Author: Wade Davis
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 0887847668
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Many of us are alarmed by the accelerating rates of extinction of plants and animals. But how many of us know that human cultures are going extinct at an even more shocking rate? While biologists estimate that 18 percent of mammals and 11 percent of birds are threatened, and botanists anticipate the loss of 8 percent of flora, anthropologists predict that fully 50 percent of the 7,000 languages spoken around the world today will disappear within our lifetimes. And languages are merely the canaries in the coal mine: what of the knowledge, stories, songs, and ways of seeing encoded in these voices? In The Wayfinders, Wade Davis offers a gripping and enlightening account of this urgent crisis. He leads us on a fascinating tour through a handful of indigenous cultures, describing the worldviews they represent and reminding us of the encroaching danger to humankind's survival should they vanish.
The Wayfinders
Author: Wade Davis
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 0887847668
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Many of us are alarmed by the accelerating rates of extinction of plants and animals. But how many of us know that human cultures are going extinct at an even more shocking rate? While biologists estimate that 18 percent of mammals and 11 percent of birds are threatened, and botanists anticipate the loss of 8 percent of flora, anthropologists predict that fully 50 percent of the 7,000 languages spoken around the world today will disappear within our lifetimes. And languages are merely the canaries in the coal mine: what of the knowledge, stories, songs, and ways of seeing encoded in these voices? In The Wayfinders, Wade Davis offers a gripping and enlightening account of this urgent crisis. He leads us on a fascinating tour through a handful of indigenous cultures, describing the worldviews they represent and reminding us of the encroaching danger to humankind's survival should they vanish.
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 0887847668
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Many of us are alarmed by the accelerating rates of extinction of plants and animals. But how many of us know that human cultures are going extinct at an even more shocking rate? While biologists estimate that 18 percent of mammals and 11 percent of birds are threatened, and botanists anticipate the loss of 8 percent of flora, anthropologists predict that fully 50 percent of the 7,000 languages spoken around the world today will disappear within our lifetimes. And languages are merely the canaries in the coal mine: what of the knowledge, stories, songs, and ways of seeing encoded in these voices? In The Wayfinders, Wade Davis offers a gripping and enlightening account of this urgent crisis. He leads us on a fascinating tour through a handful of indigenous cultures, describing the worldviews they represent and reminding us of the encroaching danger to humankind's survival should they vanish.
Wayfinding Leadership
Author: Dr Chellie Spiller, Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr and John Panoho
Publisher: Huia Publishers
ISBN: 1775502767
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
Publisher: Huia Publishers
ISBN: 1775502767
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
Wayfinding
Author: M. R. O'Connor
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250096960
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 367
Book Description
At once far flung and intimate, a fascinating look at how finding our way make us human. "A marvel of storytelling." —Kirkus (Starred Review) In this compelling narrative, O'Connor seeks out neuroscientists, anthropologists and master navigators to understand how navigation ultimately gave us our humanity. Biologists have been trying to solve the mystery of how organisms have the ability to migrate and orient with such precision—especially since our own adventurous ancestors spread across the world without maps or instruments. O'Connor goes to the Arctic, the Australian bush and the South Pacific to talk to masters of their environment who seek to preserve their traditions at a time when anyone can use a GPS to navigate. O’Connor explores the neurological basis of spatial orientation within the hippocampus. Without it, people inhabit a dream state, becoming amnesiacs incapable of finding their way, recalling the past, or imagining the future. Studies have shown that the more we exercise our cognitive mapping skills, the greater the grey matter and health of our hippocampus. O'Connor talks to scientists studying how atrophy in the hippocampus is associated with afflictions such as impaired memory, dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease, depression and PTSD. Wayfinding is a captivating book that charts how our species' profound capacity for exploration, memory and storytelling results in topophilia, the love of place. "O'Connor talked to just the right people in just the right places, and her narrative is a marvel of storytelling on its own merits, erudite but lightly worn. There are many reasons why people should make efforts to improve their geographical literacy, and O'Connor hits on many in this excellent book—devouring it makes for a good start." —Kirkus Reviews
