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Wildbranch: An Anthology of Nature, Environmental, and Place-based Writing is a powerful collection of mostly unpublished essays and poetry by both prominent American environmental writers and exciting new voices. The poetry and essays by more than fifty contributors offer the reader glimpses into places as diverse as a forest in West Africa, the moors of Ireland, the canyons of the Sonoran desert mountains, and the fields of New England, and they reflect the varied perspectives of field biologists, hunters, farmers, environmental educators, wilderness guides, academics, writers, and artists.

The collection is an intimate portrait of the natural world drawn through the wisdom, ecological consciousness, and open hearts of these exceptional contributors. The Wildbranch Writing Workshop, cosponsored by Orion magazine and Sterling College, has encouraged thoughtful natural history, outdoor, and environmental writing for more than twenty years. The Wildbranch faculty has included its founder E. Anne Proulx, the essayists Edward Hoagland, Janisse Ray, and Scott Russell Sanders, the poet Alison Hawthorne Deming, and many other notable authors. Many have work included in the anthology.

Winner of the New Mexico Book Association's Southwest Book Design & Production Awards for Excellence in the category Trade Books: Non-illustrated. 

In the evocative words of one of America’s best-loved nature writers, Wilderness Days brings together the essence of the magnificent wilderness with which he so deeply identifies. Sigurd F. Olson collects from his writings those moments that most vividly depict the turn of the seasons in the great woodlands and waters of the legendary Quetico–Superior region overlapping the Ontario–Minnesota border.

To further understanding of the meanings and values of wilderness, this volume explores wilderness and its significance to humans from myriad viewpoints, based on a meeting of the North American Interdisciplinary Wilderness Conference.

Originally published in 1999, Wildflowers and Other Plants of Iowa Wetlands was the first book to focus on the beauty and diversity of the wetland plants that once covered 1.5 million acres of Iowa. Now this classic of midwestern natural history is back in print with a new format and all-new photographs, just as Iowa’s wetlands are getting the respect and attention they deserve.

In clear and accessible prose, authors Sylvan Runkel and Dean Roosa provide common, scientific, and family names; the Latin or Greek meaning of the scientific names; habitat and blooming times; and a complete description. Plants are presented by habitat (terrestrial or aquatic), then refined by habit (e.g., emergent, floating, or submerged) or taxonomic group (e.g., ferns and allies or trees, shrubs, and vines). Particularly interesting is the information on the many ways in which Native Americans and early pioneers used these plants for everything from pain relief to tonics to soup and the ways that wildlife today use them for food and shelter. Each of the more than 150 species accounts is accompanied by a brilliant full-page color photograph by botanist Thomas Rosburg, who has also updated the nomenclature and descriptions for certain species.

After decades of being considered an enemy of the settler, the farmer, and the citizen, Iowa’s wetlands have come into their own. We are finally caring for these important habitats. Runkel and Roosa’s updated field companion will be a valuable guide to today’s preservation and restoration initiatives.

This classic of midwestern natural history is back in print with a new format and new photographs. Originally published in 1979, Wildflowers of Iowa Woodlands introduced many naturalists to the beauty and diversity of the native plants of the wooded communities that once covered more than 6 million acres of the state. Now redesigned with updated names and all-new images, this reliable field companion will introduce woodland wildflowers to a new generation of outdoor enthusiasts in the Upper Midwest.

The species accounts are accompanied by brilliant full-page color photographs by Larry Stone, Thomas Rosburg, and Carl Kurtz. In clear, straightforward, and accessible prose, authors Sylvan Runkel and Alvin Bull provide common, scientific, and family names; the Latin or Greek meaning of the scientific names; habitat and blooming times; and a complete description of plant, flower, and fruit. Particularly interesting is the information on the many ways in which Native Americans and early pioneers used these plants for everything from pain relief to insecticides to tonics.

Iowa’s original savannas, woodlands, and forests were cleared with amazing thoroughness, yet enough beauty and diversity remain to give joy to hikers, birders, and mushroomers. Wildflowers of Iowa Woodlands will inspire both amateurs and professionals with the desire to learn more about the wonders of today’s woodlands.

