A SCHOLARLY BOOK REPOSITORY
5155 books about Science and 336
5155 books about Science
336 start with P start with P
336 start with P start with P
The Promise of Multispecies Justice
Sophie Chao, Karin Bolender, and Eben Kirksey, editors
Duke University Press, 2022
What are the possibilities for multispecies justice? How do social justice struggles intersect with the lives of animals, plants, and other creatures? Leading thinkers in anthropology, geography, philosophy, speculative fiction, poetry, and contemporary art answer these questions from diverse grounded locations. In America, Indigenous peoples and prisoners are decolonizing multispecies relations in unceded territory and carceral landscapes. Small justices are emerging in Tanzanian markets, near banana plantations in the Philippines, and in abandoned buildings of Azerbaijan as people navigate relations with feral dogs, weeds, rats, and pesticides. Conflicts over rights of nature are intensifying in Colombia’s Amazon. Specters of justice are emerging in India, while children in Micronesia memorialize extinct bird species. Engaging with ideas about environmental justice, restorative justice, and other species of justice, The Promise of Multispecies Justice holds open the possibility of flourishing in multispecies worlds, present and to come.
Contributors. Karin Bolender, Sophie Chao, M. L. Clark, Radhika Govindrajan, Zsuzsanna Dominika Ihar, Noriko Ishiyama, Eben Kirksey, Elizabeth Lara, Jia Hui Lee, Kristina Lyons, Michael Marder, Alyssa Paredes, Craig Santos Perez, Kim TallBear
Contributors. Karin Bolender, Sophie Chao, M. L. Clark, Radhika Govindrajan, Zsuzsanna Dominika Ihar, Noriko Ishiyama, Eben Kirksey, Elizabeth Lara, Jia Hui Lee, Kristina Lyons, Michael Marder, Alyssa Paredes, Craig Santos Perez, Kim TallBear
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Pronghorn
Ecology & Mangemt: Ecology and Management
Bart W. O'Gara
University Press of Colorado, 2004
One of the fastest land animals on Earth (second only to the cheetah), the pronghorn can reach speeds of more than 50 miles per hour. It also is one of the most fascinating of all animals. For many people, the pronghorn was nearly as much a symbol of the American West as was the bison; for some, it still is. Eliminated from much of its historic range by the early 1900s, this unique North American big game species has experienced a remarkable recovery and now is found throughout the western United States, Canada, and northern Mexico. Thirty years in the making, Pronghorn: Ecology and Management contains the most comprehensive information on the behavior, physiology, migration, taxonomy, and management of this extraordinary animal.
Full chapters are devoted to distribution, nutrition and food, diseases and parasites, ecosystem management, hunting, and much more. The principal authors—the world’s preeminent pronghorn biologists, Bart W. O’Gara and Jim D. Yoakum—conclude with a thorough discussion of the future of pronghorn and their management. With 23 chapters that include contributions by 10 other wildlife professionals and more than 850 illustrations, including original artwork by Edson Fichter and Daniel P. Metz, Pronghorn: Ecology and Management is the definitive work on the species.
A Wildlife Management Institute Book
Full chapters are devoted to distribution, nutrition and food, diseases and parasites, ecosystem management, hunting, and much more. The principal authors—the world’s preeminent pronghorn biologists, Bart W. O’Gara and Jim D. Yoakum—conclude with a thorough discussion of the future of pronghorn and their management. With 23 chapters that include contributions by 10 other wildlife professionals and more than 850 illustrations, including original artwork by Edson Fichter and Daniel P. Metz, Pronghorn: Ecology and Management is the definitive work on the species.
A Wildlife Management Institute Book
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Propagation, Scattering and Diffraction of Electromagnetic Waves
A.S. Ilyinski
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 1993
This book describes new, highly effective, rigorous analysis methods for electromagnetic wave problems. Examples of their application to the mathematical modelling of micros trip lines, corrugated flexible waveguides, horn antennas, complex-shaped cavity resonators and periodic structures are considered.
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Properties of Plastics
A Guide for Conservators
Thea B. van Oosten
J. Paul Getty Trust, The, 2022
A practical, comprehensive resource on the complex behaviors of plastics written expressly for conservation and cultural heritage professionals.
Almost every museum in the world is confronted with plastics in their collections. Research initiatives and knowledge concerning the conservation of heritage objects made of plastics have proliferated over the last twenty-five years, necessitating this up-to-date, comprehensive resource. Intended as a highly practical guide for the conservation community, this authoritative book offers information essential to understanding plastics, polymers, and rubber/elastomers and their behaviors in the cultural heritage context. Numerous graphs, diagrams, and illustrations allow readers to compare the mechanical, physical, thermal, and optical properties of these substances during conservation. Aimed at the hands-on museum practitioner, this book will assist professionals in choosing the appropriate methods and materials for preserving and treating plastic objects.
Complementing the main chapters, fifty-six illustrated “fact sheets” summarize, at a glance, the properties of those plastics most commonly found in museum collections. Six informative case studies present real-world examples of current conservation approaches to works of art and design made of plastics and rubber/elastomers. Under the expert authorship of Thea B. van Oosten, conservation scientist, educator, and internationally regarded authority on the behavior and properties of plastics, this instructive volume is destined to become an invaluable resource for the field.
Almost every museum in the world is confronted with plastics in their collections. Research initiatives and knowledge concerning the conservation of heritage objects made of plastics have proliferated over the last twenty-five years, necessitating this up-to-date, comprehensive resource. Intended as a highly practical guide for the conservation community, this authoritative book offers information essential to understanding plastics, polymers, and rubber/elastomers and their behaviors in the cultural heritage context. Numerous graphs, diagrams, and illustrations allow readers to compare the mechanical, physical, thermal, and optical properties of these substances during conservation. Aimed at the hands-on museum practitioner, this book will assist professionals in choosing the appropriate methods and materials for preserving and treating plastic objects.
Complementing the main chapters, fifty-six illustrated “fact sheets” summarize, at a glance, the properties of those plastics most commonly found in museum collections. Six informative case studies present real-world examples of current conservation approaches to works of art and design made of plastics and rubber/elastomers. Under the expert authorship of Thea B. van Oosten, conservation scientist, educator, and internationally regarded authority on the behavior and properties of plastics, this instructive volume is destined to become an invaluable resource for the field.
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Prophets Facing Backward
Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India
Nanda, Meera
Rutgers University Press, 2003
The leading voices in science studies have argued that modern science reflects dominant social interests of Western society. Following this logic, postmodern scholars have urged postcolonial societies to develop their own “alternative sciences” as a step towards “mental decolonization”. These ideas have found a warm welcome among Hindu nationalists who came to power in India in the early 1990s. In this passionate and highly original study, Indian-born author Meera Nanda reveals how these well-meaning but ultimately misguided ideas are enabling Hindu ideologues to propagate religious myths in the guise of science and secularism.
