Environment and Nature Books

Sub-Saharan Africa: An Environmental History joins others in the 'Nature and Human Societies' series to survey both positive and negative environmental effects of human activities from colonialism to modern urban pressures. Chapters link historic events to environmental impact and consequences, providing a running blend of details on history, culture, and lasting results. A fine pick for any college-level collection strong in either environmental history or African history.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Sustainability, Human Ecology, and the Collapse of Complex Societies: Economic Anthropology and a 21st Century Adaptation by Niccolo Caldararo (Mellen Studies in Anthropology Vol. 15: Edwin Mellen Press) This book is designed as an introduction to both economic anthropology and to the use of culture history as an aid in the study of the evolution of human institutions. As an introduction, it is written in a general tone without much in the way of spe¬cialist terms. The sections are divided into themes, the first being a general outline of the history of economics and how human societies have been seen to adapt to different environments over the past 5 million years. In essence, as Evans-Pritchard (1965) has said about the theories of religion, the history of economic theory also reflects the character and themes of the times in which the theories were cre¬ated. Caldararo provides a basic review of theories of human social evolution, both unilinear and multilinear in scope as well as a historical framework for their appearance. A unilinear view perceives history taking place in a straight line, one simple stage of society developing into a more complex one and so on, from hunters and gatherers through to today's global culture. A multilinear view is more complex. It conceives of all forms of human institutions as being developed forms with rich histories. Some societies developed in some locations in time into more complex ones, oth¬ers did not and some collapsed leaving no progeny. There are many different schemes which have been constructed using both these views and they differ one from the other in their components. Neither of these reviews was meant to be exhaustive surveys of the literature, rather it is hoped they will provide a picture of the development of ideas and approaches to the subjects.
A second section provides an in depth study of human exploitation of forests and the use of fire. The main significance of fire here is the fact that fire has been a major tool in human land clearance in the transition from food collection to food production in the Neolithic. Even before this transition, humans used fire to shape the distribution of plants and animals in the environment. A sub-theme will be how forest fires have evolved. Caldararo's argument here is that forest fires as we know them did not exist before the appearance of humans.
In this second section Caldararo treats the phenomenon of forest fires as a general instance of human exploitation of environments. Forest fires can be seen as an analogy of the human condition where cultures act as filters for perception and create conceptual
landscapes upon which humans act. It seems to me that studying forest fires is quite instructive to a general understanding of the human dilemma. In this exam¬ple, humans have changed the natural world in the process of exploiting resources and by doing so have created an implacable enemy. By introducing the systematic use of fire to extract resources from forests and other wild lands (e.g., increase game, create farmland), by introducing exotic plants or producing fire-adapted flora, and by depleting those animals which lived on the wild biomass, we have produced a landscape adapted to wild fire which never existed before.
This process of human produced events, "anthropogenic events" is the term often used, has converged into a self-perpetuating cycle where wild fire has become a chronic seasonal event, with periodic fires of tremendous damage which are extended and complicated by the growth of suburbs of cities into formerly rural and wild areas. In like manner we have fashioned religious precepts and ideologies upon which our economic lives are founded and have set a course by which the daily lives of billions of people are guided. People are formed within these pre¬cepts and ideologies and their numbers must ever rise to support the economic sys¬tem in which we live. Yet the nature of this course is to inexorably change the foundations on which this course is run, with new commodities, services and espe¬cially experiences - real or imagined - and thus require an unmitigated and con¬stant transformation of lives like the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. The Red Queen makes the observation to Alice that, "...in this place it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." In biology, L. van Valen (1973) proposed a similar idea as a principle in evolution regarding the effects of coevolutionary selection. In this view, every improvement in one species will provide it with a selective advantage, and variation will normally lead continu¬ously to increases in fitness in one species or another. Thus to be competitive, each species must be in constant variation to improve fitness relative to other changes in fitness of its competitors. We know, however, from the fossil record that there are long periods of stasis as well as periods of rapid and gradual change. Thus all evolutionary history has not been ruled by the Red Queen. Of course, in Caldararo's example people have created the conditions of "running in place" maintained by precept and ideology. Occasionally all controls fail and a massive forest fire results defying all human technology and destroying forest and human industry. In a similar vein, human societies must adjust the relationships of all components of their institutions to avoid the trump of entropy, the collapse of the economy, and with it, the possible loss of the current form of civilized life. Our social life has developed from that of the sparsely populated hunter and gatherer who is constantly mobile, to the densely populated and sedentary urban dweller. We have become both domesticated animals and herding animals at the same time. Caldararo discusses this in more detail in a later section.
Even the course of this complexity and domestication is uncertain. Our knowledge of the evolution of complex societies among other animals, for example the insects, shows us that complexity is reversible. Research with various solitary insects has found that reversals from complexity back to solitary behavior have occurred at least twelve times. The ants, termites and corbiculate bees that are highly social with complex behavior are from the Cretaceous period and their closely related solitary taxa have long been extinct. Varying degrees of complex social behavior are found in wasps and Halictid bees and allow for com¬parative study.
The third section of this book is on sustainability and examines this concept from an anthropological perspective, using Japan as a case study. Ethnohistorical docu¬ments are the basis but the work addresses both ancient Japan and contemporary Japan through an economic analysis and population history. A basic question here is the nature of the distribution of resources in societies. It has long been held that Pareto's Law (1897) affected all human economies. This law argues that 20% of the population will own 80% of the wealth. However, recent analysis of wealth and income data using the Lorenz curve to factor the Gini coefficient, which is a measure of income inequality, show that the communist experiments produced societ¬ies with markedly different distributions than predicted by Pareto's Law. But even an analysis of a broad group of countries shows a great deal of variation.