In the Aleutian Islands, wildflowers are king. Persistent low temperatures mean trees are unable to thrive, and so swaths of open tundra serve as the dramatic stage for a stunning variety of flowers. Wildflowers of Unalaska Island is the only guide to this flora, covering more than 160 species of flowering plants in a backpack-friendly book.

Each species is introduced and clearly defined and is accompanied by a photograph and line drawings. Many of these plants occur across a wide range of coastal Alaska; others are unique to the Aleutians. The introduction includes background on the unique geologic history, climate, and habitats of the archipelago to fully round out the user’s appreciation of the dramatic environment in which these hardy plants thrive.

Describing more than 1,100 species, this is a comprehensive guide to wildflowers in Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Ontario. A new introduction to this second edition discusses wildflowers in the context of their natural communities. Packed with detailed information, this field guide is compact enough to be handy for outdoors lovers of all kinds, from novice naturalists to professional botanists. It includes:

• more than 1,100 species from 459 genera in 100 families
• many rare and previously overlooked species
• 2,100 color photographs and 300 drawings
• Wisconsin distribution maps for almost all plants
• brief descriptions including distinguishing characteristics of the species
• Wisconsin status levels for each species of wildflower (native, invasive, endangered, etc.)
• derivation of Latin names.

Many recreational hikers have stopped along the trail to admire a wildflower only to wonder what, exactly, they are looking at. Wildflowers of the Mountain West is a useful field guide that makes flower identification easy for the general outdoor enthusiast.

Many available plant guides are too technical or cumbersome for non-specialists to embrace. Covering New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada and Oregon, this book is perfect for the enthusiasts who has little botanical knowledge but would like to know more about the wildflowers they are seeing. Organized by flower color for easy reference, plant records include the common and scientific names, a description of typical characteristics, habitat information and distribution maps, look-alike species, color photographs, and informative commentary. In addition, the book provides a useful introduction to the Mountain West region, along with line drawings to illustrate basic flower parts, shapes, and arrangements; a glossary of common botanical terms; a quick search key; and an index.

The book is spiral-bound, making it easy to bring along while hiking, backpacking, or biking, and stunning full color photographs make visual confirmation of flower type simple and straightforward.
 

This classic of midwestern natural history is back in print with a new format and new photographs. Originally published in 1989, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie introduced many naturalists to the beauty and diversity of the native plants of the huge grasslands that once stretched from Manitoba to Texas. Now redesigned with updated names and all-new photographs, this reliable field companion will introduce tallgrass prairie wildflowers to a new generation of outdoor enthusiasts in the Upper Midwest.

Each species account is accompanied by a brilliant full-page color photograph by botanist Thomas Rosburg. In clear, straightforward, and accessible prose, authors Sylvan Runkel and Dean Roosa provide common, scientific, and family names; the Latin or Greek meaning of the scientific names; habitat and blooming times; and a complete description of plant, flower, and fruit. Particularly interesting is the information on the many ways in which Native Americans and early pioneers used these plants for everything from pain relief to dyes to hairbrushes.

Runkel and Roosa say that prairies can be among the most peaceful places on earth; certainly they are among the most beleaguered. Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie will inspire both amateurs and professionals with the desire to learn more about the wonders of the prairie landscape.

Human-induced climate change is emerging as one of the gravest threats to biodiversity in history, and while a vast amount of literature on the ecological impact of climate change exists, very little has been dedicated to the management of wildlife populations and communities in the wake of unprecedented habitat changes. Wildlife Conservation in a Changing Climate is an essential resource, bringing together leaders in the fields of climate change ecology, wildlife population dynamics, and environmental policy to examine the impacts of climate change on populations of terrestrial vertebrates. Chapters assess the details of climate change ecology, including demographic implications for individual populations, evolutionary responses, impacts on movement patterns, alterations of species interactions, and predicting impacts across regions. The contributors also present a number of strategies by which conservationists and wildlife managers can counter or mitigate the impacts of climate change as well as increase the resilience of wildlife populations to such changes. A seminal contribution to the fields of ecology and conservation biology, Wildlife Conservation in a Changing Climate will serve as the spark that ignites a new direction of discussions about and action on the ecology and conservation of wildlife in a changing climate.

