The Voyage of the Beagle

As naturalist on the surveying voyage in the southern hemisphere of HMS Beagle 1831-6, Charles Darwin made the observations leading to his theory of modification of species. In this book he relates his voyages to the southern hemisphere.

Fateful Harvest

I see soil in a new light, and I wonder about my own lawn and garden. What have I sprinkled on my backyard? Is somebody using my home, my food, to recycle toxic waste? It seems unbelievable, outlandish -- but what if it's true?A riveting exposé, Fateful Harvest tells the story of Patty Martin -- the mayor of a small Washington town called Quincy -- who discovers American industries are dumping toxic waste into farmers' fields and home gardens by labeling it "fertilizer." She becomes outraged at the failed crops, sick horses, and rare diseases in her town, as well as the threats to her children's health. Yet, when she blows the whistle on a nationwide problem, Patty Martin is nearly run out of town.Duff Wilson, whose Seattle Times series on this story was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, provides the definitive account of a new and alarming environmental scandal. Fateful Harvest is a gripping study of corruption and courage, of recklessness and reckoning. It is a story that speaks to the greatest fears -- and ultimate hope -- in us all.

Blessed Unrest

One of the world’s most influential environmentalists reveals a worldwide grassroots movement of hope and humanity Blessed Unrest tells the story of a worldwide movement that is largely unseen by politicians or the media. Hawken, an environmentalist and author, has spent more than a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person causes, these organizations collectively comprise the largest movement on earth. This is a movement that has no name, leader, or location, but is in every city, town, and culture. It is organizing from the bottom up and is emerging as an extraordinary and creative expression of people’s needs worldwide. Blessed Unrest explores the diversity of this movement, its brilliant ideas, innovative strategies, and centuries-old history. The culmination of Hawken’s many years of leadership in these fields, it will inspire, surprise, and delight anyone who is worried about the direction the modern world is headed. Blessed Unrest is a description of humanity’s collective genius and the unstoppable movement to re-imagine our relationship to the environment and one another. Like Hawken’s previous books, Blessed Unrest will become a classic in its field— a touchstone for anyone concerned about our future.

Green Belt Movement

Wangari Muta Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya in 1940. In 1960, she won a Kennedy scholarship to study in America and earned a master's degree in biology from the University of Pittsburgh and became the first woman in East Africa to earn a Ph.D. Returning to Kenya in 1966, Wangari Maathai was shocked at the degradation of the forests and the farmland caused by deforestation. Heavy rains had washed away much of the topsoil, silt was clogging the rivers, and fertilizers were depriving the soil of nutrients. Wangari decided to solve the problem by planting trees.Under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya, of which she was chairwoman from 1981 to 1987, she introduced the idea of planting trees through citizen foresters in 1976, and called this new organization the Green Belt Movement (GBM). She continued to develop GBM into broad-based, grassroots organization whose focus was women's groups planting of trees in order to conserve the environment and improve their quality of life. Through the Green Belt Movement, Wangari Maathai has assisted women in planting more than 20 million trees on their farms and on schools and church compounds in Kenya and all over East Africa.In Africa, as in many parts of the world, women are responsible for meals and collecting firewood. Increasing deforestation has not only meant increasing desertification, but it has also meant that women have had to travel further and further afield in order to collect the firewood. This in turn has led to women spending less time around the home, tending to crops, and looking after their children. By staying closer to home, earning income from sustainably harvesting the fruit and timber from trees, women not only can be more productive, they can provide stability in the home. They can also create time for education opportunities—whether for themselves or their children.This virtuous circle of empowerment through conservation is serving as a model throughout the world, where women both individually and collectively are entrusted with money and material to invest it in ways that make a difference to their daily lives. Wangari Maathai's Green Belt Movement is a great example of how one person can turn around the lives of thousands, if not millions of others, by empowering others to change their situation.Wangari's road to success was by no means easy. During the 1970s and 1980s, she came under increasing scrutiny from the government of Daniel arap Moi. She was frequently the target of vilification from the government, as well as subject to outright attacks and imprisonment. She refused to compromise her belief that the people were best trusted to look after their natural resources, as opposed to the corrupt cronies of the government, who were given whole swathes of public land, which they then despoiled.In December 2002, Wangari Maathai was elected by an overwhelming margin to Parliament, where she is the Assistant Secretary for Environnment, Wildlife, and Natural