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250096960
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 367
Book Description
At once far flung and intimate, a fascinating look at how finding our way make us human. "A marvel of storytelling." —Kirkus (Starred Review) In this compelling narrative, O'Connor seeks out neuroscientists, anthropologists and master navigators to understand how navigation ultimately gave us our humanity. Biologists have been trying to solve the mystery of how organisms have the ability to migrate and orient with such precision—especially since our own adventurous ancestors spread across the world without maps or instruments. O'Connor goes to the Arctic, the Australian bush and the South Pacific to talk to masters of their environment who seek to preserve their traditions at a time when anyone can use a GPS to navigate. O’Connor explores the neurological basis of spatial orientation within the hippocampus. Without it, people inhabit a dream state, becoming amnesiacs incapable of finding their way, recalling the past, or imagining the future. Studies have shown that the more we exercise our cognitive mapping skills, the greater the grey matter and health of our hippocampus. O'Connor talks to scientists studying how atrophy in the hippocampus is associated with afflictions such as impaired memory, dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease, depression and PTSD. Wayfinding is a captivating book that charts how our species' profound capacity for exploration, memory and storytelling results in topophilia, the love of place. "O'Connor talked to just the right people in just the right places, and her narrative is a marvel of storytelling on its own merits, erudite but lightly worn. There are many reasons why people should make efforts to improve their geographical literacy, and O'Connor hits on many in this excellent book—devouring it makes for a good start." —Kirkus Reviews
Light at the Edge of the World
Author: Wade Davis
Publisher: D & M Publishers
ISBN: 1926706897
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
For more than 30 years, renowned anthropologist Wade Davis has traveled the globe, studying the mysteries of sacred plants and celebrating the world’s traditional cultures. His passion as an ethnobotanist has brought him to the very center of indigenous life in places as remote and diverse as the Canadian Arctic, the deserts of North Africa, the rain forests of Borneo, the mountains of Tibet, and the surreal cultural landscape of Haiti. In Light at the Edge of the World, Davis explores the idea that these distinct cultures represent unique visions of life itself and have much to teach the rest of the world about different ways of living and thinking. As he investigates the dark undercurrents tearing people from their past and propelling them into an uncertain future, Davis reiterates that the threats faced by indigenous cultures endanger and diminish all cultures.
Publisher: D & M Publishers
ISBN: 1926706897
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
For more than 30 years, renowned anthropologist Wade Davis has traveled the globe, studying the mysteries of sacred plants and celebrating the world’s traditional cultures. His passion as an ethnobotanist has brought him to the very center of indigenous life in places as remote and diverse as the Canadian Arctic, the deserts of North Africa, the rain forests of Borneo, the mountains of Tibet, and the surreal cultural landscape of Haiti. In Light at the Edge of the World, Davis explores the idea that these distinct cultures represent unique visions of life itself and have much to teach the rest of the world about different ways of living and thinking. As he investigates the dark undercurrents tearing people from their past and propelling them into an uncertain future, Davis reiterates that the threats faced by indigenous cultures endanger and diminish all cultures.
Century of the Wind
Author: Eduardo Galeano
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1480481424
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 522
Book Description
“Nothing less than a unified history of the Western Hemisphere.” —The New Yorker From Guatemala to Rio de Janeiro, La Paz to New York City, Managua to Havana, Century of the Wind ties together the events and people—both large and small—that define the Americas. In hundreds of lyrical and vivid narratives, the final installment of Galeano’s indispensible trilogy sees the building of the Panama Canal, the disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples living over Colombia’s oil fields, the creation of Superman and the heyday of Faulkner, and coups and upheavals that cleaved an already fragmented continent. Galeano’s elegy moves year by year through the century of Castro, Picasso, and Reagan, blending the many voices and varying locales of North and South America and forming a history that is stunning in its scope and savage beauty.
