Results by title
4127 books match the query 'Science' and 288 start with a
Alexander von Humboldt
A MetabiographyNicolaas A. Rupke
University of Chicago Press, 2008
This volume, the first metabiography of the great scientist, traces Humboldt’s biographical identities through Germany’s collective past to shed light on the historical instability of our scientific heroes.
“Rupke’s study . . . will doubtless become a standard reference for the Humboldt industry and for writers of scientific metabiographies to come.”—Isis
“Engaging. . . . Rupke’s meticulous analysis is fascinating on many scores.”—Times Higher Education Supplement (UK)
“A study borne of considerable scholarship and one with important methodological implications for historians of geography.”—Charles W. J. Withers, Progress in Human Geography
Algorithms and Numerical Techniques for Modern Antenna Measurements in MATLAB®
Stuart Gregson
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2026
All the Boats on the Ocean
How Government Subsidies Led to Global OverfishingCarmel Finley
University of Chicago Press, 2017
In this transnational, interdisciplinary history, Carmel Finley answers these questions and more as she explores how government subsidies propelled the expansion of fishing from a coastal, in-shore activity into a global industry. While nation states struggling for ocean supremacy have long used fishing as an imperial strategy, the Cold War brought a new emphasis: fishing became a means for nations to make distinct territorial claims. A network of trade policies and tariffs allowed cod from Iceland and tuna canned in Japan into the American market, destabilizing fisheries in New England and Southern California. With the subsequent establishment of tuna canneries in American Samoa and Puerto Rico, Japanese and American tuna boats moved from the Pacific into the Atlantic and Indian Oceans after bluefin. At the same time, government subsidies in nations such as Spain and the Soviet Union fueled fishery expansion on an industrial scale, with the Soviet fleet utterly depleting the stock of rosefish (or Pacific ocean perch) and other groundfish from British Columbia to California. This massive global explosion in fishing power led nations to expand their territorial limits in the 1970s, forever changing the seas.
Looking across politics, economics, and biology, All the Boats on the Ocean casts a wide net to reveal how the subsidy-driven expansion of fisheries in the Pacific during the Cold War led to the growth of fisheries science and the creation of international fisheries management. Nevertheless, the seas are far from calm: in a world where this technologically advanced industry has enabled nations to colonize the oceans, fish literally have no place left to hide, and the future of the seas and their fish stocks is uncertain.
All the Fish in the Sea
Maximum Sustainable Yield and the Failure of Fisheries ManagementCarmel Finley
University of Chicago Press, 2011
Carmel Finley reveals that the fallibility of MSY lies at its very inception—as a tool of government rather than science. The foundational doctrine of MSY emerged at a time when the US government was using science to promote and transfer Western knowledge and technology, and to ensure that American ships and planes would have free passage through the world’s seas and skies. Finley charts the history of US fisheries science using MSY as her focus, and in particular its application to halibut, tuna, and salmon fisheries. Fish populations the world over are threatened, and All the Fish in the Sea helps to sound warnings of the effect of any management policies divested from science itself.
Allowed to Grow Old
Portraits of Elderly Animals from Farm SanctuariesIsa Leshko
University of Chicago Press, 2019
Isa Leshko shows us, brilliantly, with this collection of portraits. To create these portraits, she spent hours with her subjects, gaining their trust and putting them at ease. The resulting images reveal the unique personality of each animal. It’s impossible to look away from the animals in these images as they unforgettably meet our gaze, simultaneously calm and challenging. In these photographs we see the cumulative effects of the hardships of industrialized farm life, but also the healing that time can bring, and the dignity that can emerge when farm animals are allowed to age on their own terms.
Each portrait is accompanied by a brief biographical note about its subject, and the book is rounded out with essays that explore the history of animal photography, the place of beauty in activist art, and much more. Open this book to any page. Meet Teresa, a thirteen-year-old Yorkshire Pig, or Melvin, an eleven-year-old Angora Goat, or Tom, a seven-year-old Broad Breasted White Turkey. You’ll never forget them.
Aloes
The Definitive GuideS. Carter, J. J. Lavranos, L. E. Newton, and C. C. Walker
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2011
Aloe vera is one of the most important cultivated medicinal plants and a key component of the floras of Africa, Arabia, and Madagascar. Here, for the first time since the 1960s, is a comprehensive account of all currently accepted aloe taxa in an easy-to-use and accessible format. Organized by habitat and size, entries for more than five hundred species each include descriptions, illustrations, and diagnostic features, accompanied by information on distribution, habitat, and relationship to other Aloe species. This volume is a must-have not only for succulent plant enthusiasts but for all who need a well-illustrated and comprehensive academic reference to the Aloe genus.
Alone but Not Lonely
Exploring for Extraterrestrial LifeLouis Friedman
University of Arizona Press, 2023
Friedman argues that intelligent life is probably rare in the universe (maybe even uniquely on Earth) but that simple life is likely abundant on millions or billions of planets waiting now to be discovered. He asserts that studying and searching for extraterrestrial life cannot be done by interstellar probes—due to the vastness of space and the comparative brevity of human lifespans—but it can be done remotely by a new technique involving the solar gravity lens that can magnify exoplanets by tens of billions. This technique will allow humankind to explore exoplanets and open up an exciting new field of comparative astrobiology.