Very seldom do I find something to read that provides an instantly respectful response. This author's work does. Nearly anything I write about this sounds pompous but this author's flow of ideas is friendly and deeply attaching.

Thankfully, the days are long gone when anyone could seriously propose to build huge dams in a national park or a wilderness area, but as recently as 40 years ago this actually happened -- twice! In this book Professor Mark Harvey tells the story of the US Bureau of Reclamation's proposal in 1949 to build Echo Park Dam in the magnificent canyons of Dinosaur National Monument (Utah), and how concerned citizens got organized and persuaded the US Congress to say No. (There was a repeat ten years later with proposed dams in the Grand Canyon.)

Professor Harvey analyzes the diverse political forces that clashed in this first big campaign of the wilderness movement. He traces how citizens' groups unaccustomed to controversy got their act together and seized the attention of the national public, at a time when few people had even heard of the wilderness idea. He shows how eloquent citizen leaders such as Howard Zahniser and David Brower collaborated, and how a few courageous legislators took up the cause on Capitol Hill.

There were many legislative battles like this one in the years that followed, but this was the first big one, and Mark Harvey tells the story well.

I spend much of my free time reading economics, politics, and history, and I've never seen anything that combines my interests quite so well as this volume.

Shrader-Frechette, who has as unique a background as anyone (she has training in the social and hard sciences, and although she is an academic, she spends a significant amount of time doing real-world work on pro bono projects and government committees), is exactly the right person to write this book.

You should read this if you have even the slightest interest in environmental issues. This is the book for you if you ever have been frustrated by the lack of detailed examples and robust, logical arguments in everyday environmental discourse, or if you have wondered why our political and business establishments have become so morally impoverished.

As noted by the professional reviewers quoted by Amazon, this is not an easy book to read. Corporate crime, public health, and inequity are rarely easy topics, particularly for well-off Westerners. Nonetheless, this book will change the way you look at the world around you. You will be pleased with this volume.

College-level collections strong in cultural anthropology or environmental studies and sociology will find Tarzan Was an Eco-Tourist suitable for display with its catchy cover art and perfect for college-level analysis, coming from two anthropology professors who examine the changing nature and effects of the concept of adventure in both tourism and culture. Chapters consider modern forms of adventure, contrast it with ideas from the past, and provide excellent analysis of shifts in perspective and how and why they occurred. Even public library holdings will find it intriguing.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I think this is a cute book with great illustrations. If your child loves polar bears they will love it. Also check out the little polar bear books by Hans de Beer.

Author of Hobo Finds A Home

Paul Shepard is the kind of author that should be read over and over again. Each time through, you will pick up more, and slowly your view of the world will change. In this book, Shepard weaves together anthropology, psychology, social criticism, and prehistory to paint a picture of what we used to be, what we are now, and what we can be in the future. More specifically, Shepard urges us to recapture the form of hunter-gathering. This is not to say that we can turn back the clock of history and go back to the caves. Rather, he is espousing a closer contact with the natural world, which is the only thing that can trigger the crucial psychological transitions that make up our lifecycle. Without this kind of exposure to the Otherness of the real world, we remain locked in adolescence and even pre-adolescence, unable to maturely experience the people and places around us. Read this book, then read "Nature and Madness", then read his other books --- then REREAD them, over and over. His stuff is that good.

Ricketts et al. have tackled a monumental task--describing patterns in biodiversity throughout North America. For years, conservation biology has need a new perspective, a breath of fresh air, and the authors of this wonderful book have supplied both the perspective and the fresh air! The authors write with clarity and a refreshing lack of jargon. Buy this book just for the wonderful color maps. No, buy this book for the essays by special essays. No, buy this book for the information packed in it. If you're at all interested in conservation biology or ecology, buy this book.

There's a Barnyard in My Bedroom is a children's picturebook with a surprisingly involved story about a boy and a girl who harness the power of imagination to go on incredible adventures. At home, they discover an ocean in the bathroom and a forest in the living room; in their backyard, they find rocks that have existed for millions of years. "'What is a smell, anyway?' 'Actually, what we smell are tiny pieces of something. The pieces are so tiny we can't see them. Dogs can even smell pieces left behind from a person or animal that was here yesterday. Some animals leave smells to mark their territory. And some of those smells smell pretty bad to us." A blend of education, adventure, and wonder, There's a Barnyard in My Bedroom is an enjoyable storybook detailed enough to be suitable for young readers who are almost ready to start chapter books.