1491

A groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492.Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus?s landing had crossed the Bering Strait twelve thousand years ago; existed mainly in small, nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas was, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last thirty years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong.In a book that startles and persuades, Mann reveals how a new generation of researchers equipped with novel scientific techniques came to previously unheard-of conclusions. Among them:? In 1491 there were probably more people living in the Americas than in Europe.? Certain cities?such as Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital?were far greater in population than any contemporary European city. Furthermore, Tenochtitlán, unlike any capital in Europe at that time, had running water, beautiful botanical gardens, and immaculately clean streets.? The earliest cities in the Western Hemisphere were thriving before the Egyptians built the great pyramids.? Pre-Columbian Indians in Mexico developed corn by a breeding process so sophisticated that the journal Science recently described it as ?man?s first, and perhaps the greatest, feat of genetic engineering.?? Amazonian Indians learned how to farm the rain forest without destroying it?a process scientists are studying today in the hope of regaining this lost knowledge.? Native Americans transformed their land so completely that Europeans arrived in a hemisphere already massively ?landscaped? by human beings.Mann sheds clarifying light on the methods used to arrive at these new visions of the pre-Columbian Americas and how they have affected our understanding of our history and our thinking about the environment. His book is an exciting and learned account of scientific inquiry and revelation.From the Hardcover edition.

Practical Plant Identification

Building on the success of Cullen's The Identification of Flowering Plant Families, this is an essential guide to identifying flowering plant families (wild or cultivated) in the northern hemisphere. Details of plant structure and terminology accompany practical keys to the identification of 318 of the flowering plant families.

Voyage of the Beagle

Charles Darwin shook the foundations of existence to the very core when he published On the Origin of Species, a work that continues to spark controversy and debate today. Voyage of the Beagle is the breathtaking story of the expedition that inspired his seminal work. After rejecting careers in both medicine and the clergy, at the age of 22, Darwin accepted the position of naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle, a 90-foot sloop charged with charting South American waters. In December 1831, he set sail on a five-year voyage that would become the most important event of his life and shape his entire career

Plundering Paradise

Mention the Galápagos Islands to almost anyone, and the first things that spring to mind are iguanas, tortoises, volcanic beaches, and, of course, Charles Darwin. But there are people living there, too -- nearly 20,000 of them. A wild stew of nomads and grifters, dreamers and hermits, wealthy tour operators and desperately poor South American refugees, these inhabitants have brought crime, crowding, poaching, and pollution to the once-idyllic islands. In Plundering Paradise , Michael D'Orso explores the conflicts on land and at sea that now threaten to destroy this fabled ''Eden of Evolution.''.

Birds of Britain & Europe

This guide uses an integrated photographic approach to profile the extraordinary range of birds found in the Western Palearctic region. With its comprehensive coverage, easy-to-use layout and visual impact, it should appeal to bird enthusiasts of all ages and levels of experience.

What Makes Biology Unique?

This book is a collection of revised and new essays from the most eminent evolutionary biologist of the past century, written in time for his 100th birthday. Here Ernst Mayr explores biology as an autonomous science, the history of evolutionary thought, the contributions of philosophy to the science of biology, and the major ongoing issues in evolutionary theory.

Platypus

a spectacularly wonderful book' Robyn Williams, 2001. When the first specimen of a platypus arrived in England in 1799 it was greeted with astonishment and disbelief. What was this strange creature from the new colony of Australia? It defied rational explanation, with its webbed feet and duck's beak attached to what seemed to be a mammal's body-surely it was a hoax on the part of those cheeky new colonials? As eighteenth century naturalists struggled to classify the platypus, the little animal excited curiosity and sparked fierce debate in international scientific circles, drawing in leaders of zoology and comparative anatomy in Britain and Europe. This is the enigmatic story of a biological riddle that confounded scientists for nearly ninety years, challenging theories of creationism, evolution and the classification of species along the way. Secretive, elusive and beguiling, the platypus has continued to captivate public and scientific attention to the present day. 'In this remote part of the earth, Nature (having made horses, oxen, ducks, geese, oaks, elms, and all regular productions for the rest of the world) seems determined to have a bit of a play, and to amuse herself as she pleases.' Rev Sydney Smith, Sydney, 1819. 'A disbeliever in everything beyond his own reason, might exclaim, "Surely two distinct creators must have been at work".' Charles Darwin, 1836.