Wide-ranging in scope, this book discusses the history of searching for extraterrestrial life, the scientific evidence thereof, and finally his own conclusions on what’s next. Included in the book are three appendices: an explanation of interstellar messaging, a reprint of a debate between Carl Sagan and Ernst Mayr on extraterrestrial intelligence, and an opinion essay on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Alpines, from Mountain to Garden
Richard Wilford
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2010
Alpines, From mountain to garden is a refreshing new perspective on the many stunning plant species that make their home above the treeline. Where most guides to alpine plants have favored collecting and rare species, Richard Wilford offers a holistic approach that describes their discovery and introduction into cultivation and why these factors must be taken in to consideration when planting these mountain dwellers in your garden.
Organized geographically, Alpines, From mountain to garden covers the conditions—drainage, climate, light levels, temperature, and precipitation—and species native to each of nine regions, including the United States and Canada, South America, China, Europe, and Africa. In all, over three hundred plants are described and prolifically illustrated. Additional chapters cover cultivation, conservation, and the impact of indiscriminate collecting on the many species that are now on the verge of extinction. With its wealth of insight into where alpine plants come from and how this affects their cultivation, this new book from Kew’s Botanical Magazine Monograph series is sure to be a hit with gardeners, collectors, travelers, and photographers alike.
Amber Waves
The Extraordinary Biography of Wheat, from Wild Grass to World MegacropCatherine Zabinski
University of Chicago Press, 2020
At breakfast tables and bakeries, we take for granted a grain that has made human civilization possible, a cereal whose humble origins belie its world-shaping power: wheat. Amber Waves tells the story of a group of grass species that first grew in scattered stands in the foothills of the Middle East until our ancestors discovered their value as a source of food. Over thousands of years, we moved their seeds to all but the polar regions of Earth, slowly cultivating what we now know as wheat, and in the process creating a world of cuisines that uses wheat seeds as a staple food. Wheat spread across the globe, but as ecologist Catherine Zabinski shows us, a biography of wheat is not only the story of how plants ensure their own success: from the earliest bread to the most mouthwatering pasta, it is also a story of human ingenuity in producing enough food for ourselves and our communities.
Since the first harvest of the ancient grain, we have perfected our farming systems to grow massive quantities of food, producing one of our species’ global mega crops—but at a great cost to ecological systems. And despite our vast capacity to grow food, we face problems with undernourishment both close to home and around the world. Weaving together history, evolution, and ecology, Zabinski’s tale explores much more than the wild roots and rise of a now-ubiquitous grain: it illuminates our complex relationship with our crops, both how we have transformed the plant species we use as food, and how our society—our culture—has changed in response to the need to secure food sources. From the origins of agriculture to gluten sensitivities, from our first selection of the largest seeds from wheat’s wild progenitors to the sequencing of the wheat genome and genetic engineering, Amber Waves sheds new light on how we grow the food that sustains so much human life.
America's Founding Fruit
The Cranberry in a New EnvironmentSusan Playfair
University Press of New England, 2014
America's Snake
The Rise and Fall of the Timber RattlesnakeTed Levin
University of Chicago Press, 2016
Yet most of us have never seen a timber rattler. Though they’re found in thirty-one states, and near many major cities, in contemporary America timber rattlesnakes are creatures mostly of imagination and innate fear.
Ted Levin aims to change that with America’s Snake, a portrait of the timber rattlesnake, its place in America’s pantheon of creatures and in our own frontier history—and of the heroic efforts to protect it against habitat loss, climate change, and the human tendency to kill what we fear. Taking us from labs where the secrets of the snake’s evolutionary history are being unlocked to far-flung habitats whose locations are fiercely protected by biologists and dedicated amateur herpetologists alike, Levin paints a picture of a fascinating creature: peaceable, social, long-lived, and, despite our phobias, not inclined to bite. The timber rattler emerges here as emblematic of America and also, unfortunately, of the complicated, painful struggles involved in protecting and preserving the natural world.
A wonderful mix of natural history, travel writing, and exemplary journalism, America’s Snake is loaded with remarkable characters—none more so than the snake at its heart: frightening, perhaps; endangered, certainly; and unquestionably unforgettable.
American Agriculture, Water Resources, and Climate Change
Edited by Gary D. Libecap and Ariel Dinar
University of Chicago Press, 2024
A collection of the most advanced and authoritative agricultural-economic research in the face of increasing water scarcity.
Agriculture has been critical in the development of the American economy. Except in parts of the western United States, water access has not been a critical constraint on agricultural productivity, but with climate change, this may no longer be the case. This volume highlights new research on the interconnections between American agriculture, water resources, and climate change. It examines climatic and geologic factors that affect the agricultural sector and highlights historical and contemporary farmer responses to varying conditions and water availability. It identifies the potential effects of climate change on water supplies, access, agricultural practices, and profitability, and analyzes technological, agronomic, management, and institutional adjustments. Adaptations such as new crops, production practices, irrigation technologies, water conveyance infrastructure, fertilizer application, and increased use of groundwater can generate both social benefits and social costs, which may be internalized with various institutional innovations. Drawing on both historical and present experiences, this volume provides valuable insights into the economics of water supply in American agriculture as climate change unfolds.
American Astronomical Society Centennial Issue of the Astrophysical Journal
Edited by Helmut A. Abt
University of Chicago Press, 2000
American Astronomy
Community, Careers, and Power, 1859-1940John Lankford
University of Chicago Press, 1997
research, teaching, or practice in the United States between 1859 and 1940, John Lankford
paints a meticulously documented portrait of this community. He tallies the number with and
without doctorates, the number that taught in colleges or universities versus those involved in
industrial or government work, the number of women versus men, and so on. He also
addresses the crucial question of power within the community—what it meant, which
astronomers had it, and what they did with it.