At the heart of Hindu supremacist ideology, Nanda argues, lies a postmodernist assumption: that each society has its own norms of reasonableness, logic, rules of evidence, and conception of truth, and that there is no non-arbitrary, culture-independent way to choose among these alternatives. What is being celebrated as “difference” by postmodernists, however, has more often than not been the source of mental bondage and authoritarianism in non-Western cultures. The “Vedic sciences” currently endorsed in Indian schools, colleges, and the mass media promotes the same elements of orthodox Hinduism that have for centuries deprived the vast majority of Indian people of their full humanity.
By denouncing science and secularization, the left was unwittingly contributing to what Nanda calls “reactionary modernism.” In contrast, Nanda points to the Dalit, or untouchable, movement as a true example of an “alternative science” that has embraced reason and modern science to challenge traditional notions of hierarchy.
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Prospects for Resilience
Insights from New York City's Jamaica Bay
Eric W. Sanderson, William D. Solecki, John R. Waldman, and Adam S. Parris
Island Press, 2016
Given the realities of climate change and sea-level rise, coastal cities around the world are struggling with questions of resilience. Resilience, at its core, is about desirable states of the urban social-ecological system and understanding how to sustain those states in an uncertain and tumultuous future. How do physical conditions, ecological processes, social objectives, human politics, and history shape the prospects for resilience? Most books set out “the answer.” This book sets out a process of grappling with holistic resilience from multiple perspectives, drawing on the insights and experiences of more than fifty scholars and practitioners working together to make Jamaica Bay in New York City an example for the world.
Prospects for Resilience establishes a framework for understanding resilience practice in urban watersheds. Using Jamaica Bay—the largest contiguous natural area in New York, home to millions of New Yorkers, and a hub of global air travel with John F. Kennedy International Airport—the authors demonstrate how various components of social-ecological systems interact, ranging from climatic factors to plant populations to human demographics. They also highlight essential tools for creating resilient watersheds, including monitoring and identifying system indicators; computer modeling; green infrastructure; and decision science methods. Finally, they look at the role and importance of a “boundary organization” like the new Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay in coordinating and facilitating resilience work, and consider significant research questions and prospects for the future of urban watersheds.
Prospects for Resilience sets forth an essential foundation of information and advice for researchers, urban planners, students and others who need to create more resilient cities that work with, not against, nature.
Prospects for Resilience establishes a framework for understanding resilience practice in urban watersheds. Using Jamaica Bay—the largest contiguous natural area in New York, home to millions of New Yorkers, and a hub of global air travel with John F. Kennedy International Airport—the authors demonstrate how various components of social-ecological systems interact, ranging from climatic factors to plant populations to human demographics. They also highlight essential tools for creating resilient watersheds, including monitoring and identifying system indicators; computer modeling; green infrastructure; and decision science methods. Finally, they look at the role and importance of a “boundary organization” like the new Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay in coordinating and facilitating resilience work, and consider significant research questions and prospects for the future of urban watersheds.
Prospects for Resilience sets forth an essential foundation of information and advice for researchers, urban planners, students and others who need to create more resilient cities that work with, not against, nature.
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Protecting Public Health and the Environment
Implementing The Precautionary Principle
Edited by Carolyn Raffensperger and Joel Tickner; Foreword by Wes Jackson
Island Press, 1999
When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. This idea, known as the "Precautionary Principle," is seen by environmentalists and public health experts as the key to protecting ecological and human health.
In January 1998, the Science and Environmmental Health Network convened an international group of scientists, researchers, environmentalists, academics, and labor representatives to discuss ways of incorporating the precautionary approach into environmental and public health decision-making. Known as the Wingspread Conference on Implementing the Precautionary Principle, the workshop focused on understanding the contexts under which the principle developed, its basis, and how it could be implemented. Protecting Public Health and the Environment is an outgrowth of that conference. The book:
- describes the history, specific content, and scientific and philosophical foundations of the principle of precautionary action
- explains the functions of the principle in activities as diverse as agriculture and manufacturing
- explains how to know when precautionary action is needed and who decides what action will (or will not) be taken
- attempts to show how the burden of proof of environmental harm can be shifted to proponents of a potentially hazardous activity
- provides specific structures and mechanisms for implementing the precautionary principl.
Public health professionals and academics, policymakers, environmental lawyers, sustainable agriculture proponents, economists, and environmental activists will find the book an enlightening and thought-provoking guide to a new way of thinking about ecosystem and public health protection.
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Protection of Global Biodiversity
Converging Strategies
Lakshman D. Guruswamy and Jeffrey A. McNeely, eds.
Duke University Press, 1998
The rate of extinction of biological species is greater today than at any time in the last 65 million years. Some predict that if this rate continues, two-thirds of all living species will disappear during the next century. Because reaching consensus on specific courses of action involves complex issues, any adequate response to this impending crisis must include coverage of many areas of inquiry and understanding. Protection of Global Biodiversity features essays by distinguished international experts who communicate with each other across disciplinary boundaries to address the challenge of formulating policies to protect biodiversity.
Although the global community has recently adopted a Convention of Biological Diversity, the agreement sets forth only abstract goals. Contributors to this volume advance the Convention’s initial steps by providing workable solutions that can be implemented regionally, nationally, and locally. The contributors—including natural, social, and political scientists; economists; lawyers; and environmentalists; and decisionmakers in business, agriculture, and government—have united to create a common discourse and to evaluate and propose strategies for halting this alarming loss of biodiversity. In recognizing the diverse aspects of this task—scientific, economic, institutional, moral, and legal—this book presents a new picture of emerging action.
Although the global community has recently adopted a Convention of Biological Diversity, the agreement sets forth only abstract goals. Contributors to this volume advance the Convention’s initial steps by providing workable solutions that can be implemented regionally, nationally, and locally. The contributors—including natural, social, and political scientists; economists; lawyers; and environmentalists; and decisionmakers in business, agriculture, and government—have united to create a common discourse and to evaluate and propose strategies for halting this alarming loss of biodiversity. In recognizing the diverse aspects of this task—scientific, economic, institutional, moral, and legal—this book presents a new picture of emerging action.