The editors and contributors to Wildlife Crime examine topical issues from extinction to trafficking in order to understand the ecological, economic, political, and social costs and consequences of these crimes. Drawing from diverse theoretical perspectives, empirical and methodological developments, and on-the-ground experiences of practitioners, this comprehensive volume looks at how conservationists and law enforcement grapple with and combat environmental crimes and the profitable market for illegal trade. 

Chapters cover criminological perspectives on species poaching, unregulated fishing, the trading of ivory and rhino horns, the adoption of conservation technologies, and ranger workplaces and conditions. The book includes firsthand experiences and research from China, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Tanzania, and the United States. The result is a significant book about the causes of and response to wildlife crime. 

Contributors include: Johan Bergenas, Avi Brisman, Craig Forsyth, Meredith Gore, Georg Jaster, Alex Killion, Kasey Kinnard, Antony C. Leberatto, Barney Long, Nerea Marteache, Gohar Petrossian, Jonah Ratsimbazafy, Gary Roloff, Viviane Seyranian, Louise Shelley, Rohit Singh, Nicole Sintov, Nigel South, Milind Tambe, Daan van Uhm, Greg Warchol, Rodger Watson, Rob White, Madelon Willemsen, and the editor.

Elephants rarely breed in captivity and are not considered domesticated, yet they interact with people regularly and adapt to various environments. Too social and sagacious to be objects, too strange to be human, too captive to truly be wild, but too wild to be domesticated—where do elephants fall in our understanding of nature?

In Wildlife in the Anthropocene, Jamie Lorimer argues that the idea of nature as a pure and timeless place characterized by the absence of humans has come to an end. But life goes on. Wildlife inhabits everywhere and is on the move; Lorimer proposes the concept of wildlife as a replacement for nature. Offering a thorough appraisal of the Anthropocene—an era in which human actions affect and influence all life and all systems on our planet— Lorimer unpacks its implications for changing definitions of nature and the politics of wildlife conservation. Wildlife in the Anthropocene examines rewilding, the impacts of wildlife films, human relationships with charismatic species, and urban wildlife. Analyzing scientific papers, policy documents, and popular media, as well as a decade of fieldwork, Lorimer explores the new interconnections between science, politics, and neoliberal capitalism that the Anthropocene demands of wildlife conservation.

Imagining conservation in a world where humans are geological actors entangled within and responsible for powerful, unstable, and unpredictable planetary forces, this work nurtures a future environmentalism that is more hopeful and democratic.

The Chang Tang, the vast, remote Tibetan steppe, is home to a unique assemblage of large mammals, including Tibetan antelope, gazelle, argali sheep, wild ass, wild yak, wolves, snow leopards, and others. Since 1985, George B. Schaller and his Chinese and Tibetan co-workers have surveyed the flora and fauna of the Chang Tang. Their research provides the first detailed look at the natural history of one of the world's least known ecosystems.

The plains ungulates are the main focus of this book—especially the Tibetan antelope, or chiru, whose migrations define this ecosystem much as those of the wildebeest define the Serengeti. Schaller's descriptions of mammal numbers and distribution, behavior, and ecology provide baseline information that may allow wildlife, grasslands, and pastoralists to continue to coexist harmoniously in this region.

This project led to the creation of the 130,000-square-mile Chang Tang Reserve by the Tibetan government in 1993, and Wildlife of the Tibetan Steppe should help promote future studies as well as conservation and management efforts.