Drawing on more than a decade of archival research, Lankford attends to the numbers in
concise tables and figures, and takes care to focus through biographical sketches on the
human beings his data represent. This dual approach convincingly illustrates how the changing
structure of a scientific community can alter both the career trajectories of its members and the
nature of the scientific research they choose to pursue.
American Boundaries
The Nation, the States, the Rectangular SurveyBill Hubbard Jr.
University of Chicago Press, 2009
American Capitals
A Historical GeographyChristian Montès
University of Chicago Press, 2014
American Eugenics
Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of NationalismNancy Ordover
University of Minnesota Press, 2003
Traces the history of eugenics ideology in the United States and its ongoing presence in contemporary life
The Nazis may have given eugenics its negative connotations, but the practice—and the “science” that supports it—is still disturbingly alive in America in anti-immigration initiatives, the quest for a “gay gene,” and theories of collective intelligence. Tracing the historical roots and persistence of eugenics in the United States, Nancy Ordover explores the political and cultural climate that has endowed these campaigns with mass appeal and scientific legitimacy.
American Eugenics demonstrates how biological theories of race, gender, and sexuality are crucially linked through a concern with regulating the “unfit.” These links emerge in Ordover’s examination of three separate but ultimately related American eugenics campaigns: early twentieth-century anti-immigration crusades; medical models and interventions imposed on (and sometimes embraced by) lesbians, gays, transgendered people, and bisexuals; and the compulsory sterilization of poor women and women of color. Throughout, her work reveals how constructed notions of race, gender, sexuality, and nation are put to ideological uses and how “faith in science” can undermine progressive social movements, drawing liberals and conservatives alike into eugenics-based discourse and policies.
American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century
"For Use or for Delight"Ann Leighton
University of Massachusetts Press, 1976
American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century is the second of three authoritative volumes of garden history by Ann Leighton. This entertaining book focuses on eighteenth-century gardens and gardening. Leighton's material for the book was drawn from letters, journals, invoices, and books of men and women who were interested in the plants of the New and Old World. Throughout the book are illustrations and descriptive listings of native and new plants that were cultivated during the eighteenth century.
Companion volumes by Ann Leighton
Early American Gardens “For Meate or Medicine”
American Gardens of the Nineteenth Century “For Comfort and Affluence”
American Imperial Pastoral
The Architecture of US Colonialism in the PhilippinesRebecca Tinio McKenna
University of Chicago Press, 2017
In American Imperial Pastoral, Rebecca Tinio McKenna examines the design, construction, and use of Baguio, making visible the physical shape, labor, and sustaining practices of the US’s new empire—especially the dispossessions that underwrote market expansion. In the process, she demonstrates how colonialists conducted market-making through state-building and vice-versa. Where much has been made of the racial dynamics of US colonialism in the region, McKenna emphasizes capitalist practices and design ideals—giving us a fresh and nuanced understanding of the American occupation of the Philippines.
American Infanticide
Sexism, Science, and the Politics of SympathyClara S. Lewis
Rutgers University Press, 2025
Emboldened by fear, the sorority sisters investigated. In the driveway next to the kitchen door, they found Emile’s newborn baby girl dead inside a garbage bag. Emile’s crime seemed senseless and left her family and friends with an aching question: what happened?
American Infanticide situates Emile's tragic act in a long intellectual, social, and legal history, uncovering disturbing missing chapters in our national history that undercut myths that have shaped public reactions to so-called monster moms and dumpster babies since the colonial era. Ultimately, the book uncovers how bias and inconsistency dictate how women accused of infant homicide are perceived and punished and sheds new light on how and why our legal responses to infanticide are so deeply misguided.
American Literature and the Destruction of Knowledge
Innovative Writing in the Age of EpistemologyRonald E. Martin
Duke University Press, 1991
The works of Melville, Emerson, Whitman, and Dickinson, followed by Crane, Frost, Pound, Stein, Hemingway, Dos Passos, Aiken, Stevens, and Williams, are examined as part of a cultural current that casts doubt on the possibility of knowledge itself. The destruction of concepts, of literary and linguistic forms, was for these writers a precondition for liberating the imagination to gain more access to the self and the real world. As part of the exploration of this cultural context, literary and philosophical realisms are examined together, allowing a comparison of their somewhat different objectives, as well as their common epistemological predicament.
American Luthier
Carleen Hutchins—the Art and Science of the ViolinQuincy Whitney
University Press of New England, 2016
American Pronghorn
Social Adaptations and the Ghosts of Predators PastJohn A. Byers
University of Chicago Press, 1997
In this elegantly written book, John A. Byers argues that these mystifying behaviors evolved in response to the dangerous predators with whom pronghorn shared their grassland home for nearly four million years: among them fleet hyenas, lions, and cheetahs. Although these predators died out ten thousand years ago, pronghorn still behave as if they were present—as if they were living with the ghosts of predators past.
Byers's provocative hypothesis will stimulate behavioral ecologists and mammalogists to consider whether other species' adaptations are also haunted by selective pressures from predators past. The book will also find a ready audience among evolutionary biologists and paleontologists.
American Railroads
John F. Stover
University of Chicago Press, 1997
A fascinating account of the rise, decline, and rebirth of railroads in the United States, John F. Stover's American Railroads traces their history from the first lines that helped eastern seaports capture western markets to today's newly revitalized industry. Stover describes the growth of the railroads' monopoly, with the consequent need for state and federal regulations; relates the vital part played by the railroads during the Civil War and the two World Wars; and charts the railroads' decline due to the advent of air travel and trucking during the 1950s.
