Search results for ""author wade davis""

Plugged by no fewer than twenty-five dams, the Colorado is the world's most regulated river, providing most of the water supply of Las Vegas, Tucson, and San Diego, and much of the power and water of Los Angeles and Phoenix. If the river ceased flowing, it would soon be necessary to abandon many of the largest cities in the West. The Colorado is indeed a river of life, which makes it all the more tragic that when it approaches the sea, it has been reduced to a toxic trickle, its delta dry and deserted. In a blend of history, science, and personal observation, acclaimed author Wade Davis tells the story of America's Nile, from its legendary history to the human intervention that has left it transformed and near exhaustion. The story of the Colorado River is the human quest for progress and its inevitable if unintended effects - and an opportunity to learn from past mistakes and foster the rebirth of America's most iconic waterway. A beautifully told story of historical adventure and natural beauty, "River Notes" is a fascinating journey down the river and through mankind's complicated and destructive relationship with one of its greatest natural resources.

Read more less

Wade Davis has been called 'a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life's diversity'. In "Shadows in the Sun", he brings all of those gifts to bear on a fascinating examination of indigenous cultures and the interactions between human societies and the natural world. Ranging from the British Columbian wilderness to the jungles of the Amazon and the polar ice of the Arctic Circle, "Shadows In The Sun" is a testament to a world where spirits still stalk the land and seize the human heart. Its essays and stories, though distilled from travels in widely separated parts of the world, are fundamentally about landscape and character, the wisdom of lives drawn directly from the land, the hunger of those who seek to rediscover such understanding, and the consequences of failure.

Read more less

**Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Winner of Winners Award**A monumental work of history, biography and adventure - the First World War, Mallory and Mount Everest - now serialised in the BBC R4 documentary The Crowning of Everest.'The price of life is death'For Mallory, as for all of his generation, death was but 'a frail barrier that men crossed, smiling and gallant, every day'. As climbers they accepted a degree of risk unimaginable before the war. What mattered now was how one lived, and the moments of being alive.While the quest for Mount Everest may have begun as a grand imperial gesture, it ended as a mission of revival for a country and a lost generation bled white by war. In a monumental work of history and adventure, Davis asks not whether George Mallory was the first to reach the summit of Everest, but rather why he kept climbing on that fateful day.'An extraordinary book on an extraordinary generation' Joe Simpson, author of Touching the Void'An instant classic of mountaineering literature' GuardianA moving, epic masterpiece' The Times

Read more less

At a time when the Colorado River and all those who depend on it are in peril, this urgent book offers "both a love song and a paean of regret to America's most spectacular river" (Denver Post) and "a plea to save [it] before it’s too late" (The Wall Street Journal).From bestselling author, long-time former National Geographic Explorer, and anthropologist Wade Davis comes the story of America’s Nile: how it once flowed freely and how human intervention has left it near exhaustion, altering the water temperature, volume, local species, and shoreline of the river Theodore Roosevelt once urged us to "leave it as it is."Plugged by no fewer than twenty-five dams, the Colorado is the world’s most regulated river drainage, providing most of the water supply of Las Vegas, Tucson, and San Diego, and much of the power and water of Los Angeles and Phoenix, cities that are home to more than 25 million people. If it ceased flowing, the water held in its reservoirs might hold out for three to four years, but after that it would be necessary to abandon most of southern California and Arizona, and much of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. For the entire American Southwest, the Colorado is indeed the river of life, which makes it all the more tragic and ironic that by the time it approaches its final destination, it has been reduced to a shadow upon the sand, its delta dry and deserted, its flow a toxic trickle seeping into the sea.Yet despite more than a century of human interference, Davis writes, the splendor of the Colorado lives on in the river’s remaining wild rapids, quiet pools, and sweeping canyons. The story of the Colorado River is the human quest for progress and its inevitable effects—and an opportunity to learn from past mistakes and foster the rebirth of America’s most iconic waterway. A beautifully told story of historical adventure and natural beauty, River Notes is a fascinating journey down the river and through mankind’s complicated and destructive relationship with one of its greatest natural resources.Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute.

Read more less

“Wade Davis is a true wayfinder, and these essays offer new insight into his visionary approach to culture, landscape, and the planet he loves as fiercely as any writer working today.”—John Vaillant, author of Fire WeatherA timely and eclectic collection from one of the foremost thinkers of our time, “a powerful, penetrating and immensely knowledgeable writer” (The Guardian).The essays in this collection came about during the unhurried months when one who had traveled incessantly was obliged to stay still, even as events flared on all sides in a world that never stops moving. Wade Davis brings his unique cultural perspective to such varied topics as the demonization of coca, the sacred plant of the Inca; the Great War and the birth of modernity; the British conquest of Everest; the endless conflict in the Middle East; reaching beyond climate fear and trepidation; on the meaning of the sacred. His essay, ̶

Read more less

A captivating new book from Wade Davis - winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Into the Silence - that brings vividly to life the story of the great Río Magdalena, illuminating Colombia's complex past, present, and future.For Wade Davis, Colombia was the first country that captured his heart and gave him license to be free. Here, he tells of his travels on the mighty Magdalena, the river that made possible the nation. Along the way, he finds a people who have overcome years of conflict precisely because of their character, informed by an enduring spirit of place, and a deep love of their remarkable land.Braiding together memoir, history and journalism, Magdalena is at once an absorbing adventure through a spectacular landscape and a kaleidoscopic picture of Colombia as it stands on the verge of a new period of peace.'Outstanding... Davis tells epic tales of passion, violence and ambition with tremendous narrative verve' Sunday Times, Books of the Year'A wonderful evocation of a lifetime's travel in Colombia' Spectator, Books of the Year

Read more less

From the author of INTO THE SILENCE, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-FictionIn 1941, Richard Evans Schultes took a leave of absence from Harvard University and disappeared into the Northern Amazon of Colombia. The world’s leading authority on the hallucinogens and medicinal plants of the region, he returned after twelve years of travelling through South America in a dug-out canoe, mapping uncharted rivers, living among local tribes and documenting the knowledge of shamans. Thirty years later, his student Wade Davis landed in Bogota to follow in his mentor’s footsteps – so creating an epic tale of undaunted adventure, a compelling work of natural history and a testament to the spirit of scientific exploration.

