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Ecology of a Cracker Childhood (World As Home, The)
The scrubby forests of southern Georgia, dotting a landscape of low hills and swampy bottoms, are not what many people would consider to be exalted country, the sort of place to inspire lyrical considerations of nature and culture. Yet that is just what essayist Janisse Ray delivers in her memorable debut, a memoir of life in a part of America that roads and towns have passed by, a land settled by hardscrabble Scots herders who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, and who bear the derogatory epithet "cracker" with quiet pride. Ray grew up in a junkyard outside what had been longleaf pine forest, an ecosystem that has nearly disappeared in the American South through excessive logging. Her family had little money, but that was not important; they more than made up for material want through unabashed love and a passion for learning, values that underlie every turn of Ray's narrative. She finds beauty in weeds and puddles, celebrates the ways of tortoises and woodpeckers, and argues powerfully for the virtues of establishing a connection with one's native ground. "I carry the landscape inside like an ache," Ray writes. Her evocations of fog-enshrouded woods and old ways of living are not without pain for all that has been lost--but full of hope as well for what can be saved. --Gregory McNamee.
Price: $8.00
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Neotropical Rainforest Mammals: A Field Guide
Neotropical Rainforest Mammals, the first color-illustrated field guide to these marvelously diverse and elusive creatures, has enjoyed tremendous success since its initial publication in 1990. Ecotourists and field researchers alike have applauded this guide's compact size, light weight, and durability. More important, they have appreciated its clear and concise accounts of the mammals of this broad region. Each species account includes information on identifying characteristics, similar species, vocalizations, behavior and natural history, geographic range, conservation status, local names, and references to the scientific literature. In this completely revised and updated second edition: A total of 226 species are treated in full (206 were included in the first edition). All species accounts retained from the first edition have been updated to include the most recent research. All 195 maps showing the distribution and geographic range of each species have been revised to reflect the most current information. Twenty-nine beautiful color plates illustrate more than 220 species (including significant color variants between males and females or adults and young). Seven black-and-white plates contain more than 60 images of individual species, mainly bats. A compact disc of mammal vocalizations—crucial to identifying nocturnal and otherwise cryptic animals that sometimes may be heard rather than seen—will be available for purchase separately. Praise for the first edition: "If you can't go to the Central and South American rain forests to see firsthand their threatened ecosystems, here is the next best thing."— Washington Post Book World"A large amount of information is presented concisely and in a way that is easy to use."— Choice"The presentation and wealth of information contained in this field guide is outstanding and will satisfy the needs of both the 'tourist' and 'researcher' traveling to the Neotropics."— Canadian Field-Naturalist .
Price: $27.57
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The Greatest Gift: The Courageous Life and Martyrdom of Sister Dorothy Stang
In 1966, Sister Dorothy Stang went to Brazil as a missionary, and in 1982 she moved to a small town in the Amazon to work with an organization to protect poor farmers and their land from loggers and land-developers who stop at nothing—including murder—in pursuit of profits. After testifying at a government panel investigating illegal incursions into protected areas, Sister Dorothy was denounced as a “terrorist” by powerful companies and began receiving death threats. Refusing to be intimidated, she continued her work—until two gunmen shot her six times on a rural Amazon road. THE GREATEST GIFT is the first biography of this extraordinary woman and her mission. Written by a mainstream journalist who has spent many years in Brazil, it exposes the entrenched collusion between government officials and commercial interests and celebrates the profound courage of Sister Dorothy and others fighting to protect the Amazon jungles and the people eking out a life there. Inspired by deep religious conviction, Dorothy Stang gave of herself generously. A book that will resonate with readers of Sister Helen Prejean’s Dead Man Walking, THE GREATEST GIFT presents not only the story of Sister Dorothy’s tragic death, but the powerful and beautiful lessons of her life..
