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405 books match the query 'Natural history' and 9 start with o

cover of Of Men and Marshes

Of Men and Marshes

Paul Errington

University of Iowa Press, 1957

Standing with such environmental classics as Loren Eiseley’s TheImmense Journey, his friend and mentor Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, and Joseph Wood Krutch’s The Voice of the Desert, Paul Errington’s Of Men and Marshes remains an evocative reminder of the great beauty and intrinsic value of the glacial marshland. Prescient and stirring, steeped in insights from Errington’s biological fieldwork, his experiences as a hunter and trapper, and his days exploring the marshes of his rural South Dakota childhood, this vibrant work of nature writing reveals his deep knowledge of the marshland environments he championed.
 
Examining the marsh from a dynamic range of perspectives, Errington begins by inviting us to consider how immense spans of time, coupled with profound geological events, shaped the unique marshland ecosystems of the Midwest. He then follows this wetland environment across seasons and over the years, creating a compelling portrait of a natural place too little appreciated and too often destroyed. Reminding us of the intricate relationships between the marsh and the animals who call it home, Errington records his experiences with hundreds of wetland creatures. He follows minks and muskrats, snapping turtles and white pelicans, red foxes and blue-winged teals—all the while underscoring our responsibility to preserve this remarkable and fragile environment and challenging us to change the way we think about and value marshlands.
 

This classic of twentieth-century nature writing, a landmark work that is still a joy to read, offers a stirring portrait of the Midwest’s endangered glacial marshland ecosystems by one of the most influential biologists of his day. A cautionary book whose advice has not been heeded, a must-read of American environmental literature, Of Men and Marshes should inspire a new generation of conservationists.  

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cover of Of Prairie, Woods, and Water: Two Centuries of Chicago Nature Writing

Of Prairie, Woods, and Water

Two Centuries of Chicago Nature Writing

Edited by Joel Greenberg

University of Chicago Press, 2008

In the literary imagination, Chicago evokes images of industry and unbridled urban growth. But the tallgrass prairie and deep forests that once made up Chicago’s landscape also inspired musings from residents and visitors alike. In Of Prairie, Woods, and Water, naturalist Joel Greenberg gathers these unique voices from the land to present an unexpected portrait of Chicago in this often charming, sometimes heart-wrenching anthology of nature writing.

These writings tell the tale of a land in transition—one with abundant, unique, and incredibly lush flora and fauna, a natural history quite elusive today. Drawing on archives he uncovered while writing his acclaimed A Natural History of the Chicago Region, Greenberg hand-selected these first-person narratives, all written between 1721 and 1959. Not every author is familiar, but every contribution is distinctive. From a pioneer’s hilarious notes on life in the Kankakee marsh to Theodore Drieser’s poignant plea for conservation of the Tippecanoe River to infamous murderer Nathan Leopold’s charming description of a pet robin he kept in prison, the sources included are as diverse as the nature they describe.
 
The excerpts conclude with insightful biographical essays and traverse a wide area of greater Chicagoland, from the Illinois River to southwest Michigan, from southern Wisconsin to the Limberlost swamp of northeastern Indiana. A fascinating record of Chicago’s changing environmental history, Of Prairie, Woods, and Water captures the natural world in a way that will inspire its continued conservation.
 
 
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cover of Okoboji Wetlands: A Lesson in Natural History

Okoboji Wetlands

A Lesson in Natural History

Michael J. Lannoo

University of Iowa Press, 1996

Lake Okoboji in northwest Iowa is the jewel of the Iowa Great Lakes. A region of wetlands formed by prairie potholes, the area is rich with lakes, sloughs, fens, creeks, prairies, and kettleholes. In this readable and beautifully illustrated volume, Michael Lannoo presents an extensive natural history of Okoboji and its cherished wetlands that examines that world of our grandparents, compares it to today's world, and extrapolates to the world of our grandchildren.

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cover of On the Geographical Distribution of Plants

On the Geographical Distribution of Plants

Alexander von Humboldt

University of Chicago Press, 2027

The first English translation of an essay that is among Alexander von Humboldt’s least known but most important scientific works.