In two new chapters, Stover recounts the remarkable recovery of the railroads, along with other pivotal events of the industry's recent history. During the 1960s declining passenger traffic and excessive federal regulation led to the federally-financed creation of Amtrak to revive passenger service and Conrail to provide freight service on bankrupt northeastern railroads. The real savior for the railroads, though, proved to be the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, which brought prosperity to rail freight carriers by substantially deregulating the industry. By 1995, renewed railroad freight traffic had reached nearly twice its former peak in 1944.
Bringing both a seasoned eye and new insights to bear on one of the most American of industries, Stover has produced the definitive history of railroads in the United States.
American Railroads
John F. Stover
University of Chicago Press, 1997
Few scenes capture the American experience so eloquently as that of a lonely train chugging across the vastness of the Great Plains, or snaking through tortuous high mountain passes. Although this vision was eclipsed for a time by the rise of air travel and trucking, railroads have enjoyed a rebirth in recent years as profitable freight carriers.
A fascinating account of the rise, decline, and rebirth of railroads in the United States, John F. Stover's American Railroads traces their history from the first lines that helped eastern seaports capture western markets to today's newly revitalized industry. Stover describes the growth of the railroads' monopoly, with the consequent need for state and federal regulations; relates the vital part played by the railroads during the Civil War and the two World Wars; and charts the railroads' decline due to the advent of air travel and trucking during the 1950s.
In two new chapters, Stover recounts the remarkable recovery of the railroads, along with other pivotal events of the industry's recent history. During the 1960s declining passenger traffic and excessive federal regulation led to the federally-financed creation of Amtrak to revive passenger service and Conrail to provide freight service on bankrupt northeastern railroads. The real savior for the railroads, though, proved to be the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, which brought prosperity to rail freight carriers by substantially deregulating the industry. By 1995, renewed railroad freight traffic had reached nearly twice its former peak in 1944.
Bringing both a seasoned eye and new insights to bear on one of the most American of industries, Stover has produced the definitive history of railroads in the United States.
American Science in the Age of Jackson
George H. Daniels
University of Alabama Press, 1968
A foundational history of science, ideas, and professional identity in nineteenth-century America.
American Science in the Age of Jackson is a landmark study that traces the emergence of a distinctly American scientific community during one of the most transformative periods in the nation's history. Focusing on the years between 1815 and 1845, George H. Daniels examines how a loosely connected network of amateur naturalists, physicians, educators, and scientific enthusiasts evolved into a more organized and professional body of researchers united by shared goals, methods, institutions, and intellectual commitments. Through an innovative analysis of leading scientists and the scientific journals that connected them, Daniels reconstructs the foundations of American science at the moment it began to establish an independent identity.
Originally recognized as the first major effort to define an American scientific community, this influential work explores the individuals, publications, and philosophical traditions that shaped scientific inquiry in the early republic and Jacksonian era. Daniels examines the careers and writings of the most prominent American scientists of the period, demonstrating how they built professional networks, established standards of evidence and inquiry, and promoted science as an essential component of national progress. In doing so, he illuminates the institutional development of scientific societies, colleges, journals, and research programs that would lay the groundwork for the nation's later scientific achievements.
Featuring biographical sketches of leading scientists, analyses of early scientific journals, and a detailed examination of the ideas that united the nation's scientific elite, American Science in the Age of Jackson remains a foundational text for understanding the origins of scientific culture in the United States. More than a history of science, it is a history of intellectual ambition, institutional growth, and the pursuit of knowledge in a rapidly changing society. Scholars and students of American history, history of science, intellectual history, philosophy, and nineteenth-century studies will find this volume an indispensable resource for understanding how American science established the foundations of its modern identity.
American Sunshine
Diseases of Darkness and the Quest for Natural LightDaniel Freund
University of Chicago Press, 2012
In the second half of the nineteenth century, American cities began to go dark. Hulking new buildings overspread blocks, pollution obscured the skies, and glass and smog screened out the health-giving rays of the sun. Doctors fed anxities about these new conditions with claims about a rising tide of the "diseases of darkness," especially rickets and tuberculosis.
In American Sunshine, Daniel Freund tracks the obsession with sunlight from those bleak days into the twentieth century. Before long, social reformers, medical professionals, scientists, and a growing nudist movement proffered remedies for America’s new dark age. Architects, city planners, and politicians made access to sunlight central to public housing and public health. and entrepreneurs, dairymen, and tourism boosters transformed the pursuit of sunlight and its effects into a commodity. Within this historical context, Freund sheds light on important questions about the commodification of health and nature and makes an original contribution to the histories of cities, consumerism, the environment, and medicine.
American Women of Letters and the Nineteenth-Century Sciences
Styles of AffiliationBaym, Nina
Rutgers University Press, 2001
Choice Outstanding Academic Title
During the nineteenth century, the content and institutional organization of the sciences evolved dramatically, altering the public's understanding of knowledge. As science grew in importance, many women of letters tried to incorporate it into a female worldview. Nina Baym explores the responses to science displayed in a range of writings by American women. Conceding that they could not become scientists, women insisted, however, that they were capable of understanding science and participating in its discourse. They used their access to publishing to advocate the study and transmission of scientific information to the general public.
Bayms book includes biographies and a full exploration of these women's works. Among those considered are:
• Almira Phelps, author of Familiar Lectures on Botany (it sold 350,000 copies)
• Sarah Hale, who filled Godey's Lady's Book with science articles
• Catharine Esther Beecher, who based her domestic advice on scientific information
• Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, the actual ghostwriter of her husband's popular science essays
• Emily Dickinson, whose poetry is replete with scientific images.