Contributors. S. James Anaya, Gregory Benford, Graciela Chichilnisky, S. Todd Crider, Yvonne Cripps, Robert T. Fraley, Anil K. Gupta, Lakshman D. Guruswamy, G. M. Heal, Brent Hendricks, Robert B. Horsch, Laura L. Jackson, Annie Lovejoy, Ariel E. Lugo, Jeffrey A. McNeely, Brian G. Norton, Elinor Ostrom, Peter H. Raven, John W. Reid, Walter V. Reid, Mark Sagoff, Roger A. Sedgo, R. David Simpson, Ana Sittenfeld, Christopher D. Stone, Gary H. Toenniessen
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Protogaea
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
University of Chicago Press, 2008
Protogaea, an ambitious account of terrestrial history, was central to the development of the earth sciences in the eighteenth century and provides key philosophical insights into the unity of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s thought and writings. In the book, Leibniz offers observations about the formation of the earth, the actions of fire and water, the genesis of rocks and minerals, the origins of salts and springs, the formation of fossils, and their identification as the remains of living organisms. Protogaea also includes a series of engraved plates depicting the remains of animals—in particular the famous reconstruction of a “fossil unicorn”—together with a cross section of the cave in which some fossil objects were discovered.
Though the works of Leibniz have been widely translated, Protogaea has languished in its original Latin for centuries. Now Claudine Cohen and Andre Wakefield offer the first English translation of this central text in natural philosophy and natural history. Written between 1691 and 1693, and first published after Leibniz’s death in 1749, Protogaea reemerges in this bilingual edition with an introduction that carefully situates the work within its historical context.
Though the works of Leibniz have been widely translated, Protogaea has languished in its original Latin for centuries. Now Claudine Cohen and Andre Wakefield offer the first English translation of this central text in natural philosophy and natural history. Written between 1691 and 1693, and first published after Leibniz’s death in 1749, Protogaea reemerges in this bilingual edition with an introduction that carefully situates the work within its historical context.
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Protostars and Planets
Tom Gehrels
University of Arizona Press, 1979
Originally published in 1979, at the time of it's publication this work was a unique source book on star formation and the origin of planetary systems from some 35 distinguished authors. Topics include the formation of stars from the cloudy to the stellar to the planetary state. Special emphasis on stars believed capable of producing planets. This foundational work sought to define a new discipline and set the course for the University of Arizona Space Science series.
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Protostars and Planets II
David C. Black
University of Arizona Press, 1985
Based on meetings held in Tucson, Arizona in 1984, this volume brought up-to-date recent advances and research on the cosmogony of stars and planets. This book presents the written thoughts of the principle speakers (and their colleagues) from the 1984 meeting. This work continued work started in 1978 to investigate the problems of star formation and the formation of the solar system.
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Protostars and Planets III
Eugene Levy
University of Arizona Press, 1993
Previous Space Science Series volumes Protostars and Planets (1978) and Protostars and Planets II (1985) were among the most timely offerings of this illustrious collection of technical works. Protostars and Planets III continues to address fundamental questions concerning the formation of stars and planetary systems in general and of our solar system in particular. Drawing from advances in observational, experimental, and theoretical research, it summarizes our understanding of these processes and addresses major open questions and research issues. Among the more notable subjects covered in the more than three dozen chapters are the collapse of clouds and the formation and evolution of stars and disks; nucleosynthesis and star formation; the occurrence and properties of disks around young stars; T Tauri stars and their accretion disks; gaseous accretion and the formation of the giant planets; comets and the origin of the Solar-System; and the long-term dynamical evolution and stability of the solar system.
Protostars and Planets III reflects the enormous progress made in understanding star and planet formation as a result of new observational capabilities and cooperative research among scientists from diverse fields.
Protostars and Planets III reflects the enormous progress made in understanding star and planet formation as a result of new observational capabilities and cooperative research among scientists from diverse fields.
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Protostars and Planets IV
Vince Mannings
University of Arizona Press, 2000
Atextbook and a status report for every facet of research into the formation of stars and planets, Protostars and Planets IV brings together 167 authors who report on the most significant advances in the field since the publication of the previous volume in 1993. Protostars and Planets IV reflects improvements in observational techniques and the availability of new facilities such as the Infrared Space Observatory, the refurbished Hubble Space Telescope, and the 10-m Keck telescopes. Advances in computer technology and modeling methods have benefited theoretical studies of molecular clouds, star formation, and jets and disks, while recent analyses of meteorites yield important insights into conditions and processes within our Sun's early protoplanetary disk. The 49 chapters describe context and progress for observational and theoretical studies of the structure, chemistry, and dynamics of molecular clouds; the collapse of cores and the formation of protostars; the formation and properties of young binary stars; the properties of winds, jets, and molecular outflows from young stellar objects; the evolution of circumstellar envelopes and disks; grain growth in disks and the formation of planets; and the properties of the early Solar nebula.
Protostars and Planets IV is also the first book to include chapters describing the discoveries of extrasolar planets, brown dwarfs, and Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt objects, and the first to include high-resolution optical and near-infrared images of protoplanetary disks. Protostars and Planets IV is an unsurpassed reference not only for established researchers but also for younger scientists whose imagination and work will lead to tomorrow's discoveries.
Protostars and Planets IV is also the first book to include chapters describing the discoveries of extrasolar planets, brown dwarfs, and Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt objects, and the first to include high-resolution optical and near-infrared images of protoplanetary disks. Protostars and Planets IV is an unsurpassed reference not only for established researchers but also for younger scientists whose imagination and work will lead to tomorrow's discoveries.
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Protostars and Planets V
Edited by Bo Reipurth, David Jewitt, and Klaus Keil
University of Arizona Press, 2007
Increasing discoveries of new planets beyond our solar system are invigorating the quest for new knowledge and understanding of the birth of stars and planets. This new volume in the Space Science Series, with 249 contributing authors, builds on the latest results from recent advances in ground and space-based astronomy and in numerical computing techniques to offer the most detailed and up-to-date picture of star and planet formation, including the formation of our own solar system. This book emphasizes the cross-disciplinary aspects of the field, with a particular focus on the early evolution of our solar system. Protostars and Planets V is the new foundation for further advancement in the fields of stellar and planetary formation, making it an indispensable resource for researchers and students in astronomy, planetary science, and the study of meteorites.
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Protostars and Planets VI
Edited by Henrik Beuther, Ralf S. Klessen, Cornelis P. Dullemond, and Thomas Henning
University of Arizona Press, 2014
The revolutionary discovery of thousands of confirmed and candidate planets beyond the solar system brings forth the most fundamental
question: How do planets and their host stars form and evolve? Protostars and Planets VI brings together more than 250 contributing authors at the forefront of their field, conveying the latest results in this research area and establishing a new foundation for advancing our understanding of stellar and planetary formation.
