Author: Norman Crowe
Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
ISBN: 9780262032223
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 270
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Book Description
Arguing that humanity has lost its symbiotic relationship with nature regarding housing, a cultural evaluation of architecture considers the evolution of structure development and the possibility of combining the expertise of environmentalists and builders to promote indigenous architecture. UP.
Author: Antonello Gerbi
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822973812
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481
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Book Description
Translated by Jeremy Moyle In Nature in the New World (translated into English in 1985), Antonello Gerbi examines the fascinating reports of the first Europeans to see the Americas. These accounts provided the basis for the images of strange and new flora, fauna, and human creatures that filled European imaginations.Initial chapters are devoted to the writings of Columbus, Vespucci, Cortes, Verrazzano, and others. The second portion of the book concerns the Historia general y natural de las Indias of Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, a work commissioned by Charles V of Spain in 1532 but not published in its entirety until the 1850s. Antonello Gerbi contends that Oviedo, a Spanish administrator who lived in Santo Domingo, has been unjustly neglected as a historian. Gerbi shows that Oviedo was a major authority on the culture, history, and conquest of the New World.
Author: Shierry Weber Nicholsen
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262250436
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
A psychological exploration of how the love of nature can coexist in our psyches with apathy toward environmental destruction. Virtually everyone values some aspect of the natural world. Yet many people are surprisingly unconcerned about environmental issues, treating them as the province of special interest groups. Seeking to understand how our appreciation for the beauty of nature and our indifference to its destruction can coexist in us, Shierry Weber Nicholsen explores dimensions of our emotional experience with the natural world that are so deep and painful that they often remain unspoken. The Love of Nature and the End of the World is a gathering of meditations and collages. Its evocations of our emotional attachment to the natural world and the emotional impact of environmental deterioration are meant to encourage individual and collective reflection on a difficult dilemma. Nicholsen draws on work in environmental philosophy and ecopsychology; the writings of psychoanalytic thinkers such as Wilfred Bion, Donald Meltzer, and D. W. Winnicott; and ideas from Buddhist and Sufi traditions. She shows how our emotional responses to the vulnerabilities of the natural world range from intense caring and compassion, through grief and outrage, to diffuse depression. Individual chapters focus on silence and the process whereby we move from the unspoken to the spoken, the love of nature, the "perceptual reciprocity" with the natural world to which we might mature, beauty in the human and natural realms, the psychological impact of the destruction of the natural world, and reflections on the future.
Author: Robert M. Hazen
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143123645
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
Hailed by The New York Times for writing “with wonderful clarity about science . . . that effortlessly teaches as it zips along,” nationally bestselling author Robert M. Hazen offers a radical new approach to Earth history in this intertwined tale of the planet’s living and nonliving spheres. With an astrobiologist’s imagination, a historian’s perspective, and a naturalist’s eye, Hazen calls upon twenty-first-century discoveries that have revolutionized geology and enabled scientists to envision Earth’s many iterations in vivid detail—from the mile-high lava tides of its infancy to the early organisms responsible for more than two-thirds of the mineral varieties beneath our feet. Lucid, controversial, and on the cutting edge of its field, The Story of Earth is popular science of the highest order. "A sweeping rip-roaring yarn of immense scope, from the birth of the elements in the stars to meditations on the future habitability of our world." -Science "A fascinating story." -Bill McKibben
Author: Susan G. Davis
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 052091953X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328
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Book Description
This is the story of Sea World, a theme park where the wonders of nature are performed, marketed, and sold. With its trademark star, Shamu the killer whale—as well as performing dolphins, pettable sting rays, and reproductions of pristine natural worlds—the park represents a careful coordination of shows, dioramas, rides, and concessions built around the theme of ocean life. Susan Davis analyzes the Sea World experience and the forces that produce it: the theme park industry; Southern California tourism; the privatization of urban space; and the increasing integration of advertising, entertainment, and education. The result is an engaging exploration of the role played by images of nature and animals in contemporary commercial culture, and a precise account of how Sea World and its parent corporation, Anheuser-Busch, succeed. Davis argues that Sea World builds its vision of nature around customers' worries and concerns about the environment, family relations, and education. While Davis shows the many ways that Sea World monitors its audience and manipulates animals and landscapes to manufacture pleasure, she also explains the contradictions facing the enterprise in its campaign for a positive public identity. Shifting popular attitudes, animal rights activists, and environmental laws all pose practical and public relations challenges to the theme park. Davis confronts the park's vast operations with impressive insight and originality, revealing Sea World as both an industrial product and a phenomenon typical of contemporary American culture. Spectacular Nature opens an intriguing field of inquiry: the role of commercial entertainment in shaping public understandings of the environment and environmental problems.