Baym also investigates science in women's novels, writing by and about women doctors, and the scientific claims advanced by women's spiritualist movements. This book truly breaks new ground, outlining a field of inquiry that few have noted exists.
Americans and Their Land
The House Built on AbundanceAnne Mackin
University of Michigan Press, 2006
—James Carroll, author of House of War and An American Requiem, winner of the National Book Award
“Anne Mackin has taken a fresh and provocative look at that most fascinating of relationships: the one between the American people and the American land.”
—Michael Pollan, Knight Professor of Journalism and Director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at University of California Berkeley, contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, and author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Botany of Desire
“Anne Mackin has given us a valuable and less-used lens to view the development of our neighborhoods, towns and cities: the land itself. Our relationship to the earth beneath our feet—how we dig it, buy it, sell it, zone it, pave it, spoil it or pamper it—helps explain what is produced on top of the land in our nation, from farms to homes to skyscrapers. All in all, Mackin takes us on a novel and erudite journey, from one coast to the other, and from Colonial times to the present. This valuable book marks a significant and lasting contribution to the way we see and understand our landscape and ourselves.”
—Alex Marshall, author of How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads Not Taken
“To really understand the origins of the range war now raging between smart growth and property rights advocates over the future of the American land, you need to read this exceptional book.”
—Robert D. Yaro, President Regional Plan Association and Professor in Practice, University of Pennsylvania
Thomas Malthus once said, “The happiness of the Americans depended much less upon their peculiar degree of civilization than . . . upon their having a great plenty of fertile uncultivated land.”
Malthus knew. Lord MacCaulay knew. Albert Gallatin knew. America and its people would change as a growing population whittled away the supply of land.
Nothing has shaped the American character like the abundance of land that met the colonist, the pioneer, and the early suburbanite. With today’s political and economic institutions shaped by the largesse of yesteryear, how will Americans fare in the new landscape of water wars, expensive housing, rising fuel prices, environmental and property rights battles, and powerful industrial lobbies?
Why is land the key to American democracy? How can we protect our democracy as more people and industries compete more intensively for our remaining resources? Americans and Their Land begins an important, overdue discussion of these questions. Anne Mackin takes the reader story by story from frontier history to the present and shows how land shaped the American political landscape. She shows how our evolving traditions of apportioning resources have allowed diminished supplies to create our present, increasingly unequal society, and she asks how 300 million Americans living in the new American landscape of growing competition can better share those resources.
Amniote Paleobiology
Perspectives on the Evolution of Mammals, Birds, and ReptilesEdited by Matthew T. Carrano, Timothy J. Gaudin, Richard W. Blob, and John R. Wi
University of Chicago Press, 2006
A collaborative effort of twenty-four researchers, Amniote Paleobiology presents thirteen new and important scientific perspectives on the evolution and biology of this familiar group. It includes new discoveries of dinosaurs and primitive relatives of mammals; studies of mammalian chewing and locomotion; and examinations of the evolutionary process in plesiosaurs, mammals, and dinosaurs. Emphasizing the rich variety of analytical techniques available to vertebrate paleontologists—from traditional description to multivariate morphometrics and complex three-dimensional kinematics—Amniote Paleobiology seeks to understand how species are related to each other and what these relationships reveal about changes in anatomy and function over time. A timely synthesis of modern contributions to the field of evolutionary studies, Amniote Paleobiology furthers our understanding of this diverse group.
Among Giants
A Life with WhalesCharles "Flip" Nicklin with K. M. Kostyal
University of Chicago Press, 2011
It all started in 1965 with a guy riding a whale. The guy was Flip Nicklin’s father, Chuck, and the whale was an unlucky Bryde’s Whale that had gotten caught up in some anchor line. Hoping to free the whale, Chuck and some friends took their boat as near as they could, and, just before they cut it loose, Chuck posed astride it for a photo.
That image, carried on wire services nationwide, became a sensation and ultimately changed the life of Chuck’s young son, Flip. In the decades since that day, Flip Nicklin has made himself into the world’s premier cetacean photographer. It’s no exaggeration to say that his photos, published in such venues as National Geographic and distributed worldwide, have virtually defined these graceful, powerful creatures in the mind of the general public—even as they helped open new ground in the field of marine mammalogy.
Among Giants tells the story of Nicklin’s life and career on the high seas, from his first ill-equipped shoots in the mid-1970s through his long association with the National Geographic Society to the present, when he is one of the founders of Whale Trust, a nonprofit conservation and research group. Nicklin is equal parts photographer, adventurer, self-trained scientist, and raconteur, and Among Giants reflects all those sides, matching breathtaking images to firsthand accounts of their making, and highlighting throughout the importance of conservation and new advances in our understanding of whale behavior. With Nicklin as our guide, we see not just whales but also our slowly growing understanding of their hidden lives, as well as the evolution of underwater photography—and the stunning clarity and drama that can be captured when a determined, daring diver is behind the lens.
Humpbacks, narwhals, sperm whales, orcas—these and countless other giants of the ocean parade through these pages, spouting, breaching, singing, and raising their young. Nicklin’s photographs bring us so completely into the underwater world of whales that we can’t help but feel awe, while winning, personal accounts of his adventures remind us of what it’s like to be a lone diver sharing their sea.
For anyone who has marveled at the majesty of whales in the wild, Among Giants is guaranteed to be inspiring, even moving—its unmatched images of these glorious beings an inescapable reminder of our responsibility as stewards of the ocean.