Continuing the tradition of the Protostars and Planets series, this latest volume uniquely integrates the cross-disciplinary aspects of this broad field. Covering an extremely wide range of scales, from the formation of large clouds in our Milky Way galaxy down to small chondrules in our solar system, Protostars and Planets VI takes an encompassing view with the goal of not only highlighting what we know but, most importantly, emphasizing the frontiers of what we do not know.
As a vehicle for propelling forward new discoveries on stars, planets, and their origins, this latest volume in the Space Science Series is an indispensable resource for both current scientists and new students in astronomy, astrophysics, planetary science, and the study of meteorites.
question: How do planets and their host stars form and evolve? Protostars and Planets VI brings together more than 250 contributing authors at the forefront of their field, conveying the latest results in this research area and establishing a new foundation for advancing our understanding of stellar and planetary formation.
Continuing the tradition of the Protostars and Planets series, this latest volume uniquely integrates the cross-disciplinary aspects of this broad field. Covering an extremely wide range of scales, from the formation of large clouds in our Milky Way galaxy down to small chondrules in our solar system, Protostars and Planets VI takes an encompassing view with the goal of not only highlighting what we know but, most importantly, emphasizing the frontiers of what we do not know.
As a vehicle for propelling forward new discoveries on stars, planets, and their origins, this latest volume in the Space Science Series is an indispensable resource for both current scientists and new students in astronomy, astrophysics, planetary science, and the study of meteorites.
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Provincialising nature
multidisciplinary approaches to the politics of the environment in Latin America
Edited by Michela Coletta and Malayna Raftopoulos
University of London Press, 2016
Provincialising Nature: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Politics of the Environment in Latin America offers a timely analysis of some of the crucial challenges, contradictions and promises within current environmental discourses and practices in the region. This book shows both challenging scenarios and original perspectives that have emerged in Latin America in relation to the globally urgent issues of climate change and the environmental crisis. Two interconnected analytical frameworks guide the discussions in the book: the relationship between nature, knowledge and identity and their role in understanding recent and current practices of climate change and environmental policy. The different chapters in this volume contribute to this debate by offering multidisciplinary perspectives on particular aspects of these two frameworks and through a multidirectional outlook that links the local, national, regional and transnational levels of inquiry across a diverse geographical spectrum.
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The Pseudoscience Wars
Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe
Michael D. Gordin
University of Chicago Press, 2012
Properly analyzed, the collective mythological and religious writings of humanity reveal that around 1500 BC, a comet swept perilously close to Earth, triggering widespread natural disasters and threatening the destruction of all life before settling into solar orbit as Venus, our nearest planetary neighbor.
Sound implausible? Well, from 1950 until the late 1970s, a huge number of people begged to differ, as they devoured Immanuel Velikovsky’s major best-seller, Worlds in Collision, insisting that perhaps this polymathic thinker held the key to a new science and a new history. Scientists, on the other hand, assaulted Velikovsky’s book, his followers, and his press mercilessly from the get-go. In The Pseudoscience Wars, Michael D. Gordin resurrects the largely forgotten figure of Velikovsky and uses his strange career and surprisingly influential writings to explore the changing definitions of the line that separates legitimate scientific inquiry from what is deemed bunk, and to show how vital this question remains to us today. Drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished material from Velikovsky’s personal archives, Gordin presents a behind-the-scenes history of the writer’s career, from his initial burst of success through his growing influence on the counterculture, heated public battles with such luminaries as Carl Sagan, and eventual eclipse. Along the way, he offers fascinating glimpses into the histories and effects of other fringe doctrines, including creationism, Lysenkoism, parapsychology, and more—all of which have surprising connections to Velikovsky’s theories.
Science today is hardly universally secure, and scientists seem themselves beset by critics, denialists, and those they label “pseudoscientists”—as seen all too clearly in battles over evolution and climate change. The Pseudoscience Wars simultaneously reveals the surprising Cold War roots of our contemporary dilemma and points readers to a different approach to drawing the line between knowledge and nonsense.
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Psychic Investigators
Anthropology, Modern Spiritualism, and Credible Witnessing in the Late Victorian Age
Efram Sera-Schriar
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022
Psychic Investigators examines British anthropology’s engagement with the modern spiritualist movement during the late Victorian era. Efram Sera-Shriar argues that debates over the existence of ghosts and psychical powers were at the center of anthropological discussions on human beliefs. He focuses on the importance of establishing credible witnesses of spirit and psychic phenomena in the writings of anthropologists such as Alfred Russel Wallace, Edward Burnett Tylor, Andrew Lang, and Edward Clodd. The book draws on major themes, such as the historical relationship between science and religion, the history of scientific observation, and the emergence of the subfield of anthropology of religion in the second half of the nineteenth century. For secularists such as Tylor and Clodd, spiritualism posed a major obstacle in establishing the legitimacy of the theory of animism: a core theoretical principle of anthropology founded in the belief of “primitive cultures” that spirits animated the world, and that this belief represented the foundation of all religious paradigms. What becomes clear through this nuanced examination of Victorian anthropology is that arguments involving spirits or psychic forces usually revolved around issues of evidence, or lack of it, rather than faith or beliefs or disbeliefs.
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Psychoanalysis--A Theory in Crisis
Marshall Edelson
University of Chicago Press, 1988
Marshall Edelson identifies the core theory of psychoanalysis and shows how free association and the case study method can provide rational grounds for believing its clinical inferences about the causal role of unconscious sexual fantasies. "Dr. Edelson has committed himself with gusto, persistence and intelligence [to] a spirited defense of psychoanalysis as science—not necessarily as it is, but as it can be in the best of hands as it should be. . . . It is a defense that I hope can resonate strongly in psychoanalytic ranks. It is also a message that I hope would receive a warm reception in that wider intellectual world where ideas matter and where enlightened social policy and cultural cachet are fostered."—Robert Wallerstein, New York Times Book Review
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Psychological Aspects of Geographical Moves
Miranda van Tilbug and Ad Vingerhoets
Amsterdam University Press, 2006
Mobility of mankind has increased enormously in the past few decades. People leave their homes and native countries for business and study, for vacation or to flee from unsafe conditions like wars and natural disasters. In all cases the sojourner faces a dual challenge of breaking with the familiar home environment and adjusting to new surroundings. This book deals with the psychological and health consequences of leaving the familiar home and the process of creating a new one. The focus is mainly on acculturation stress and homesickness, which both are relevant to those who travel. Acculturation refers to the process and outcome of a person’s encounter with, and adaptation to, a culturally new and different environment. Homesickness is defined as a depression-like reaction to leaving one’s home. The contributions in this book present empirical data as well as theoretical and conceptual discussions. Causes, consequences, moderating variables, and theoretical explanations are discussed. Both short-term (e.g., vacations) and long-term (e.g. immigration) separations from home receive attention. By combining these different but related topics, this book provides a valuable overview for researchers, teachers, students and professionals working with people who present with problems related to migration or traveling.