"Schaller makes significant contributions to an understanding of the origins and ecology of Tibetan wildlife that will thrill specialists. . . . Schaller's book is much more than an ecological synthesis. It is a quest for conservation, a case history by a very brave and capable man, driven by no small passion to prevent the tragedy of extinction that looms over Tibet's fauna. His book touches not only the mind but also the heart, and in the context of conservation and the future it raises questions to torture the soul. . . . Wildlife of the Tibetan Steppe will long remain a unique, important source of biological, but also sociological, insights and challenges. I found it well written and difficult to put down."—Valerius Geist, Nature

"The topics in Wildlife of the Tibetan Steppe are at least as diverse as the topography; they range from geology and paleoecology to descriptions of ungulates and carnivores unknown to most of the non-Chinese speaking world. Individual chapters focus on kiangs, Bactrian camels, yaks, chirus, blue sheep, and Tibetan argalis and gazelles. Not only is much of the biological information new, but subsumed within these chapters are current and past estimates of population sizes both in the Chang Tang Reserve and in protected and nonprotected areas of 'the' plateau. Insights are provided into social structure, and speculations about the evolution and adaptive bases of behavior are carefully offered. Subsequent chapters involve discussions of carnivore communities and interactions between people and wildlife, including the localized but devastating effects of poachers. . . . This book has something for all audiences. . . . [A]n exciting testimony to the past and present status of a biologically spectacular region."—Joel Berger, Conservation Biology

In the heart of Wyoming sprawls the ancient homeland of the Eastern Shoshone Indians, who were forced by the U.S. government to share a reservation in the Wind River basin and flanking mountain ranges with their historical enemy, the Northern Arapahos. Both tribes lost their sovereign, wide-ranging ways of life and economic dependence on decimated buffalo. Tribal members subsisted on increasingly depleted numbers of other big game—deer, elk, moose, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep. In 1978, the tribal councils petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help them recover their wildlife heritage. Bruce Smith became the first wildlife biologist to work on the reservation. Wildlife on the Wind recounts how he helped Native Americans change the course of conservation for some of America's most charismatic wildlife.

Wildly Successful Farming tells the stories of farmers across the American Midwest who are balancing profitability and food production with environmental sustainability and a passion for all things wild. They are using innovative techniques and strategies to develop their "wildly" successful farms as working ecosystems. Whether producing grain, vegetables, fruit, meat, or milk, these next-generation agrarians look beyond the bottom line of the spreadsheet to the biological activity on the land as key measures of success.

Written by agricultural journalist Brian DeVore, the book is based on interviews he has conducted at farms, wildlife refuges, laboratories, test plots, and gardens over the past twenty-five years. He documents innovations in cover cropping, managed rotational grazing, perennial polyculture, and integrated pest management. His accounts provide insight into the impacts regenerative farming methods can have on wildlife, water, landscape, soils, and rural communities and suggest ways all of us can support wildly successful farmers.

In this book, Peter Bernhardt takes us on a grand tour of the botanical realm, weaving engaging descriptions of the lovely shapes and intriguing habits of flowering plants with considerations of broader questions, such as why there are only six basic shapes of flowers and why the orchid family is so numerous and so bizarre. Everyone from amateur naturalists and gardeners to plant scientists will find Wily Violets and Underground Orchids a lively guide to botanical lore.

Lively, readable nature writing. As she details several treks through the beautiful, rocky canyons, [Zwinger's] feel for the animals and plants native to this arid region enhances the precise sketches which punctuate the text. Readers interested in ancient Indian cultures of the Southwest will also find fascinating reading, as Zwinger describes their campsites and lifestyles. —Library Journal

            In this sometimes humorous and sometimes poignant collection of essays, Dave Books celebrates a time-honored connection to the land and the hard-earned hunting rewards of an outdoor life. Through these essays, readers tag along on adventures in the forests of Wisconsin and Minnesota, the fields of Iowa and North Dakota, the prairies of eastern Montana and Nebraska, the mountains of western Montana and Idaho, and the deserts of Arizona. Books also writes of the game birds that hunters pursue and admire: grouse, quail, woodcock, doves, chukars, Hungarian partridge, and waterfowl.

            A heartfelt tribute to the freedom and magic of the hunt, Wingbeats and Heartbeats is a book that has much to say about work and fun, success and failure, and the sights, sounds, and smells of a day afield.

