and corporate interests arrayed against them. Moreover, the city's poorly conceived development plan ultimately failed: the condemned land lies empty to this day, occupied only by feral cats. The Supreme Court's unpopular ruling triggered an unprecedented political reaction, with forty-five states passing new laws intended to limit the use of eminent domain. But many of the new laws impose few or no genuine constraints on takings. The Kelo backlash led to significant progress, but not nearly as much as it may have seemed. Despite its outcome, the closely divided 5-4 ruling shattered what many believed to be a consensus that virtually any condemnation qualifies as a public use under the Fifth Amendment. It also showed that there is widespread public opposition to eminent domain abuse. With controversy over takings sure to continue, The Grasping Hand offers the first book-length analysis of Kelo by a legal scholar, alongside a broader history of the dispute over public use and eminent domain and an evaluation of options for reform.
£19.00
The University of Chicago Press Common Ground Encounters with Nature at the Edges of Life
£29.45
University of Chicago Press Geography Resources Environment V 1 Selected
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£118.00
University of Chicago Press Selected Writings
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£55.00
University of Chicago Press Geography Resources and Environment Volume 2
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£104.00
University of Chicago Press Geography Resources and Environment Volume 2
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£46.64
The University of Chicago Press Downriver
Book SynopsisMixing lyrical accounts of quiet paddling through breathtaking beauty with nights spent camping solo and lively discussions with farmers, city officials, and other people met along the way, Downriver is a foray into the present-and future-of water in the American west.
£18.05
The University of Chicago Press Modeling Nature
Book SynopsisA history of population ecology which traces two generations of science and scientists from the opening of the 20th century through to 1970. The text chronicles the careers of key figures and the field's theoretical, empirical and institutional development.
£30.40
The University of Chicago Press Wildness Relations of People and Place Emersion
Book SynopsisWhether referring to a place, a nonhuman animal or plant, or a state of mind, wild indicates autonomy and agency, a will to be, a unique expression of life. Yet two contrasting ideas about wild nature permeate contemporary discussions: either that nature is most wild in the absence of a defiling human presence, or that nature is completely humanized and nothing is truly wild. This book charts a different path. Exploring how people can become attuned to the wild community of life and also contribute to the well-being of the wild places in which we live, work, and play, Wildness brings together esteemed authors from a variety of landscapes, cultures, and backgrounds to share their stories about the interdependence of everyday human lifeways and wildness. As they show, far from being an all or nothing proposition, wildness exists in variations and degrees that range from cultivated soils to multigenerational forests to sunflowers pushing through cracks in a city alley. Spanning diverse ge
£80.00
University of Chicago Press Hong Kong Migrant Lives Landscapes and Journeys
Book SynopsisIn 1997 the United Kingdom returned control of Hong Kong to China, ending the city's status as one of the last remnants of the British Empire and initiating a new phase for it as both a modern city and a hub for global migrations. This book presents a tour of Hong Kong city's postcolonial urban landscape.