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Psychological Science and Christian Faith
Insights and Enrichments from Constructive Dialogue
Malcolm A. Jeeves
Templeton Press, 2018
Is it possible to integrate scientific psychology with a Christian understanding of human nature? Are science and religion locked in an inevitable conflict, or is there an underlying harmony between these two sources of knowledge about humans? This book goes to the heart of the past and present dialogue between Christianity and psychology, comparing three models that have been used to describe the relationship between them.
Because Christianity and psychology deal with different levels of truth and speak vastly different languages, efforts to unify them often create more problems than they solve. What is needed is a better way to think about the relationship—an approach that does justice to the emerging insights from psychological science and biblical scholarship and that can enrich our understanding of both. In this volume, two accomplished psychologists show how this complementary dialogue can unfold, giving us a broader, deeper understanding of ourselves, our relationships, and our place in the cosmos.
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Because Christianity and psychology deal with different levels of truth and speak vastly different languages, efforts to unify them often create more problems than they solve. What is needed is a better way to think about the relationship—an approach that does justice to the emerging insights from psychological science and biblical scholarship and that can enrich our understanding of both. In this volume, two accomplished psychologists show how this complementary dialogue can unfold, giving us a broader, deeper understanding of ourselves, our relationships, and our place in the cosmos.
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Public Reactions to Nuclear Waste
Citizens’ Views of Repository Siting
Riley E. Dunlap, Michael E. Kraft, and Eugene A. Rosa, eds.
Duke University Press, 1993
Nuclear waste is going nowhere, and neither is the debate over its disposal. The problem, growing every day, has proven intractable, with policymakers on one side, armed with daunting technical data, and the public on the other, declaring: not in my backyard. This timely volume offers a look past our present impasse into the nature and roots of public viewpoints on nuclear waste disposal.
A much-needed supplement to the largely technical literature on this problem, the book provides extensive studies of the reaction of citizens--whether rural or urban, near-site residents or prospective visitors--to proposed nuclear waste sites around the nation, particularly Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Conducted by distinguished sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, and economists, these studies constitute the most comprehensive account available of the impact of public perceptions and opinions on the nuclear waste policy process in the United States. As such, the collection will clarify the politics of nuclear waste siting and will give impetus to the stalled debate over the issue.
A much-needed supplement to the largely technical literature on this problem, the book provides extensive studies of the reaction of citizens--whether rural or urban, near-site residents or prospective visitors--to proposed nuclear waste sites around the nation, particularly Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Conducted by distinguished sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, and economists, these studies constitute the most comprehensive account available of the impact of public perceptions and opinions on the nuclear waste policy process in the United States. As such, the collection will clarify the politics of nuclear waste siting and will give impetus to the stalled debate over the issue.
Contributors. Rodney K. Baxter, Julia G. Brody, Bruce Clary, Lori Cramer, William H. Desvousges, Riley E. Dunlap, Douglas Easterling, Judy K. Fleishman, James Flynn, William R. Freudenburg, Michael E. Kraft, Richard S. Krannich, Howard Kunreuther, Mark Layman, Ronald L. Little, Robert Cameron Mitchell, Alvin H. Mushkatel, Joanne M. Nigg, K. David Pijawka, Eugene A. Rosa, Paul Slovic
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Public Response to Peacetime Uses of Atomic Energy
Volume I: Community Differences
Burton R. Fisher, Benjamin J. Darsky, and Charles A. Metzner
University of Michigan Press, 1951
This is Volume 1 of a study of people, reactions, and information, based on a sample interview survey in comparable communities with and without major atomic energy activities. The study was conducted under contract with the United States Atomic Energy Commission. This volume presents aspects of data obtained from a survey of public reactions and information dealing with peacetime uses of atomic energy. Research methods and study objectives are also discussed, and the book includes an appendix containing the questionnaire used in the study.
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Public Response to Peacetime Uses of Atomic Energy
Volume II: Individual and Group Analysis
Burton R. Fisher, Benjamin J. Darsky, and Charles A. Metzner
University of Michigan Press, 1951
This is Volume 2 of a study of people, reactions, and information, based on a sample interview survey in comparable communities with and without major atomic energy activities. The study was conducted under contract with the United States Atomic Energy Commission. This volume presents a detailed analysis of individual and group differences in information, attitudes, and opinions, in contrast to the community correlates. The study should be of interest to social scientists as a snapshot of a social process that had only recently begun.
[more]
Publications of the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Michigan
Volume II
Detroit Observatory
University of Michigan Press, 1916
A large reflecting telescope of the Cassegrain form, having an aperture of 37.5 inches and an equivalent focal length of 60 feet, was designed and constructed at the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Michigan. More than 3700 spectrograms have now been made, and nearly all the papers in Publications of the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Michigan are based upon data obtained from a small portion of the spectrograms.
[more]
Punctuated Equilibrium
Stephen Jay Gould
Harvard University Press, 2007
In 1972 Stephen Jay Gould took the scientific world by storm with his paper on punctuated equilibrium, written with Niles Eldredge. Challenging a core assumption of Darwin's theory of evolution, it launched the career of one of the most influential evolutionary biologists of our time--perhaps the best known since Darwin.
Now, thirty-five years later, and five years after his untimely death, Punctuated Equilibrium (originally published as the central chapter of Gould's masterwork, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory) offers his only book-length testament on an idea he fiercely promoted, repeatedly refined, and tirelessly defended. Punctuated equilibrium holds that the great majority of species originate in geological moments (punctuations) and persist in stasis. The idea was hotly debated because it forced biologists to rethink entrenched ideas about evolutionary patterns and processes. But as Gould shows here in his typically exhaustive coverage, the idea has become the foundation of a new view of hierarchical selection and macroevolution.
What emerges strikingly from this book is that punctuated equilibrium represents a much broader paradigm about the nature of change--a worldview that may be judged as a distinctive and important movement within recent intellectual history. Indeed we may now be living within a punctuation, and our awareness of what this means may be the enduring legacy of one of America's best-loved scientists.
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PUR Facts
Conservation of Polyurethane Foam in Art and Design
Thea van Oosten
Amsterdam University Press, 2011
Flexible Polyurethane (PUR) foams, in use since the 1950s and familiar from furniture upholstery and other domestic textiles, can be found in museum collections in numerous art and design objects. However, these exhibits pose severe conservation problems due to the ageing of the foam caused by photo-oxidation, leading to discoloration, loss of strength and fl exibility, and fi nally the crumbling of the object. This defi nitive work outlines the most up-to-date methods of restoring fl exibility of older foams and protecting new foams from degradation by coating them with stabilising systems acting effectively as a ‘sunblock’. The author, an experienced conservator, describes the research involved in developing the new methods and their impact on the visual, textural and chemical properties of treated PUR foams. One of the chapters details the preparation and application of the light stabilizing system to PUR foams.