Among Penguins
A Bird Man in AntarcticaNoah Strycker
Oregon State University Press, 2011
The year he graduated from college, 22-year-old Noah Strycker was dropped by helicopter in a remote Antarctic field camp with two bird scientists and a three months’ supply of frozen food. His subjects: more than a quarter million penguins.
Compact, industrious, and approachable, the Adélie Penguins who call Antarctica home visit their breeding grounds each Antarctic summer to nest and rear their young before returning to sea. Because of long-term studies, scientists may know more about how these penguins will adjust to climate change than about any other creature in the world.
Bird scientists like Noah are less well known. Like the intrepid early explorers of Antarctica, modern scientists drawn to the frozen continent face an utterly inhospitable landscape, one that inspires, isolates, and punishes.
With wit, curiosity, and a deep knowledge of his subject, Strycker recounts the reality of life at the end of the Earth—thousand-year-old penguin mummies, hurricane-force blizzards, and day-to-day existence in below freezing temperatures—and delves deep into a world of science, obsession, and birds.
Among Penguins weaves a captivating tale of penguins and their researchers on the coldest, driest, highest, and windiest continent on Earth. Birders, lovers of the Antarctic, and fans of first-person adventure narratives will be fascinated by Strycker’s book.
Amphibians, Reptiles, and Their Habitats at Sabino Canyon
David W. Lazaroff, Philip C. Rosen, and Charles H. Lowe, Jr.
University of Arizona Press, 2006
In this first publication to describe Sabino Canyon’s biota in scientific detail, three expert authors pool their knowledge to provide a detailed discussion of ecological change—especially as a consequence of drought, flooding, the introduction of exotic species, and direct human impact. Suburbia has arrived on the canyon’s doorstep, and human visitation has soared, inalterably affecting the area. Of particular concern, breeding habitats for amphibians were profoundly altered by flash flooding in Sabino’s streams following the 2003 Aspen Fire, which ravaged large parts of the Santa Catalina Mountains. The book contains richly detailed accounts of the 57 species found at Sabino—25 snakes, 17 lizards, 8 toads and frogs, 6 turtles, and 1 salamander—emphasizing their local ecology and the behavior likely to be witnessed by visitors. Physical descriptions and numerous photographs—many in color—facilitate identification. Up-to-date distribution maps provide an essential baseline against which future researchers can measure change.
Amphibians, Reptiles, and Their Habitats at Sabino Canyon is essential for anyone who seeks to understand this desert oasis, how it has changed, and how it may change in the future. Written with minimal technical jargon to make it as useful to students and visitors as it will be to scientists and resource managers, it makes a vital contribution to our understanding of creatures underfoot whose habitat we seek to share.
An Alfred Russel Wallace Companion
Edited by Charles H. Smith, James T. Costa, and David A. Collard
University of Chicago Press, 2019
Wallace declared his eight years of exploration in southeast Asia to be “the central and controlling incident” of his life. As 2019 marks one hundred and fifty years since the publication of The Malay Archipelago, Wallace’s canonical work chronicling his epic voyage, this collaborative book gathers an interdisciplinary array of writers to celebrate Wallace’s remarkable life and diverse scholarly accomplishments. Wallace left school at the age of fourteen and was largely self-taught, a voracious curiosity and appetite for learning sustaining him throughout his long life. After years as a surveyor and builder, in 1848 he left Britain to become a professional natural history collector in the Amazon, where he spent four years. Then, in 1854, he departed for the Malay Archipelago. It was on this voyage that he constructed a theory of natural selection similar to the one Charles Darwin was developing, and the two copublished papers on the subject in 1858, some sixteen months before the release of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
But as the contributors to the Companion show, this much-discussed parallel evolution in thought was only one epoch in an extraordinary intellectual life. When Wallace returned to Britain in 1862, he commenced a career of writing on a huge range of subjects extending from evolutionary studies and biogeography to spiritualism and socialism. An Alfred Russel Wallace Companion provides something of a necessary reexamination of the full breadth of Wallace’s thought—an attempt to describe not only the history and present state of our understanding of his work, but also its implications for the future.
An American Obsession
Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern SocietyJennifer Terry
University of Chicago Press, 1999
Terry's overarching argument is compelling: that homosexuality served as a marker of the "abnormal" against which malleable, tenuous, and often contradictory concepts of the "normal" were defined. One of the few histories to take into consideration homosexuality in both women and men, Terry's work also stands out in its refusal to erase the agency of people classified as abnormal. She documents the myriad ways that gays, lesbians, and other sexual minorities have coauthored, resisted, and transformed the most powerful and authoritative modern truths about sex. Proposing this history as a "useable past," An American Obsession is an indispensable contribution to the study of American cultural history.
An American Provence
Thomas P. Huber
University Press of Colorado, 2011
-From An American Provence
In this poetic personal narrative, Thomas P. Huber reflects on two seemingly unrelated places-the North Fork Valley in western Colorado and the Coulon River Valley in Provence, France-and finds a shared landscape and sense of place. What began as a simple comparison of two like places in distant locations turned into a more complex, interesting, and personal task. Much is similar-the light, the valleys, the climate, the agriculture. And much is less so-the history, the geology, the physical makeup of villages. Using a geographer's eye and passion for the land and people, Huber examines the regions' similarities and differences to explore the common emotional impact of each region. Part intimate travelogue and part case study of geography in the real world, An American Provence illuminates the importance sense of place plays in who we are.