In Winterkill, Todd Davis, who, according to Gray’s Sporting Journal, “observes nature in the great tradition of Robert Frost, James Dickey, and Jim Harrison,” offers an unflinching portrait of the cycles of birth and death in the woods and streams of Pennsylvania, while never leaving behind the tragedies and joys of the human world. Fusing narrative and lyrical impulses, in his fifth book of poetry Davis seeks to address the living world through a lens of transformation. In poems of praise and sorrow that draw upon the classical Chinese rivers-and-mountains tradition, Davis chronicles the creatures of forest and sky, of streams and lakes, moving through cycles of fecundity and lack, paying witness to the fundamental processes of the earth that offer the possibility of regeneration, even resurrection. Meditations on subjects from native brook trout to the ants that scramble up a compost pile; from a young diabetic girl burning trash in a barrel to a neighbor’s denial of global warming; from an examination of the bone structure in a rabbit’s skull to a depiction of a boy who can name every bird by its far-off song, these are poems that both celebrate and lament the perfectly imperfect world that sustains us.

"I'm embarrassed to say I thought I knew anything substantial about Wisconsin agriculture or its history before I read this book. 'Wisconsin Agriculture' should be required reading in history classes from high school to the collegiate level. It makes me thankful that Jerry Apps has such a sense of commitment to Wisconsin's agricultural heritage--and to getting the story right." --Pam Jahnke, Farm Director, Wisconsin Farm Report Radio

Wisconsin has been a farming state from its very beginnings. And though it's long been known as "the Dairy State," it produces much more than cows, milk, and cheese. In fact, Wisconsin is one of the most diverse agricultural states in the nation.

The story of farming in Wisconsin is rich and diverse as well, and the threads of that story are related and intertwined. In this long-awaited volume, celebrated rural historian Jerry Apps examines everything from the fundamental influences of landscape and weather to complex matters of ethnic and pioneer settlement patterns, changing technology, agricultural research and education, and government regulations and policies. Along with expected topics, such as the cranberry industry and artisan cheesemaking, "Wisconsin Agriculture" delves into beef cattle and dairy goats, fur farming and Christmas trees, maple syrup and honey, and other specialty crops, including ginseng, hemp, cherries, sugar beets, mint, sphagnum moss, flax, and hops. Apps also explores new and rediscovered farming endeavors, from aquaculture to urban farming to beekeeping, and discusses recent political developments, such as the 2014 Farm Bill and its ramifications. And he looks to the future of farming, contemplating questions of ethical growing practices, food safety, sustainability, and the potential effects of climate change.

Featuring first-person accounts from the settlement era to today, along with more than 200 captivating photographs, "Wisconsin Agriculture" breathes life into the facts and figures of 150 years of farming history and provides compelling insights into the state's agricultural past, present, and future.

     In this companion to his popular Wisconsin State Parks book, Scott Spoolman journeys to the distant past to examine the origins of Wisconsin’s lakes, rivers, waterfalls, and wetlands. In his accessible storytelling style, Spoolman details the natural forces—volcanic eruptions, ancient seas, erosion, glaciers, and more—that created these bodies of water and the resulting habitats for the state’s flora, fauna, and early peoples.

With Nature provides new ways to think about our relationship with nature in today’s technologically mediated culture. Warwick Mules makes original connections with German critical philosophy and French poststructuralism in order to examine the effects of technology on our interactions with the natural world. In so doing, the author proposes a new way of thinking about the eco-self in terms of a careful sharing of the world with both human and non human beings. With Nature ultimately argues for a poetics  of everyday life that affirms the place of the human-nature relation as a creative and productive site for ecological self-renewal and redirection.

A central thinker on the question of the animal in continental thought, Élisabeth de Fontenay moves in this volume from Jacques Derrida’s uneasily intimate writing on animals to a passionate frontal engagement with political and ethical theory as it has been applied to animals—along with a stinging critique of the work of Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri as well as with other “utilitarian” philosophers of animal–human relations.

Humans and animals are different from one another. To conflate them is to be intellectually sentimental. And yet, from our position of dominance, do we not owe them more than we often acknowledge? In the searching first chapter on Derrida, she sets out “three levels of deconstruction” that are “testimony to the radicalization and shift of that philosopher’s argument: a strategy through the animal, exposition to an animal or to this animal, and compassion toward animals.” For Fontenay, Derrida’s writing is particularly far-reaching when it comes to thinking about animals, and she suggests many other possible philosophical resources including Adorno, Leibniz, and Merleau-Ponty.