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Pure Adulteration
Cheating on Nature in the Age of Manufactured Food
Benjamin R. Cohen
University of Chicago Press, 2019
Benjamin R. Cohen uses the pure food crusades at the turn of the twentieth century to provide a captivating window onto the origins of manufactured foods in the United States.
In the latter nineteenth century, extraordinary changes in food and agriculture gave rise to new tensions in the ways people understood, obtained, trusted, and ate their food. This was the Era of Adulteration, and its concerns have carried forward to today: How could you tell the food you bought was the food you thought you bought? Could something manufactured still be pure? Is it okay to manipulate nature far enough to produce new foods but not so far that you question its safety and health? How do you know where the line is? And who decides?
In Pure Adulteration, Benjamin R. Cohen uses the pure food crusades to provide a captivating window onto the origins of manufactured foods and the perceived problems they wrought. Cohen follows farmers, manufacturers, grocers, hucksters, housewives, politicians, and scientific analysts as they struggled to demarcate and patrol the ever-contingent, always contested border between purity and adulteration, and as, at the end of the nineteenth century, the very notion of a pure food changed.
In the end, there is (and was) no natural, prehuman distinction between pure and adulterated to uncover and enforce; we have to decide. Today’s world is different from that of our nineteenth-century forebears in many ways, but the challenge of policing the difference between acceptable and unacceptable practices remains central to daily decisions about the foods we eat, how we produce them, and what choices we make when buying them.
In the latter nineteenth century, extraordinary changes in food and agriculture gave rise to new tensions in the ways people understood, obtained, trusted, and ate their food. This was the Era of Adulteration, and its concerns have carried forward to today: How could you tell the food you bought was the food you thought you bought? Could something manufactured still be pure? Is it okay to manipulate nature far enough to produce new foods but not so far that you question its safety and health? How do you know where the line is? And who decides?
In Pure Adulteration, Benjamin R. Cohen uses the pure food crusades to provide a captivating window onto the origins of manufactured foods and the perceived problems they wrought. Cohen follows farmers, manufacturers, grocers, hucksters, housewives, politicians, and scientific analysts as they struggled to demarcate and patrol the ever-contingent, always contested border between purity and adulteration, and as, at the end of the nineteenth century, the very notion of a pure food changed.
In the end, there is (and was) no natural, prehuman distinction between pure and adulterated to uncover and enforce; we have to decide. Today’s world is different from that of our nineteenth-century forebears in many ways, but the challenge of policing the difference between acceptable and unacceptable practices remains central to daily decisions about the foods we eat, how we produce them, and what choices we make when buying them.
[more]
Pure Intelligence
The Life of William Hyde Wollaston
Melvyn C. Usselman
University of Chicago Press, 2015
William Hyde Wollaston made an astonishing number of discoveries in an astonishingly varied number of fields: platinum metallurgy, the existence of ultraviolet radiation, the chemical elements palladium and rhodium, the amino acid cystine, and the physiology of binocular vision, among others. Along with his colleagues Humphry Davy and Thomas Young, he was widely recognized during his life as one of Britain’s leading scientific practitioners in the first part of the nineteenth century, and the deaths of all three within a six-month span, between 1828 and 1829, were seen by many as the end of a glorious period of British scientific supremacy. Unlike Davy and Young, however, Wollaston was not the subject of a contemporary biography, and his many impressive achievements have fallen into obscurity as a result.
Pure Intelligence is the first book-length study of Wollaston, his science, and the environment in which he thrived. Drawing on previously-unstudied laboratory records as well as historical reconstructions of chemical experiments and discoveries, and written in a highly accessible style, Pure Intelligence will help to reinstate Wollaston in the history of science, and the pantheon of its great innovators.
Pure Intelligence is the first book-length study of Wollaston, his science, and the environment in which he thrived. Drawing on previously-unstudied laboratory records as well as historical reconstructions of chemical experiments and discoveries, and written in a highly accessible style, Pure Intelligence will help to reinstate Wollaston in the history of science, and the pantheon of its great innovators.
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Purified
How Recycled Sewage Is Transforming Our Water
Peter Annin
Island Press, 2023
In 2000, a transformative climate-driven “megadrought” swept over the Colorado River watershed. By the early 2020s, levels on the river’s two largest reservoirs were hitting record lows and threatening the water supply for forty million people. Outside the West, water stocks are stressed even in states with bountiful rainfall such as Florida. From coast to coast, conventional measures to sustain the most fundamental natural resource on earth—drinking water—are coming up short. Recycled water could help close that gap.
In Purified: How Recycled Sewage Is Transforming Our Water, veteran journalist Peter Annin shows that wastewater has become a surprising weapon in America’s war against water scarcity. Annin probes deep into the water reuse movement in five water-strapped states—California, Texas, Virginia, Nevada, and Florida. He drinks beer made from purified sewage, visits communities where purified sewage came to the rescue, and examines how one of the nation’s largest wastewater plants hopes to recycle one hundred percent of its wastewater by 2035. At each stop, readers come face to face with the people who are struggling for, and against, recycled water. While the current filtration technology transforms sewage into something akin to distilled water—free of chemicals and safe to drink—water recycling’s challenge isn’t technology. It’s terminology. Concerns about communities being used as “guinea pigs,” sensationalist media coverage, and taglines like “toilet to tap” have repeatedly crippled water recycling efforts. Potable water recycling has become the hottest frontier in the race for expanded water supply options. But can public opinion turn in time to avoid the worst consequences?
Purified’s fast-paced narrative cuts through the fearmongering and misinformation to make the case that recycled water is direly needed in the climate-change era. Water cannot be taken for granted anymore—and that includes sewage.
In Purified: How Recycled Sewage Is Transforming Our Water, veteran journalist Peter Annin shows that wastewater has become a surprising weapon in America’s war against water scarcity. Annin probes deep into the water reuse movement in five water-strapped states—California, Texas, Virginia, Nevada, and Florida. He drinks beer made from purified sewage, visits communities where purified sewage came to the rescue, and examines how one of the nation’s largest wastewater plants hopes to recycle one hundred percent of its wastewater by 2035. At each stop, readers come face to face with the people who are struggling for, and against, recycled water. While the current filtration technology transforms sewage into something akin to distilled water—free of chemicals and safe to drink—water recycling’s challenge isn’t technology. It’s terminology. Concerns about communities being used as “guinea pigs,” sensationalist media coverage, and taglines like “toilet to tap” have repeatedly crippled water recycling efforts. Potable water recycling has become the hottest frontier in the race for expanded water supply options. But can public opinion turn in time to avoid the worst consequences?