An Ancient Mesopotamian Herbal
Barbara Boeck, Shahina Ghazanfar, and Mark Nesbitt
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2024
Traditional medical systems continue to impact the lives of people around the globe. These systems vary greatly in their underlying beliefs, but all commonly rely on the consumption of plant matter as a central practice. An Ancient Mesopotamian Herbal is a new, fully illustrated book that explores the uses of plants in traditional medicine and how these botanical roots extend to modern, “conventional” medicinal treatments.
Divided into two parts, An Ancient Mesopotamian Herbal introduces the lands and ancient cultures of Mesopotamia before surveying the different forms of evidence and research methods informing this academic book. The book then looks to the modern day, focusing on thirty case studies of plant-based drugs. Bridging the divide between the humanities and sciences and using new research and data from modern-day Iraq and surrounding areas, An Ancient Mesopotamian Herbal draws on the expertise of archeo-botanists, scientists, and Assyriologists specializing in historic Mesopotamian medicine to provide new identifications of Assyrian and Babylonian herbal medicines while giving a concise overview of ancient Mesopotamian herbal lore.
An Archaeologist's Guide to Organic Residues in Pottery
Eleanora A. Reber
University of Alabama Press, 2022
Unlock the chemical secrets of ancient pottery in this guide for mastering organic residue pottery analysis.
Pottery analysis is a crucial component of excavating an archaeological site. Organic residues in pottery are made up of chemicals that absorb into pots over their lifetime. These residues can reveal what people ate, whether different types of vessels were used for different cooking or foodstuffs preparation, and whether “elite” vessels were in use.
Organic residue analysis is a technical specialty that blends an unusual type of instrumental organic chemistry and archaeology. Because it is considered an obscure technique, archaeologists of all degrees of experience tend to struggle with how to apply the technology to archaeological questions and how to sample effectively in the field to answer these questions.
Eleanora A. Reber’s An Archaeologist’s Guide to Organic Residues in Pottery is a user-friendly resource for all archaeologists. Composed of case studies gleaned from Reber’s more than twenty years of archaeological research, this guide covers the range of residues encountered in the field and explains the methods and application of organic residue analysis.
Reber illustrates the useful aspects of residue analysis, such as compound-specific isotope analysis for the identification of traces of maize and marine resources, conifer resins, and the psychoactive alkaloid biomarkers caffeine and nicotine. Special attention is paid to sampling and construction of meaning as well as research questions to help field archaeologists integrate residue analysis seamlessly into their projects
An Arkansas Florilegium
The Atlas of Botanist Edwin Smith Illustrated by Naturalist Kent BonarEdwin Smith
University of Arkansas Press, 2017
Thirty-five years later, with Smith retired and Bonar long gone from the park service but still drawing, Bonar’s weathered and battered copy of the atlas was seized by a diverse cadre of amateur admirers motivated by fears of its damage or loss. Their fears were certainly justified; after all, the pages were now jammed to the margins with some 3,500 drawings, and the volume had already survived one accidental dunking in an Ozark stream.
An Arkansas Florilegium brings Smith’s and Bonar’s knowledge and lifelong diligence to the world in this unique mix of art, science, and Arkansas saga.
An Artificial History of Natural Intelligence
Thinking with Machines from Descartes to the Digital AgeDavid W. Bates
University of Chicago Press, 2024
We imagine that we are both in control of and controlled by our bodies—autonomous and yet automatic. This entanglement, according to David W. Bates, emerged in the seventeenth century when humans first built and compared themselves with machines. Reading varied thinkers from Descartes to Kant to Turing, Bates reveals how time and time again technological developments offered new ways to imagine how the body’s automaticity worked alongside the mind’s autonomy. Tracing these evolving lines of thought, An Artificial History of Natural Intelligence offers a new theorization of the human as a being that is dependent on technology and produces itself as an artificial automaton without a natural, outside origin.
An Awesome Universe
From the First Stargazers to Modern CosmologyWilliam Sheehan and Christopher J. Conselice
University of Arizona Press, 2027
This groundbreaking exploration of humanity’s quest to understand the cosmos spans the earliest observations of the night sky to the latest revelations from advanced space telescopes. It is about humans as much as stars, galaxies, black holes, dark matter, and dark energy. It is a book about the awe we experience in the presence of the awesome universe.
Written by an award-winning historian of astronomy and a professional astronomer specializing in galaxy formation in the early universe, this book provides a comprehensive narrative of cosmic discovery. It examines the evolution of our understanding of the universe—from the first glimpses of the stars to the recognition of the Milky Way as a spiral galaxy and the realization that our universe is filled with countless other galaxies. The book also explores the revolutionary advancements in astrophysics that have shaped our knowledge, including quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, and the study of the still mysterious dark matter and dark energy.
Richly illustrated with remarkable images that show the scale of the universe—from the ancient sky to the ten trillion galaxies now known to exist—An Awesome Universe also addresses some of the most profound questions in science: the nature of life beyond Earth, the fate of the universe, and whether we will ever fully understand the mysteries of space-time, the Big Bang, and the possibility of a multiverse.
This authoritative and visually captivating work offers readers a glimpse into the “Big Picture” of the cosmos, framed by the contributions of pioneering astronomers and driven by our ongoing quest for knowledge about our place in the universe.
An Ecology of Happiness
Eric Lambin
University of Chicago Press, 2012
In this clever and wide-ranging work, Lambin draws on new scientific evidence in the fields of geography, political ecology, environmental psychology, urban studies, and disease ecology, among others, to answer such questions as: To what extent do we need nature for our well-being? How does environmental degradation affect our happiness? What can be done to protect the environment and increase our well-being at the same time? Drawing on case studies from Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America, Lambin makes a persuasive case for the strong link between healthy ecosystems and happy humans.