Fontenay is at her most compelling in describing philosophy’s ongoing indifference to animal life—shading into savagery, underpinned by denial—and how attempts to exclude the animal from ethical systems have in fact demeaned humanity. But Fontenay’s essays carry more than philosophical significance. Without Offending Humans reveals a careful and emotionally sensitive thinker who explores the unfolding of humans’ assessments of their relationship to animals—and the consequences of these assessments for how we define ourselves.

In Without a Tear Mark H. Bernstein begins with one of our most common and cherished moral beliefs: that it is wrong to intentionally and gratuitously inflict harm on the innocent. Over the course of the book, he shows how this apparently innocuous commitment requires that we drastically revise many of our most common practices involving nonhuman animals.
 
Most people who write about our ethical obligations concerning animals base their arguments on emotional appeals or contentious philosophical assumptions; Bernstein, however, argues from reasons but carries little theoretical baggage. He considers the issues in a religious context, where he finds that Judaism in particular has the resources to ground moral obligations to animals. Without a Tear also makes novel use of feminist ethics to add to the case for drawing animals more closely into our ethical world.
 
Bernstein details the realities of factory farms, animal-based research, and hunting fields, and contrasting these chilling facts with our moral imperatives clearly shows the need for fundamental changes to some of our most basic animal institutions. The tightly argued, provocative claims in Without a Tear will be an eye-opening experience for animal lovers, scholars, and people of good faith everywhere. 
 

The interactions between apex predators and their prey are some of the most awesome and meaningful in nature—displays of strength, endurance, and a deep coevolutionary history. And there is perhaps no apex predator more impressive and important in its hunting—or more infamous, more misjudged—than the wolf. Because of wolves’ habitat, speed, and general success at evading humans, researchers have faced great obstacles in studying their natural hunting behaviors. The first book to focus explicitly on wolf hunting of wild prey, Wolves on the Hunt seeks to fill these gaps in our knowledge and understanding.

Combining behavioral data, thousands of hours of original field observations, research in the literature, a wealth of illustrations, and—in the e-book edition and online—video segments from cinematographer Robert K. Landis, the authors create a compelling and complex picture of these hunters. The wolf is indeed an adept killer, able to take down prey much larger than itself. While adapted to hunt primarily hoofed animals, a wolf—or especially a pack of wolves—can kill individuals of just about any species. But even as wolves help drive the underlying rhythms of the ecosystems they inhabit, their evolutionary prowess comes at a cost: wolves spend one-third of their time hunting—the most time consuming of all wolf activities—and success at the hunt only comes through traveling long distances, persisting in the face of regular failure, detecting and taking advantage of deficiencies in the physical condition of individual prey, and through ceaseless trial and error, all while risking injury or death.  

By describing and analyzing the behaviors wolves use to hunt and kill various wild prey—including deer, moose, caribou, elk, Dall sheep, mountain goats, bison, musk oxen, arctic hares, beavers, and others—Wolves on the Hunt provides a revelatory portrait of one of nature’s greatest hunters.

Wolves are some of the world's most charismatic and controversial animals, capturing the imaginations of their friends and foes alike. Highly intelligent and adaptable, they hunt and play together in close-knit packs, sometimes roaming over hundreds of square miles in search of food. Once teetering on the brink of extinction across much of the United States and Europe, wolves have made a tremendous comeback in recent years, thanks to legal protection, changing human attitudes, and efforts to reintroduce them to suitable habitats in North America.

As wolf populations have rebounded, scientific studies of them have also flourished. But there hasn't been a systematic, comprehensive overview of wolf biology since 1970. In Wolves, many of the world's leading wolf experts provide state-of-the-art coverage of just about everything you could want to know about these fascinating creatures. Individual chapters cover wolf social ecology, behavior, communication, feeding habits and hunting techniques, population dynamics, physiology and pathology, molecular genetics, evolution and taxonomy, interactions with nonhuman animals such as bears and coyotes, reintroduction, interactions with humans, and conservation and recovery efforts. The book discusses both gray and red wolves in detail and includes information about wolves around the world, from the United States and Canada to Italy, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Israel, India, and Mongolia. Wolves is also extensively illustrated with black and white photos, line drawings, maps, and fifty color plates.