Purified’s fast-paced narrative cuts through the fearmongering and misinformation to make the case that recycled water is direly needed in the climate-change era. Water cannot be taken for granted anymore—and that includes sewage.
[more]
The Pursuit of Harmony
Kepler on Cosmos, Confession, and Community
Aviva Rothman
University of Chicago Press, 2017
A committed Lutheran excommunicated from his own church, a friend to Catholics and Calvinists alike, a layman who called himself a “priest of God,” a Copernican in a world where Ptolemy still reigned, a man who argued at the same time for the superiority of one truth and the need for many truths to coexist—German astronomer Johannes Kepler was, to say the least, a complicated figure. With The Pursuit of Harmony, Aviva Rothman offers a new view of him and his achievements, one that presents them as a story of Kepler’s attempts to bring different, even opposing ideas and circumstances into harmony.
Harmony, Rothman shows, was both the intellectual bedrock for and the primary goal of Kepler’s disparate endeavors. But it was also an elusive goal amid the deteriorating conditions of his world, as the political order crumbled and religious war raged. In the face of that devastation, Kepler’s hopes for his theories changed: whereas he had originally looked for a unifying approach to truth, he began instead to emphasize harmony as the peaceful coexistence of different views, one that could be fueled by the fundamentally nonpartisan discipline of mathematics.
Harmony, Rothman shows, was both the intellectual bedrock for and the primary goal of Kepler’s disparate endeavors. But it was also an elusive goal amid the deteriorating conditions of his world, as the political order crumbled and religious war raged. In the face of that devastation, Kepler’s hopes for his theories changed: whereas he had originally looked for a unifying approach to truth, he began instead to emphasize harmony as the peaceful coexistence of different views, one that could be fueled by the fundamentally nonpartisan discipline of mathematics.
[more]
Putting Inequality in Context
Class, Public Opinion, and Representation in the United States
Christopher Ellis
University of Michigan Press, 2017
Rising income inequality is highlighted as one of the largest challenges facing the United States, affecting civic participation and political representation. Although the wealthy often can and do exert more political influence, this is not always the case. To fix political inequality, it is important to understand exactly how class divisions manifest themselves in political outcomes, and what factors serve to enhance, or depress, inequalities in political voice.
Christopher Ellis argues citizens’—and legislators’—views of class politics are driven by lived experience in particular communities. While some experience is formally political, on an informal basis citizens learn a great deal about their position in the broader socioeconomic spectrum and the social norms governing how class intersects with day-to-day life. These factors are important for policymakers, since most legislators do not represent “the public” at large, but specific constituencies.
Focusing on U.S. congressional districts as the contextual unit of interest, Ellis argues individuals’ political behavior cannot be separated from their environment, and shows how income’s role in political processes is affected by the contexts in which citizens and legislators interact. Political inequality exists in the aggregate, but it does not exist everywhere. It is, rather, a function of specific arrangements that depress the political influence of the poor. Identifying and understanding these factors is a crucial step in thinking about what reforms might be especially helpful in enhancing equality of political voice.
Christopher Ellis argues citizens’—and legislators’—views of class politics are driven by lived experience in particular communities. While some experience is formally political, on an informal basis citizens learn a great deal about their position in the broader socioeconomic spectrum and the social norms governing how class intersects with day-to-day life. These factors are important for policymakers, since most legislators do not represent “the public” at large, but specific constituencies.
Focusing on U.S. congressional districts as the contextual unit of interest, Ellis argues individuals’ political behavior cannot be separated from their environment, and shows how income’s role in political processes is affected by the contexts in which citizens and legislators interact. Political inequality exists in the aggregate, but it does not exist everywhere. It is, rather, a function of specific arrangements that depress the political influence of the poor. Identifying and understanding these factors is a crucial step in thinking about what reforms might be especially helpful in enhancing equality of political voice.
[more]
Putting Science in Its Place
Geographies of Scientific Knowledge
David N. Livingstone
University of Chicago Press, 2003
We are accustomed to thinking of science and its findings as universal. After all, one atom of carbon plus two of oxygen yields carbon dioxide in Amazonia as well as in Alaska; a scientist in Bombay can use the same materials and techniques to challenge the work of a scientist in New York; and of course the laws of gravity apply worldwide. Why, then, should the spaces where science is done matter at all? David N. Livingstone here puts that question to the test with his fascinating study of how science bears the marks of its place of production.
Putting Science in Its Place establishes the fundamental importance of geography in both the generation and the consumption of scientific knowledge, using historical examples of the many places where science has been practiced. Livingstone first turns his attention to some of the specific sites where science has been made—the laboratory, museum, and botanical garden, to name some of the more conventional locales, but also places like the coffeehouse and cathedral, ship's deck and asylum, even the human body itself. In each case, he reveals just how the space of inquiry has conditioned the investigations carried out there. He then describes how, on a regional scale, provincial cultures have shaped scientific endeavor and how, in turn, scientific practices have been instrumental in forming local identities. Widening his inquiry, Livingstone points gently to the fundamental instability of scientific meaning, based on case studies of how scientific theories have been received in different locales. Putting Science in Its Place powerfully concludes by examining the remarkable mobility of science and the seemingly effortless way it moves around the globe.
From the reception of Darwin in the land of the Maori to the giraffe that walked from Marseilles to Paris, Livingstone shows that place does matter, even in the world of science.
Putting Science in Its Place establishes the fundamental importance of geography in both the generation and the consumption of scientific knowledge, using historical examples of the many places where science has been practiced. Livingstone first turns his attention to some of the specific sites where science has been made—the laboratory, museum, and botanical garden, to name some of the more conventional locales, but also places like the coffeehouse and cathedral, ship's deck and asylum, even the human body itself. In each case, he reveals just how the space of inquiry has conditioned the investigations carried out there. He then describes how, on a regional scale, provincial cultures have shaped scientific endeavor and how, in turn, scientific practices have been instrumental in forming local identities. Widening his inquiry, Livingstone points gently to the fundamental instability of scientific meaning, based on case studies of how scientific theories have been received in different locales. Putting Science in Its Place powerfully concludes by examining the remarkable mobility of science and the seemingly effortless way it moves around the globe.
From the reception of Darwin in the land of the Maori to the giraffe that walked from Marseilles to Paris, Livingstone shows that place does matter, even in the world of science.