Author: Alison H. Deming
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 1571318143
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
“An anthology of nature writing by people of color, providing deeply personal connections to—or disconnects from—nature.” —NPR From African American to Asian American, indigenous to immigrant, “multiracial” to “mixed-blood,” the diversity of cultures in this world is matched only by the diversity of stories explaining our cultural origins: stories of creation and destruction, displacement and heartbreak, hope and mystery. With writing from Jamaica Kincaid on the fallacies of national myths, Yusef Komunyakaa connecting the toxic legacy of his hometown, Bogalusa, LA, to a blind faith in capitalism, and bell hooks relating the quashing of multiculturalism to the destruction of nature that is considered “unpredictable”—among more than thirty-five other examinations of the relationship between culture and nature—this collection points toward the trouble of ignoring our cultural heritage, but also reveals how opening our eyes and our minds might provide a more livable future. Contributors: Elmaz Abinader, Faith Adiele, Francisco X. Alarcón, Fred Arroyo, Kimberly Blaeser, Joseph Bruchac, Robert D. Bullard, Debra Kang Dean, Camille Dungy, Nikky Finney, Ray Gonzalez, Kimiko Hahn, bell hooks, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, Pualani Kanaka’ole Kanahele, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Jamaica Kincaid, Yusef Komunyakaa, J. Drew Lanham, David Mas Masumoto, Maria Melendez, Thyllias Moss, Gary Paul Nabhan, Nalini Nadkarni, Melissa Nelson, Jennifer Oladipo, Louis Owens, Enrique Salmon, Aileen Suzara, A. J. Verdelle, Gerald Vizenor, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Al Young, Ofelia Zepeda “This notable anthology assembles thinkers and writers with firsthand experience or insight on how economic and racial inequalities affect a person’s understanding of nature . . . an illuminating read.” —Bloomsbury Review “[An] unprecedented and invaluable collection.” —Booklist
Author: Kelly Brenner
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
ISBN: 1680512080
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 218
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Book Description
With wonder and a sense of humor, Nature Obscura author Kelly Brenner aims to help us rediscover our connection to the natural world that is just outside our front door--we just need to know where to look. Through explorations of a rich and varied urban landscape, Brenner reveals the complex micro-habitats and surprising nature found in the middle of a city. In her hometown of Seattle, which has plowed down hills, cut through the land to connect fresh- and saltwater, and paved over much of the rest, she exposes a diverse range of strange and unknown creatures. From shore to wetland, forest to neighborhood park, and graveyard to backyard, Brenner uncovers how our land alterations have impacted nature, for good and bad, through the wildlife and plants that live alongside us, often unseen. These stories meld together, in the same way our ecosystems, species, and human history are interconnected across the urban environment.
Author: Stephen R. Kellert
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300188943
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 379
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Book Description
Human health and well-being are inextricably linked to nature; our connection to the natural world is part of our biological inheritance. In this engaging book, a pioneer in the field of biophilia—the study of human beings' inherent affinity for nature—sets forth the first full account of nature's powerful influence on the quality of our lives. Stephen Kellert asserts that our capacities to think, feel, communicate, create, and find meaning in life all depend upon our relationship to nature. And yet our increasing disconnection and alienation from the natural world reflect how seriously we have undervalued its important role in our lives. Weaving scientific findings together with personal experiences and perspectives, Kellert explores specific human tendencies—including affection, aversion, intellect, control, aesthetics, exploitation, spirituality, and communication—to discover how they are influenced by our relationship with nature. He observes that a beneficial relationship with the natural world is an instinctual inclination, but must be earned. He discusses how we can restore the balance in our relationship by means of changes in childhood development, education, conservation, building design, ethics, and everyday life. Kellert's moving book provides exactly what is needed now: a fresh understanding of how much our essential humanity relies on being a part of the natural world.
Author: Alan Weisman
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312427900
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 436
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Book Description
A penetrating take on how our planet would respond without the relentless pressure of the human presence
Author: Sir Arthur Eddington
Publisher: Hassell Street Press
ISBN: 9781022888784
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
In this classic work, Eddington explores the concept of reality and the nature of the physical world. He explains complex scientific concepts in an accessible way and delves into the philosophical implications of the theories he presents. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