Unrivalled in scope and comprehensiveness, Wolves will become the definitive resource on these extraordinary animals for scientists and amateurs alike.

Animal rights is one of the fastest growing social movements today. Women greatly outnumber men as activists, yet surprisingly, little has been written about the importance and impact of gender on the movement. Women and the Animal Rights Movement combats stereotypes of women activists as mere sentimentalists by exploring the political and moral character of their advocacy on behalf of animals.

Emily Gaarder analyzes the politics of gender in the movement, incorporating in-depth interviews with women and participant observation of animal rights organizations, conferences, and protests to describe struggles over divisions of labor and leadership. Controversies over PETA advertising campaigns that rely on women's sexuality to "sell" animal rights illustrate how female crusaders are asked to prioritize the cause of animals above all else. Gaarder underscores the importance of a paradigm shift in the animal liberation movement, one that seeks a more integrated vision of animal rights that connects universally to other issues--gender, race, economics, and the environment--highlighting that many women activists recognize and are motivated by the connection between the oppression of animals and other social injustices.

Compared to the obvious complexity of animals, plants at a glance seem relatively simple in form. But that simplicity is deceptive: the plants around us are the result of millennia of incredible evolutionary adaptations that have allowed them to survive, and thrive, under wildly changing conditions and in remarkably specific ecological niches. Much of this innovation, however, is invisible to the naked eye.
            With Wonders of the Plant Kingdom, the naked eye gets an unforgettable boost. A stunning collaboration between science and art, this gorgeous book presents hundreds of images of plants taken with a scanning electron microscope and hand-colored by artist Rob Kesseler to reveal the awe-inspiring adaptations all around us. The surface of a peach—with its hairs, or trichomes, and sunken stomata, or breathing pores—emerges from these pages in microscopic detail. The dust-like seeds of the smallest cactus species in the world, the Blossfeldia liliputana—which measures just twelve millimeters fully grown—explode here with form, color, and character, while the flower bud of a kaffir lime, cross-sectioned, reveals the complex of a flower bud with the all-important pistil in the center.
            Accompanying these extraordinary images are up-to-date explanations of the myriad ways that these plants have ensured their own survival—and, by proxy, our own. Gardeners and science buffs alike will marvel at this wholly new perspective on the world of plant diversity.

Native orchids are increasingly threatened by pressure from population growth and development but, nonetheless, still present a welcome surprise to observant hikers in every state and province. Compiled and illustrated by long-time orchid specialist Paul Martin Brown, this pocket guide to the woodland and bog rein orchids forms part of a series that will cover all the wild orchids of the continental United States and Canada.     
       Brown provides a description, general distributional information, time of flowering, and habitat requirements for each species as well as a complete list of hybrids and the many different growth and color forms that can make identifying orchids so challenging. For the woodland and bog rein orchids, which make up some of the most delicate and subtly colored of all wild orchids, he includes information on nineteen species, four subspecies and varieties, and seven hybrids.
      The genus Platanthera is the largest genus of orchids to be found in North America north of Mexico; the woodland and bog rein orchids comprise a significant group of species found throughout much of temperate U.S. and Canada. The luminously green rein orchids, so-called because of the resemblance of some of the flowers to the reins used on horses, are especially abundant in rich woodlands, wetlands, and bogs in the more northerly and cooler habitats. Most are easy to identify based upon their general appearance, range, and time of flowering. Answering three simple questions—when, where, and how does it grow?—and comparing the living plants with the striking photos in this backpack-friendly laminated guide and the information in the simple key should enable both professional and amateur naturalists to achieve the satisfaction of identifying a specific orchid.

A manual to identify trees and shrubs in winter when the lack of leaves, fruits, and flowers makes them least identifiable, Woody Plants in Winter has become a classic for naturalists, botanists, gardeners, and hobbyists. Earl L. Core and Nell P. Ammons, both West Virginia University Professors of distinction, originally published this book with The Boxwood Press in 1958. Now in its fifteenth printing, the title has come home to West Virginia University Press.