[more]
The Puzzle of Left-handedness
Rik Smits
Reaktion Books, 2012
Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama have both signed bills into law with their left hands. And being left-handed certainly did not hold back the artistic achievements of Michelangelo or Raphael. And the dexterous guitar playing of Jimmi Hendrix may only have been aided by his southpaw tendencies. Left-handedness, in fact, would appear to be no big deal. Yet throughout history, it has been associated with clumsiness and generally dubious personality traits like untrustworthiness and insincerity. Even the Latin word for left, sinister, has ominous connotations.
In The Puzzle of Left-handedness, Rik Smits uncovers why history has been so unkind to our lefthanded forebears. He carefully puts together the pieces of the puzzle, presenting an array of historical anecdotes, strange superstitions, and weird wives’ tales. Smits explains how left-handedness continues to be associated with maladies of all kinds, including mental retardation, alcoholism, asthma, hay fever, cancer, diabetes, insomnia, depression, and criminality. Even in the enlightened twenty-first century, left-handedness still meets with opposition—including from one prominent psychologist who equates it with infantile negativism, similar to a toddler’s refusal to eat what’s on his plate, and another who claims that left-handed people have average lifespans that are nine years shorter than those who favor the right hand. As Smits reminds us, such speculation is backed by little factual evidence, and the arguments presented by proponents of right-handedness tend to be humorously absurd.
The Puzzle of Left-handedness is an enlightening, engaging, and entertaining odyssey through the puzzles and paradoxes, theories and myths, of left-handed lore. Chock full of facts and fiction, it’s a book to be read with both hands.
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Pyrocene Park
A Journey into the Fire History of Yosemite National Park
Stephen J. Pyne
University of Arizona Press, 2023
Its monumental rocks, etched by glaciers during the last Ice Age, have made Yosemite National Park a crown jewel of the national park system and a world-celebrated destination. Yet, more and more, fire rather than ice is shaping this storied landscape.
In the last decade, fire has blasted into public attention. California’s blazes have captured national and global media interest with their drama and urgency. Expand the realm of fire to include the burning of fossil fuels, and the fire story also subsumes climate change. Renowned fire historian Stephen J. Pyne argues that the relationship between fire and humans has become a defining feature of our epoch, and he reveals how Yosemite offers a cameo of how we have replaced an ice age with a fire age: the Pyrocene.
Organized around a backcountry trek to a 50-year experiment in restoring fire, Pyrocene Park describes the 150-year history of fire suppression and management that has led us, in part, to where the park is today. But there is more. Yosemite’s fire story is America’s, and the Earth’s, as it shifts from an ice-informed world to a fire-informed one. Pyrocene Park distills that epic story into a sharp miniature.
Flush with people, ideas, fires, and controversy, Pyrocene Park is a compelling and accessible window into the American fire scene and the future it promises.
In the last decade, fire has blasted into public attention. California’s blazes have captured national and global media interest with their drama and urgency. Expand the realm of fire to include the burning of fossil fuels, and the fire story also subsumes climate change. Renowned fire historian Stephen J. Pyne argues that the relationship between fire and humans has become a defining feature of our epoch, and he reveals how Yosemite offers a cameo of how we have replaced an ice age with a fire age: the Pyrocene.
Organized around a backcountry trek to a 50-year experiment in restoring fire, Pyrocene Park describes the 150-year history of fire suppression and management that has led us, in part, to where the park is today. But there is more. Yosemite’s fire story is America’s, and the Earth’s, as it shifts from an ice-informed world to a fire-informed one. Pyrocene Park distills that epic story into a sharp miniature.
Flush with people, ideas, fires, and controversy, Pyrocene Park is a compelling and accessible window into the American fire scene and the future it promises.
[more]
Pyrrhic Progress
The History of Antibiotics in Anglo-American Food Production
Claas Kirchhelle
Rutgers University Press, 2020
Winner of the 2021 Joan Thirsk Memorial Prize from the British Agricultural History Society
2020 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Winner of the 2020 Turriano Prize from ICOHTEC
Short-listed and highly commended for the Antibiotic Guardian Award from Public Health England
Long-listed for the Michel Déon Prize from the Royal Irish Academy
Pyrrhic Progress analyses over half a century of antibiotic use, regulation, and resistance in US and British food production. Mass-introduced after 1945, antibiotics helped revolutionize post-war agriculture. Food producers used antibiotics to prevent and treat disease, protect plants, preserve food, and promote animals’ growth. Many soon became dependent on routine antibiotic use to sustain and increase production. The resulting growth of antibiotic infrastructures came at a price. Critics blamed antibiotics for leaving dangerous residues in food, enabling bad animal welfare, and selecting for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacteria, which could no longer be treated with antibiotics. Pyrrhic Progress reconstructs the complicated negotiations that accompanied this process of risk prioritization between consumers, farmers, and regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. Unsurprisingly, solutions differed: while Europeans implemented precautionary antibiotic restrictions to curb AMR, consumer concerns and cost-benefit assessments made US regulators focus on curbing drug residues in food. The result was a growing divergence of antibiotic stewardship and a rise of AMR. Kirchhelle’s comprehensive analysis of evolving non-human antibiotic use and the historical complexities of antibiotic stewardship provides important insights for current debates on the global burden of AMR. This Open Access ebook is available under a CC-BY-NC-ND license, and is supported by a generous grant from Wellcome Trust.
2020 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Winner of the 2020 Turriano Prize from ICOHTEC
Short-listed and highly commended for the Antibiotic Guardian Award from Public Health England
Long-listed for the Michel Déon Prize from the Royal Irish Academy
Pyrrhic Progress analyses over half a century of antibiotic use, regulation, and resistance in US and British food production. Mass-introduced after 1945, antibiotics helped revolutionize post-war agriculture. Food producers used antibiotics to prevent and treat disease, protect plants, preserve food, and promote animals’ growth. Many soon became dependent on routine antibiotic use to sustain and increase production. The resulting growth of antibiotic infrastructures came at a price. Critics blamed antibiotics for leaving dangerous residues in food, enabling bad animal welfare, and selecting for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacteria, which could no longer be treated with antibiotics. Pyrrhic Progress reconstructs the complicated negotiations that accompanied this process of risk prioritization between consumers, farmers, and regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. Unsurprisingly, solutions differed: while Europeans implemented precautionary antibiotic restrictions to curb AMR, consumer concerns and cost-benefit assessments made US regulators focus on curbing drug residues in food. The result was a growing divergence of antibiotic stewardship and a rise of AMR. Kirchhelle’s comprehensive analysis of evolving non-human antibiotic use and the historical complexities of antibiotic stewardship provides important insights for current debates on the global burden of AMR. This Open Access ebook is available under a CC-BY-NC-ND license, and is supported by a generous grant from Wellcome Trust.
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