£32.01
The University of Chicago Press Plant Conservation
Book SynopsisNatural history has always been the foundation of conservation biology.Trade Review"No volume covers the topic of plant conservation as comprehensively as this one. This book goes way beyond the contribution that natural history museums can make to conservation efforts to consider the topic as a whole, and it is all the more useful as a consequence. This will be an important and widely used book." - Thomas Lovejoy, President of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment"
£46.73
University of Chicago Press The Indies of the Setting Sun How Early Modern
Book SynopsisPadrón reveals the evolution of Spain's imagining of the New World as a space in continuity with Asia. Narratives of Europe's westward expansion often tell of how the Americas came to be known as a distinct landmass, separate from Asia and uniquely positioned as new ground ripe for transatlantic colonialism. But this geographic vision of the Americas was not shared by all Europeans. While some imperialists imagined North and Central America as undiscovered land, the Spanish pushed to define the New World as part of a larger and eminently flexible geography that they called las Indias, and that by right, belonged to the Crown of Castile and León. Las Indias included all of the New World as well as East and Southeast Asia, although Spain's understanding of the relationship between the two areas changed as the realities of the Pacific Rim came into sharper focus. At first, the Spanish insisted that North and Central America were an extension of the continent of Asia. Eventually, they came to understand East and Southeast Asia as a transpacific extension of their empire in America called las Indias del poniente, or the Indies of the Setting Sun. The Indies of the Setting Sun charts the Spanish vision of a transpacific imperial expanse, beginning with Balboa's discovery of the South Sea and ending almost a hundred years later with Spain's final push for control of the Pacific. Padrón traces a series of attemptsboth cartographic and discursiveto map the space from Mexico to Malacca, revealing the geopolitical imaginations at play in the quest for control of the New World and Asia.Trade Review"It should be essential reading for anyone seeking a fresh approach to understanding Spain’s imperial ambitions during the Age of Discovery." * The Portolan *"Columbus thought that Cuba was an appendage of Asia, and, though it may surprise readers, it would be more than a century before more accurate accounts of the Pacific Ocean and the distinctions between the landforms of Asia and North America emerged. Padrón relays this story with comprehensive knowledge and a skillful interpretation of cartographic and narrative sources, which often rationalized Spanish imperial aims to show that the Spanish Empire had Asian components thanks to the world-encompassing meridian line that divided Spanish and Portuguese zones for exploitation. . . . This highly recommended book clarifies the history of seemingly naïve but at times politically useful sets of flawed assumptions." * CHOICE *"This is a salutary book. . . . it is immensely valuable in making us see how sixteenth-century Spaniards conceptually framed the Americas, the Pacific and beyond; it literally takes us into another world." * The Globe: Journal of the Australian and New Zealand Map Society *"Historian Ricardo Padrón’s The Indies of the Setting Sun: How Early Modern Spain Mapped the Far East as the Transpacific West attempts to understand how, in discursive and visual terms, the Spanish crown sought to project its geopolitical and historical influence in the world from the sixteenth century forward. . . . The book is a valuable contribution not only because of its rigorous and intelligent interpretations, but also because it invites us to think about two major issues. First, it shows that territories such as the Americas were not 'invented' once and for all but were revised and reinvented over time and from different places and communities. Second, the book reminds us that we must decenter our gaze from the battles of conquest and pay attention instead to the voyages and ways of understanding vast spaces such as the oceans that were key in politically configuring our modern experience of the globe." * Terrae Incognitae *"In The Indies of the Setting Sun, Ricardo Padrón explores the spatial imaginaries of elite Spaniards in the period bookended by Balboa’s “discovery” of the Pacific Ocean in 1513 in present- day Panama and the 1606 Spanish conquest of the Moluccas. " * Early American Literature *"With this work, Padrón demonstrates that the Pacific has been a fundamental issue in the invention of America, a process that, as he firmly asserts, 'has been repeatedly revised and reinvented over the course of the years, and has meant different things at different times in different discursive communities.' Padrón encourages readers to view the geopolitical imagination of Habsburg Spain in a different light and to rethink the possibilities offered by new approaches to consider the Pacific not as marginal, but as a central location of the Spanish empire." * Bulletin of the Comediantes *"The Indies of the Setting Sun is an original and thoughtful