Price: $10.97
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Forests in Peril: Tracking Deciduous Trees from Ice-Age Refuges into the Greenhouse World
The great deciduous forest that covers much of eastern North America is one of the continent's most important and magnificent natural resources Twenty thousand years ago, however, during the last ice age, this forest did not exist. Instead, deciduous tree species formed only minor parts of forests dominated by pines, spruces, and firs that were better adapted to the glacial climate. As the climate warmed, the deciduous forest emerged as the dominant vegetation throughout the southeastern quarter of the continent. Native Americans occupied this forest, depended upon its resources, and influenced its dynamics in distinct ways. The human influence on the forest intensified greatly with the onset of European colonization, and the forest has been significantly modified during the past 200 years as a result of human activities. As demands for living space and resources accelerate and as global warming increases, the size of the remaining forest diminishes and its prospect for survival in the present and future greenhouse world grows increasingly dim. In Forests in Peril, Hazel Delcourt takes the reader on her personal journey to document the history of the forest from its elusive and nebulous presence at the peak of the last ice age through its development as a magnificent natural resource to its uncertainty in today's, and tomorrow's, greenhouse world. Along this journey, the reader is introduced to methods of studying vegetation, collecting and interpreting data, and applying the insights of forest ecology and history to project future needs of the forest in a world that is increasingly dominated by human activities. The philosophical, intellectual, and methodological perspectives contained in Forests in Peril will appeal to readers interested in understanding how the natural history of North America has been studied and how that study can contribute to the protection and preservation of America's important biological resources..
Price: $19.95
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Fernando's Gift/ El Regalo de Fernando
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Sounds of Neotropical Rainforest Mammals: An Audio Field Guide
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Resurrecting the Granary of Rome: Environmental History and French Colonial Expansion in North Africa (Ecology & History)
Tales of deforestation and desertification in North Africa have been told from the Roman period to the present. Such stories of environmental decline in the Maghreb are still recounted by experts and are widely accepted without question today. International organizations such as the United Nations frequently invoke these inaccurate stories to justify environmental conservation and development projects in the arid and semiarid lands in North Africa and around the Mediterranean basin. Recent research in arid lands ecology and new paleoecological evidence, however, do not support many claims of deforestation, overgrazing, and desertification in this region. Diana K. Davis’s pioneering analysis reveals the critical influence of French scientists and administrators who established much of the purported scientific basis of these stories during the colonial period in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, illustrating the key role of environmental narratives in imperial expansion. The processes set in place by the use of this narrative not only systematically disadvantaged the majority of North Africans but also led to profound changes in the landscape, some of which produced the land degradation that continues to plague the Maghreb today. Resurrecting the Granary of Rome exposes many of the political, economic, and ideological goals of the French colonial project in these arid lands and the resulting definition of desertification that continues to inform global environmental and development projects. The first book on the environmental history of the Maghreb, this volume reframes much conventional thinking about the North African environment. Davis’s book is essential reading for those interested in global environmental history. .
Price: $26.92
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Transforming the Appalachian Countryside: Railroads, Deforestation, and Social Change in West Virginia, 1880-1920
In 1880, ancient-growth forest still covered two-thirds of West Virginia, but by the 1920s lumbermen had denuded the entire region. Ronald Lewis explores the transformation in these mountain counties precipitated by deforestation. As the only state that lies entirely within the Appalachian region, West Virginia provides an ideal site for studying the broader social impact of deforestation in Appalachia, the South, and the eastern United States. Most of West Virginia was still dominated by a backcountry economy when the industrial transition began. In short order, however, railroads linked remote mountain settlements directly to national markets, hauling away forest products and returning with manufactured goods and modern ideas. Workers from the countryside and abroad swelled new mill towns, and merchants ventured into the mountains to fulfill the needs of the growing population. To protect their massive investments, capitalists increasingly extended control over the state's legal and political systems. Eventually, though, even ardent supporters of industrialization had reason to contemplate the consequences of unregulated exploitation. Once the timber was gone, the mills closed and the railroads pulled up their tracks, leaving behind an environmental disaster and a new class of marginalized rural poor to confront the worst depression in American history..
Price: $22.50
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World Ecological Degradation: Accumulation, Urbanization and Deforestation 3000 B.C.-A.D. 2000
Deforestation, soil runoff, salination, pollution. While recurrent themes of the contemporary world, they are not new to us. In this broad sweeping review of the environmental impacts of human settlement and development worldwide over the past 5,000 years, Sing C. Chew shows that these processes are as old as civilization itself. With examples ranging from Ancient Mesopotamia to Malaya, Mycenaean Greece to Ming China, Chew shows that the processes of population growth, intensive resource accumulation, and urbanization in ancient and modern societies almost universally bring on ecological disaster, which often contributes to the decline and fall of that society. He then turns his eye to the development of the modern European world-system and its impact on the environment. Challenging us to change these long-term trends, Chew also traces the existence of environmental conservation ideas and movements over the span of 5,000 years. Can we do it? Look at Chew's evidence of the past five millennia and decide. Ideal for courses in environmental history, anthropology, and sociology, and world-systems theory..
Price: $29.95
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