Unique in its scope and evenhanded synthesis of research from many fields, An Ecology of Happiness offers a compelling human-centered argument that is impossible to overlook when we marvel at murmurations of starlings or seek out the most brilliant fall foliage: nature makes our steps a little lighter and our eyes a little brighter. What better reason to protect an ecosystem or save a species than for our own pleasure?
An Elusive Victorian
The Evolution of Alfred Russel WallaceMartin Fichman
University of Chicago Press, 2003
Fichman examines not only Wallace's scientific work as an evolutionary theorist and field naturalist but also his philosophical concerns, his involvement with theism, and his commitment to land nationalization and other sociopolitical reforms such as women's rights. As Fichman shows, Wallace worked throughout his life to integrate these humanistic and scientific interests. His goal: the development of an evolutionary cosmology, a unified vision of humanity's place in nature and society that he hoped would ensure the dignity of all individuals.
To reveal the many aspects of this compelling figure, Fichman not only reexamines Wallace's published works, but also probes the contents of his lesser known writings, unpublished correspondence, and copious annotations in books from his personal library. Rather than consider Wallace's science as distinct from his sociopolitical commitments, An Elusive Victorian assumes a mutually beneficial relationship between the two, one which shaped Wallace into one of the most memorable characters of his time. Fully situating Wallace's wide-ranging work in its historical and cultural context, Fichman's innovative and insightful account will interest historians of science, religion, and Victorian culture as well as biologists.
An Entangled Bank
The Origins of Ecosystem EcologyJoel B. Hagen
Rutgers University Press, 1992
His breadth of knowledge, his discerning inclusiveness, his clarity of thought, all make _An Entangled Bank_ a stimulating read. Very often in science courses we are presented only with the canonical "state of the science," having to swallow its agglomerated whole free of context. Hagen reveals the wisdom of understanding intellectual foundations. Through study of the origins and development of a science, we may better grasp the received tenets of current scientific understanding. As a young science, ecosystem ecology has a historical context that is relatively accessible to us, if less romantic than a tale of the origins of astronomy might be.
A peek into the labs and offices of botanists, limnologists, and biogeochemists might not seem like the acme of excitement. Hagen inspires us with his insights. He makes his subject meaningful to us. Though it is not pleasure reading by any stretch, its clear-sighted intellectual vigor makes _An Entangled Bank_ pure enjoyment.
An Epistemology of the Concrete
Twentieth-Century Histories of LifeHans-Jörg Rheinberger
Duke University Press, 2010
An Equation That Changed the World
Newton, Einstein, and the Theory of RelativityHarald Fritzsch
University of Chicago Press, 1994
"Fritzsch could not give the modern reader a more memorable introduction to the personalities and science of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein unless somehow he could find the keys to H. G. Wells' time machine. . . . Many readers will applaud Fritzsch for this lively but profoundly insightful book." —Booklist, starred review
"[Fritzsch] has dreamed up a dialogue between the two great physicists, helped along by a fictional modern physicist. . . . The conversation builds up to an explanation of E=mc2, and on the way illuminates the important points where Newtonian and Einsteinian theory diverge." —David Lindley, New York Times Book Review
An Errant Eye
Poetry and Topography in Early Modern FranceTom Conley
University of Minnesota Press, 2010
This tension, Conley demonstrates, cuts through literature and graphic matter of various shapes and forms-hybrid genres that include the comic novel, the emblem-book, the eclogue, sonnets, and the personal essay. An Errant Eye differs from historical treatments of spatial invention through Conley's argument that the topographic sensibility is one in which the ocular faculty, vital to the description of locale, is endowed with tact and touch.
Detailed close readings of Apian, Rabelais, Montaigne, and others empower the reader with a lively sense of the topographical impulse, deriving from Conley's own "errant eye," which is singularly discerning in attentiveness to the ambiguities of charted territory, the contours of woodcut images, and the complex combinations of word and figure in French Renaissance poetry, emblem, and politics.
An Illustrated Guide to Arizona Weeds
Kittie F. Parker
University of Arizona Press, 1972
An Illustrated Guide to Arizona Weeds
Kittie F. Parker
University of Arizona Press, 0
An Illustrated Guide to Iowa Prairie Plants
Paul Christiansen
University of Iowa Press, 1999
Iowa is the only state completely within the tallgrass prairie formation. Thanks to rich soil, adequate rainfall, and warm summer temperatures, hundreds of species combine to produce a diverse and colorful and ever-changing landscape. Using text and maps by Paul Christiansen and newly created drawings by Mark Müller, this first comprehensive guide to the prairie plants native to Iowa provides all the information necessary for identifying and distinguishing even the most similar species.
Species are described from the ground up: stem, leaf, bud, flower, fruit, and habitat. The time of flowering and fruiting is given for the central part of Iowa. Where several species are closely related, a common member of the group is fully described, and the other species are compared with the first. Each species is paired with a distribution map. The superbly detailed illustrations, all of which were drawn specifically for this handbook, capture the general shape of each plant as well as its characteristic features. A guide to family identification, information about extant and restored prairies in Iowa, and a glossary are also included.
Farmers who settled Iowa in the 1800s viewed the great green sea of grasses and wildflowers as a challenge to be replaced with cropfields and pastures. Today we realize that the prairie is an addictive, restorative, aesthetically satisfying place for study and recreation. An Illustrated Guide to Iowa Prairie Plants is designed to enable those who want to go beyond the most common plants to identify all native species and to learn more about their distribution, structure, and natural history.