study of the ‘invention’ and subsequent reinventions of the Pacific Ocean as part of the Spanish empire. Padrón brings to this project the same lucid, elegant prose and methodology that characterized his earlier monograph, and again he provides an argument supported by a careful study of sources employing the best historical approaches, closely contextualized reading, and an expansive definition of cartography. This is a much needed intervention, highlighting the importance of Spanish Asia in the history of Spanish imperial expansion." -- María M. Portuondo, author of The Spanish Disquiet: The Biblical Natural Philosophy of Benito Arias Montano"The Indies of the Setting Sun examines the way that Spanish knowledge about the South Sea—now known as the Pacific Ocean—was developed. Challenging the historical idea that Magellan's circumnavigation had established Europeans' understanding of the Americas as divided from Asia by the vast Pacific, Padrón reveals an 'alternative European cartography' that persisted across the sixteenth century. In this odd parallel universe, America was merely the forecourt to Asia, and the South Sea was a small basin within the larger Indies, then Spain's overseas empire. This is the first book I've ever read that colors the larger 'Indies' so vividly." -- Barbara Mundy, author of The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City"The author’s aim. . . is ambitious but the reader will not be disappointed. Padrón, in fact, leads his audience on a real journey through time, dismantling many commonplaces and prejudices about the modern perception of the way the world has been thought of and represented on maps at the dawn of modernity. The author breaks the patterns in the way we think about historical cartography between rigid categories of ‘right and wrong’, ‘precise and approximate’. Instead, Padrón highlights a complex historical process in which different cultural and political theories competed with each other in a dialectic that shaped our way of understanding geography. . . . Ricardo Padrón’s book: The Indies of the Setting Sun should be welcomed as a useful and much needed book. . . . I believe that today, in an era of redefinition of the balance between global powers with enormous interests in the Pacific area, this book is of great usefulness and relevance." * Rutter Project *"A nuanced reading of Spanish cartographic literature about the Pacific region in the sixteenth century. . . . The book’s central strength is in its analytical acuity, which dredges up tensions, contradictions, ironies and ambivalence from multivalent cartographic and written texts." * Imago Mundi *Table of ContentsList of Figures Introduction 1 The Map behind the Curtain 2 South Sea Dreams 3 Pacific Nightmares 4 Shipwrecked Ambitions 5 Pacific Conquests 6 The Location of China 7 The Kingdom of the Setting Sun 8 The Anxieties of a Paper Empire Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Works Cited Index
£46.18
The University of Chicago Press Isle of Fire
Book SynopsisLong considered both best friend and worst enemy to humankind, fire is at once creative and destructive. In the endangered tropical paradise of Madagascar, the two faces of fires have fueled a century- long conflict between rural farmers and island leaders.
£30.40
The University of Chicago Press Grs 234 Deforestation in the Postwar Philippines
Book SynopsisThe only quantitative deforestation study to focus on one country, this case analysis of the Philippines since 1946 yields more concrete data than previous cross-national studies. David Kummer's close examination of the interactions among political, economic, and cultural factors and their environmental consequences sheds light on similar situations in other countries.
£38.00
The University of Chicago Press Exploration Exchange A South Seas Anthology
Book SynopsisThis anthology places the works of such well-known figures as Captain James Cook and Robert Louis Stevenson alongside the writings of lesser-known explorers, missionaries, beachcombers, and literary travellers who roamed the South Seas from the late 17th through the late 19th centuries.
£80.00
The University of Chicago Press Stinging Trees and WaitaWhiles Confessions of a
Book SynopsisThis work is the author's record of the time he spent in the remote area of the Australian rainforest and his run-ins with plant, animal and human species alike. He found hemself at the centre of a bitter battle over conservation strategies and became the object of many residents' hatred.
£22.80
The University of Chicago Press Tropical Forest Remnants Ecology Management
Book SynopsisThe fragmentation of the tropical rain forests is the subject of this study, which looks at the devastating damage caused to these sensitive areas. Covering geographic areas from Southeast Asia and Australia to Madagascar and the New World, the book summarizes contemporary knowledge and research.
£47.50
The University of Chicago Press From Mineralogy to Geology
Book SynopsisA fine treatment of this critical time in geology's history. Although it goes against our standard histories of the field, Laudan defends her views convincingly. Her style is direct, with carefully reasoned personal opinions and interpretations clearly defined.Jere H. Lipps, The Scientist
£80.00