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1480481424
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 522
Book Description
“Nothing less than a unified history of the Western Hemisphere.” —The New Yorker From Guatemala to Rio de Janeiro, La Paz to New York City, Managua to Havana, Century of the Wind ties together the events and people—both large and small—that define the Americas. In hundreds of lyrical and vivid narratives, the final installment of Galeano’s indispensible trilogy sees the building of the Panama Canal, the disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples living over Colombia’s oil fields, the creation of Superman and the heyday of Faulkner, and coups and upheavals that cleaved an already fragmented continent. Galeano’s elegy moves year by year through the century of Castro, Picasso, and Reagan, blending the many voices and varying locales of North and South America and forming a history that is stunning in its scope and savage beauty.
Into the Silence
Author: Wade Davis
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307700569
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 596
Book Description
The definitive story of the British adventurers who survived the trenches of World War I and went on to risk their lives climbing Mount Everest. On June 6, 1924, two men set out from a camp perched at 23,000 feet on an ice ledge just below the lip of Everest’s North Col. George Mallory, thirty-seven, was Britain’s finest climber. Sandy Irvine was a twenty-two-year-old Oxford scholar with little previous mountaineering experience. Neither of them returned. Drawing on more than a decade of prodigious research, bestselling author and explorer Wade Davis vividly re-creates the heroic efforts of Mallory and his fellow climbers, setting their significant achievements in sweeping historical context: from Britain’s nineteen-century imperial ambitions to the war that shaped Mallory’s generation. Theirs was a country broken, and the Everest expeditions emerged as a powerful symbol of national redemption and hope. In Davis’s rich exploration, he creates a timeless portrait of these remarkable men and their extraordinary times.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307700569
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 596
Book Description
The definitive story of the British adventurers who survived the trenches of World War I and went on to risk their lives climbing Mount Everest. On June 6, 1924, two men set out from a camp perched at 23,000 feet on an ice ledge just below the lip of Everest’s North Col. George Mallory, thirty-seven, was Britain’s finest climber. Sandy Irvine was a twenty-two-year-old Oxford scholar with little previous mountaineering experience. Neither of them returned. Drawing on more than a decade of prodigious research, bestselling author and explorer Wade Davis vividly re-creates the heroic efforts of Mallory and his fellow climbers, setting their significant achievements in sweeping historical context: from Britain’s nineteen-century imperial ambitions to the war that shaped Mallory’s generation. Theirs was a country broken, and the Everest expeditions emerged as a powerful symbol of national redemption and hope. In Davis’s rich exploration, he creates a timeless portrait of these remarkable men and their extraordinary times.
The Wayfinder's Apprentice
Author: K. Dezendorf
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
Rose knows the magical world of the Umbra exists. She's been there before, and she longs to return to the land of fantasy and start a happier life. Stuck on Earth with only her trickster guardian and a displaced gang of elven siblings for company; Rose has a fateful run-in with a rogue wild elf and meets a Wayfinder, a gatekeeper of the portals between realms. However, Rose is horrified to discover the Umbra has changed since her first visit, finding herself caught up in unexpected conflicts, from warring god-like beings to dealings with demons. With many grueling choices ahead of her, Rose finds the dream she yearns for comes with a cost.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
Rose knows the magical world of the Umbra exists. She's been there before, and she longs to return to the land of fantasy and start a happier life. Stuck on Earth with only her trickster guardian and a displaced gang of elven siblings for company; Rose has a fateful run-in with a rogue wild elf and meets a Wayfinder, a gatekeeper of the portals between realms. However, Rose is horrified to discover the Umbra has changed since her first visit, finding herself caught up in unexpected conflicts, from warring god-like beings to dealings with demons. With many grueling choices ahead of her, Rose finds the dream she yearns for comes with a cost.