In the nineteenth century, Alexander von Humboldt was arguably the world’s most famous celebrity after Napoleon. What started in 1799 as a serendipitous trip to the New World tropics with his friend Aimé Bonpland to collect plants and minerals expanded into a five-year exploration of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, México, and Cuba. The discoveries the two amassed were nothing short of staggering, and much of our knowledge of tropical botany, zoology, geography, and geology can be traced back to these journeys. The voyage, and the publication of Humboldt’s travel narratives and scientific studies from these expeditions, which totaled dozens of books, elevated Humboldt to cult status. 

In the past two decades, Humboldt’s writings have been rediscovered in multiple fields, including biogeography; Earth and environmental sciences; American and Latin American studies; nineteenth-century art, poetry, and literature; and transatlantic cultural history. His ideas are profoundly relevant to twenty-first-century thinking on the relationship between humans and nature, and the ecological framework in which he viewed the world remains essential two centuries after his travels.

Among his many interests, Humboldt invested considerable effort in explaining the underlying causes of the uneven distribution of plant species across the globe. His extended essay On the Geographical Distribution of Plants is among his least known but most important works, laying foundations for the development of ecology, climatology, and evolutionary biology in the following decades. It was first published in 1815 as an introduction to a seven-volume Latin botanical monograph, Nova genera et species plantarum (New Genera and Species of Plants). The essay, republished in 1817 as a standalone volume, held great influence over nineteenth-century naturalists. It is Humboldt’s most comprehensive and detailed treatment of plant geography. In the essay, he applies what he calls “botanical arithmetic” to reveal ecological and biogeographic patterns of plants, applications that still ground modern macroecology; and he provides frameworks to link vegetation patterns and climate, which are essential in modern Earth system science.  Introduced and organized by ecologist Stephen T. Jackson and translated from Latin to English by Philip Holt, this book is essential for the libraries of scientists, historians, and all Humboldt admirers.

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cover of On the Plains, and Among the Peaks: or, How Mrs. Maxwell Made Her Natural History Collection: by Mary Dartt

On the Plains, and Among the Peaks

or, How Mrs. Maxwell Made Her Natural History Collection: by Mary Dartt

Julie McCown

University Press of Colorado, 2021

American naturalist and taxidermist Martha Maxwell became famous in the 1870s for her skill and expertise in collecting and preserving specimens of Colorado’s wildlife but is virtually unknown today. On the Plains, and Among the Peaks, written in 1879 by Maxwell’s half-sister Mary Dartt, provides a fascinating case study of how women practiced natural history and taxidermy, as well as a fresh look at the early exploration and settlement of Colorado.
 
Dartt’s book tells the story of Maxwell’s lifelong passion and dedication to work and education that made her a pioneer in more ways than one. It catalogs her important scientific contributions and development of museum habitat groupings and lifelike taxidermy mounts, showcases engaging accounts of wilderness excursions on the frontier of the Western United States in the 1860s and 1870s, and testifies to her resolve to show that women were capable of succeeding in traditionally male-dominated fields.
 
This scholarly edition of On the Plains, and Among the Peaks will spark renewed interest in Maxwell and Dartt as neglected figures in nineteenth-century US history and literature, opening a conversation that other literary scholars and historians will join to further situate their work within the numerous disciplines to which it speaks, including nineteenth-century American literature; women’s, western, environmental, and natural history; and gender, museum, and animal studies.
 
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cover of One Planet, Many Worlds: The Climate Parallax

One Planet, Many Worlds

The Climate Parallax

Dipesh Chakrabarty

Brandeis University Press, 2023

A historian offers a unique look at the pandemic, climate change, and the human versus nonhuman.
 
Climate change represents a deep conundrum for humans. It is difficult for humans to give up the unequal and yet accelerating pursuit of a good life based on an insatiable appetite for energy sourced mainly from fossil fuel. But the same pursuit, scientists insist, damages the geobiological system that supports the existence of interrelated forms of life, including ours, on this planet. The planet, seen thus, is one. The global sway of financial and extractive capital connects humans technologically, but they remain divided along multiple axes of inequality. Their worlds are many and their politics still global rather than planetary. In the narrative presented here, Chakrabarty continues to explore the temporal and intellectual fault lines that mark the collapse of the global and the planetary in human history.
 