Read more less

Lyle Campbell's linguistic fieldwork has taken him to numerous countries, sometimes in challenging circumstances. Written with humour, heart, and a clear dedication to endangered languages and their speakers, his vivid memoir is a lesson not only on life in the field but on the importance of documenting indigenous languages.

Read more less

The Missing of the Somme has become a classic meditation upon war and remembrance. It weaves a network of myth and memory, photos and films, poetry and sculptures, graveyards and ceremonies that illuminate our understanding of, and relationship to, the Great War.

Read more less

Vine of the Soul is an exceptional photographic essay accompanied by detailed descriptions of the Amazonians’ use of medicinal and other sacred plant substances. Over 160 documentary photos, some of the most signifi cant ever taken on the subject, bring the reader along a journey to a world in which healing with plants, ritual and magic play an essential role in everyday life. Richard Evans Schultes, former Director of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University, led an extraordinary life that bridged the worlds of academia and tribal cultures. Carrying out extensive fi eld studies since 1939 as an ethnobotanist and conservationist, Schultes has received acclaim from many sources, including the Cross of Boyacá— Colombia’s highest honor, the Tyler Prize for environmental achievement, the Linnean Gold Medal, the highest prize a botanist can receive, and many more.

Read more less

In a rugged knot of mountains in the remote reaches of northern British Columbia lies a spectacularly beautiful valley known to the First Nations as the Sacred Headwaters. There, on the southern edge of the Spatsizi Wilderness, the Serengeti of North America, are born in remarkably close proximity three of the continent's most important salmon rivers--the Stikine, the Skeena, and the Nass. Now, against the wishes of all First Nations, the government of British Columbia has opened the Sacred Headwaters to industrial development. In particular, Imperial Metals proposes an open-pit copper and gold mine, called the Red Chris mine, processing 30,000 tons of ore a day, and Royal Dutch Shell wants to extract coal bed methane gas from an anthracite deposit across an enormous tenure of close to a million acres. The Sacred Headwaters is both a celebration of one of the most extraordinary regions in North America and a call to arms to preserve it for future generations. A remarkable collection of photographs taken by members of the International League of Conservation Photographers stunningly portray the beauty and diversity of the ecologically diverse region. The eloquent and compelling text by Wade Davis, which describes the unparalleled beauty and grandeur of the region, the threats to it from industrial development, and the response of native groups and other inhabitants of the area, is complemented by the voices of the Tahltan elders. The inescapable message is that no amount of methane gas can compensate for the sacrifice of a place that could be the Sacred Headwaters of all North Americans and indeed of all peoples of the world.

Read more less

A defining scholarly publication on the past and current state of research with psychedelic plant substances for medicine, therapeutics, and spiritual uses.Certain plants have long been known to contain healing properties and used to treat everything from depression and addiction, to aiding in on one’s own spiritual well-being for hundreds of years. Can Western medicine find new cures for human ailments by tapping into indigenous plant wisdom? And why the particular interest in the plants with psychoactive properties? These two conference volume proceedings provide an abundance of answers.The first international gathering of researchers held on this subject was in 1967, sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and U.S. Public Health Service. It was an interdisciplinary group of specialists – from ethnobotanists to neuroscientists – gathered in one place to share their findings on a topic that was gaining widespread interest: The use of psychoactive plants in indigenous societies. The WAR ON DRUGS which intervened slowed advances in this field.Research, however, has continued, and in the fifty years since that first conference, new and significant discoveries have been made. A new generation of researchers, many inspired by the giants present at that first conference, has continued to investigate the outer limits of ethno-psychopharmacology. At the same time, there has been a sea change in public and medical perceptions of psychedelics. There is now a renaissance in research, and some of these agents are actively being investigated for their therapeutic potential. They are no longer as stigmatized as they have been in the past, although they remain controversial. There still remains much work to do in this field, and many significant discoveries remain to be made.So, in June of 2017, once again specialists from around the world in fields of ethnopharmacology, chemistry, botany, and anthropology gathered to discuss their research and findings in a setting that encouraged the free and frank exchange of information and ideas on the last 50 years of research, and assess the current and possible futures for research in ethnopsychopharmacology. The papers given at the 2017 Symposium, organized by Dr. Dennis McKenna, in a handsome two volume boxed collectors set represents perhaps the most significant body of knowledge in this interdisciplinary field available.About Dennis McKenna: He is an icon amongst psychedelic explorers, working to inspire the next generation of ethnobotanists in the search for new medicines for the benefit of humanity and the preservation of the biosphere that produces what is apparent from reading these papers – a rich pharmacopeia of medicines. Essential for academic libraries, pharmaceutical and ethnobotanical collections.

Read more less