The Serpent and the Rainbow
Author: Wade Davis
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451628366
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
A scientific investigation and personal adventure story about zombis and the voudoun culture of Haiti by a Harvard scientist. In April 1982, ethnobotanist Wade Davis arrived in Haiti to investigate two documented cases of zombis—people who had reappeared in Haitian society years after they had been officially declared dead and had been buried. Drawn into a netherworld of rituals and celebrations, Davis penetrated the vodoun mystique deeply enough to place zombification in its proper context within vodoun culture. In the course of his investigation, Davis came to realize that the story of vodoun is the history of Haiti—from the African origins of its people to the successful Haitian independence movement, down to the present day, where vodoun culture is, in effect, the government of Haiti’s countryside. The Serpent and the Rainbow combines anthropological investigation with a remarkable personal adventure to illuminate and finally explain a phenomenon that has long fascinated Americans.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451628366
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
A scientific investigation and personal adventure story about zombis and the voudoun culture of Haiti by a Harvard scientist. In April 1982, ethnobotanist Wade Davis arrived in Haiti to investigate two documented cases of zombis—people who had reappeared in Haitian society years after they had been officially declared dead and had been buried. Drawn into a netherworld of rituals and celebrations, Davis penetrated the vodoun mystique deeply enough to place zombification in its proper context within vodoun culture. In the course of his investigation, Davis came to realize that the story of vodoun is the history of Haiti—from the African origins of its people to the successful Haitian independence movement, down to the present day, where vodoun culture is, in effect, the government of Haiti’s countryside. The Serpent and the Rainbow combines anthropological investigation with a remarkable personal adventure to illuminate and finally explain a phenomenon that has long fascinated Americans.
One River
Author: Wade Davis
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439126836
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 544
Book Description
The story of two generations of scientific explorers in South America—Richard Evans Schultes and his protégé Wade Davis—an epic tale of adventure and a compelling work of natural history. In 1941, Professor Richard Evan Schultes took a leave from Harvard and disappeared into the Amazon, where he spent the next twelve years mapping uncharted rivers and living among dozens of Indian tribes. In the 1970s, he sent two prize students, Tim Plowman and Wade Davis, to follow in his footsteps and unveil the botanical secrets of coca, the notorious source of cocaine, a sacred plant known to the Inca as the Divine Leaf of Immortality. A stunning account of adventure and discovery, betrayal and destruction, One River is a story of two generations of explorers drawn together by the transcendent knowledge of Indian peoples, the visionary realms of the shaman, and the extraordinary plants that sustain all life in a forest that once stood immense and inviolable.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439126836
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 544
Book Description
The story of two generations of scientific explorers in South America—Richard Evans Schultes and his protégé Wade Davis—an epic tale of adventure and a compelling work of natural history. In 1941, Professor Richard Evan Schultes took a leave from Harvard and disappeared into the Amazon, where he spent the next twelve years mapping uncharted rivers and living among dozens of Indian tribes. In the 1970s, he sent two prize students, Tim Plowman and Wade Davis, to follow in his footsteps and unveil the botanical secrets of coca, the notorious source of cocaine, a sacred plant known to the Inca as the Divine Leaf of Immortality. A stunning account of adventure and discovery, betrayal and destruction, One River is a story of two generations of explorers drawn together by the transcendent knowledge of Indian peoples, the visionary realms of the shaman, and the extraordinary plants that sustain all life in a forest that once stood immense and inviolable.
The Fabric of Civilization
Author: Virginia Postrel
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541617614
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326
Book Description
From Neanderthal string to 3D knitting, an “expansive” global history that highlights “how textiles truly changed the world” (Wall Street Journal) The story of humanity is the story of textiles—as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel synthesizes groundbreaking research from archaeology, economics, and science to reveal a surprising history. From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world. Textiles funded the Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; they gave us banks and bookkeeping, Michelangelo’s David and the Taj Mahal. The cloth business spread the alphabet and arithmetic, propelled chemical research, and taught people to think in binary code. Assiduously researched and deftly narrated, The Fabric of Civilization tells the story of the world’s most influential commodity.
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541617614
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326
Book Description
From Neanderthal string to 3D knitting, an “expansive” global history that highlights “how textiles truly changed the world” (Wall Street Journal) The story of humanity is the story of textiles—as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel synthesizes groundbreaking research from archaeology, economics, and science to reveal a surprising history. From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world. Textiles funded the Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; they gave us banks and bookkeeping, Michelangelo’s David and the Taj Mahal. The cloth business spread the alphabet and arithmetic, propelled chemical research, and taught people to think in binary code. Assiduously researched and deftly narrated, The Fabric of Civilization tells the story of the world’s most influential commodity.