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cover of Organ Pipe: Life on the Edge

Organ Pipe

Life on the Edge

Text by Carol Ann Bassett; Photographs by Michael Hyatt

University of Arizona Press, 2004

Deep in the heart of the Sonoran Desert lies an oasis of ebony mountains, golden poppies, stately saguaros—and the organ pipe cactus, "a prickly octopus turned on its head."

A terrain where one learns to pay attention to the details: the tracks of a sidewinder in the sand, the tiny eggs of a cactus wren, the flash of a vermilion flycatcher against the azure sky.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument lies in southwestern Arizona on the Mexican border. It is an isolated park that for Carol Ann Bassett has long been a place of solitude—a silent refuge where she often camped out alone to capture the natural rhythms of the desert. Photographer Michael Hyatt hiked through Organ Pipe to visually document its subtle beauty in the Ajo Mountains and the valley of the Ajo, and at Quitobaquito, a rare desert oasis.

Few visitors may brave Organ Pipe during summer, when the temperature can reach 120 degrees, but for Bassett and Hyatt the searing heat is but a harbinger of rain, when normally dry arroyos surge with rust-colored water and desert tarantulas come out to mate. Bassett introduces readers to Organ Pipe’s cultural heritage as well: Spanish missionaries, Anglo settlers, and the Tohono O’odham and the Hia Ced O’odham people who still travel there to gather cactus fruit during Hasan Bakmasad, "saguaro moon." She also considers the changes taking place throughout the park, including the onrush of immigrants passing through in search of better lives in the United States.

This small, lyrical book is a sensitive reflection on the heart of the Sonoran Desert. It reminds us of the beauty to be found in unexpected places—and of our intimate connection with the wild.
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cover of Orioles, Blackbirds, and Their Kin: A Natural History

Orioles, Blackbirds, and Their Kin

A Natural History

Alexander F. Skutch

University of Arizona Press, 1996

From blackbirds and orioles to meadowlarks, grackles, and cowbirds, the variety and variation shown by members of the family Icteridae is legend. The family exhibits great diversity in size and coloration, mating and nest building, and habits and habitats. This group of 94 New World species once known as the troupials is well represented in backyards across America; yet most icterids are tropical or semi-tropical species that remain largely unstudied.

The least known of these species are perhaps best known to Alexander Skutch, who has studied birds in a Costa Rican tropical valley for more than half a century. In this fascinating book the first devoted exclusively to the icterids—he combines his own observations with those of other naturalists to provide a comparative natural history and biology of this remarkable family of birds. Devoting a separate chapter to each major group or genus, he delineates the outstanding characteristics of each and includes observations of little-studied tropical species such as caciques and oropendolas.

Orioles, Blackbirds, and Their Kin is an eminently readable natural history in the classic style. Enhanced by 31 scratchboard illustrations, this book will delight nature enthusiasts everywhere with its fascinating exposition of avian diversity. Because so much of the published information on the icterids is widely scattered, Skutch's painstaking compilation has created a valuable reference work that will provide students and researchers with a wealth of new insights into the tropical members of this New World family.
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cover of Out of the Woods: Seeing Nature in the Everyday

Out of the Woods

Seeing Nature in the Everyday

Julia Corbett

University of Nevada Press, 2018

2018 Reading the West Book Awards Nonfiction Winner

Have you ever wondered about society’s desire to cultivate the perfect lawn, why we view some animals as “good” and some as “bad,” or even thought about the bits of nature inside everyday items–toothbrushes, cell phones, and coffee mugs?  In this fresh and introspective collection of essays, Julia Corbett examines nature in our lives with all of its ironies and contradictions by seamlessly integrating personal narratives with morsels of highly digestible science and research.  Each story delves into an overlooked aspect of our relationship with nature—insects, garbage, backyards, noise, open doors, animals, and language—and how we cover our tracks.

With a keen sense of irony and humor and an awareness of the miraculous in the mundane, Julia recognizes the contradictions of contemporary life. She confronts the owner of a high-end market who insists on keeping his doors open in all temperatures. Takes us on a trip to a new mall with a replica of a trout stream that once flowed nearby.  The phrase “out of the woods” guides us through layers of meaning to a contemplation of grief, remembrance, and resilience.

Out of the Woods leads to surprising insights into the products, practices, and phrases we take for granted in our everyday encounters with nature and encourages us all to consider how we might re-value or reimagine our relationships with nature in our everyday lives.
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