Just Before the Origin presents the theory of evolution through natural selection as it was developed by Russel Wallace and published in several essays written from 1848 through 1858, before Darwin’s Origin of the Species in 1889. And yet, Russel Wallace is almost unknown. John Langdon Brooks acts as a scientific detective as he reveals Wallace’s theories and compares the insights of both men in this fascinating study.
The theory of evolution by natural selection did not spring fully formed and unprecedented from the brain of Charles Darwin. The idea of evolution had been around, in various guises, since the time of Ancient Greece. And nor did theorizing about evolution stop with what Daniel Dennett called "Darwin’s dangerous idea." In this riveting new book, bestselling science writers John and Mary Gribbin explore the history of the idea of evolution, showing how Darwin's theory built on what went before and how it was developed in the twentieth century, through an understanding of genetics and the biochemical basis of evolution, into the so-called "modern synthesis" and beyond. Darwin deserves his recognition as the primary proponent of the idea of natural selection, but as the authors show, his contribution was one link in a chain that extends back into antiquity and is still being forged today.
Clear, provocative, and persuasive, Ever Green is an inspiring call to action to conserve Earth’s irreplaceable wild woods, counteract climate change, and save the planet. Five stunningly large forests remain on Earth: the Taiga, extending from the Pacific Ocean across all of Russia and far-northern Europe; the North American boreal, ranging from Alaska’s Bering seacoast to Canada’s Atlantic shore; the Amazon, covering almost the entirety of South America’s bulge; the Congo, occupying parts of six nations in Africa’s wet equatorial middle; and the island forest of New Guinea, twice the size of California. These megaforests are vital to preserving global biodiversity, thousands of cultures, and a stable climate, as economist John W. Reid and celebrated biologist Thomas E. Lovejoy argue convincingly in Ever Green. Megaforests serve an essential role in decarbonizing the atmosphere—the boreal alone holds 1.8 trillion metric tons of carbon in its deep soils and peat layers, 190 years’ worth of global emissions at 2019 levels—and saving them is the most immediate and affordable large-scale solution to our planet’s most formidable ongoing crisis. Reid and Lovejoy offer practical solutions to address the biggest challenges these forests face, from vastly expanding protected areas, to supporting Indigenous forest stewards, to planning smarter road networks. In gorgeous prose that evokes the majesty of these ancient forests along with the people and animals who inhabit them, Reid and Lovejoy take us on an exhilarating global journey.
This third edition of Reconstructing Quaternary Environments has been completely revised and updated to provide a new account of the history and scale of environmental changes during the Quaternary. The evidence is extremely diverse ranging from landforms and sediments to fossil assemblages and geochemical data, and includes new data from terrestrial, marine and ice-core records. Dating methods are described and evaluated, while the principles and practices of Quaternary stratigraphy are also discussed. The volume concludes with a new chapter which considers some of the key questions about the nature, causes and consequences of global climatic and environmental change over a range of temporal scales. This synthesis builds on the methods and approaches described earlier in the book to show how a number of exciting ideas that have emerged over the last two decades are providing new insights into the operation of the global earth-ocean-atmosphere system, and are now central to many areas of contemporary Quaternary research. This comprehensive and dynamic textbook is richly illustrated throughout with full-colour figures and photographs. The book will be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and professionals in Earth Science, Environmental Science, Physical Geography, Geology, Botany, Zoology, Ecology, Archaeology and Anthropology
This volume is based to a large extent on the understanding of biosemiotic literary criticism as a semiotic-model-making enterprise. For Jurij Lotman and Thomas A. Sebeok, “nature writing is essentially a model of the relationship between humans and nature” (Timo Maran); biosemiotic literary criticism, itself a form of nature writing and thus itself an ecological-niche-making enterprise, will be considered to be a model of modeling, a model of nature naturing. Modes and models of analysis drawn from Thomas A. Sebeok and Marcel Danesi’s Forms of Meaning: Modeling Systems Theory and Semiotic Analysis as well as from Timo Maran’s work on “modeling the environment in literature,” Edwina Taborsky’s writing on Peircean semiosis, and, of course, Jesper Hoffmeyer’s formative work in biosemiotics are among the most important organizing elements for this volume.
Thanks to DVD, a great number of silent films and early talkies are now available for home viewing. In fact, so many of these wonderful movies can now be purchased, rented or borrowed by classic motion picture fans that an up-to-date reference work to the best (and the middling and the worst) has become essential. In this comprehensive guide, fans and enthusiasts will find not only familiar titles like Lon Chaney's "Phantom of the Opera" or Douglas Fairbanks' "Thief of Bagdad" or Harold Lloyd's "Safety Last"; but the less familiar "Down to the Sea in Ships" (starring a young Clara Bow), "Evangeline" (Dolores Del Rio), "Stella Dallas" (Belle Bennett), "Monsieur Beaucaire" (Rudolph Valentino), Ford Sterling's "The Show-Off," and Al Jolson's "Big Boy," to mention just a few of the many hundreds of titles detailed in this massive book. 440 pages of insightful text! Over 110 wonderful photos!
A guide to 178 classic Hollywood movies from the 1920s and early 1930s, now available on DVD releases from both major and independent USA companies. These films feature both stars like Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Clara Bow, Lon Chaney, Louise Brooks, Charles Chaplin, Joan Crawford, Colleen Moore, Harold Lloyd, Gary Cooper, William Powell, Greta Garbo, Rudolph Valentino, Norma Shearer, Buster Keaton, Shirley Temple, Barbara Stanwyck, Ronald Colman, Lillian Gish, Marion Davies, and Wallace Beery, who are still top favorites with movie fans, as well as players like Laura La Plante, Charles Ray, Alice Terry, Pola Negri, Mary Miles Minter, Rod La Rocque, and Mabel Poulton who were also extraordinarily popular in their day. The book is illustrated with 105 well-chosen black-and-white photos from the author's private collection.
120 movies are detailed in this 8th book in the "Hollywood Classics" series. The movies range from marvels of special effects like "King Kong" to the first sound-on-disc feature, "Don Juan". Charismatic film stars like Humphrey Bogart, Jeanette MacDonald, Bing Crosby, Deanna Durbin, John Wayne, Errol Flynn, Eddie Cantor, Lana Turner, Alan Ladd, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, Kay Francis, John Garfield, Jane Powell and Roy Rogers enlivened many of these classic films.
French's unsurpassed Gazetteer of the State of New York is a complete history & description of every county, city, town, village, & locality in New York. But more than that it is a record of the founders & early settlers of practically every locality in the state-an astonishing achievement & the reason that the book has remained among the top genealogical reference works for New York State. Of course, no single person could have generated all this information on his own, so under the supervision of J.H. French "surveyors & agents were instructed to visit every city, town, & village, to search records, examine documents, consult the best living, printed, & manuscript authorities, & to make returns to the general office of all the reliable matter & information obtained." Thus was created an accurate & comprehensive gazetteer, with descriptions of each county, city, town, & village arranged according to a uniform plan (of more value today to the genealogist than ever before). Information provided for each locality includes founding (& founders), early settlements (& settlers), historical sketch to the time of writing, loading institutions, schools, & churches, prominent & representative citizens, stories of general & local interest, statistics from state censuses, & names of every natural & man made topographical feature. Preceding this core part of the Gazetteer is a full 150-page survey of the government, topography, & institutions of the state of New York. Outstanding as the Gazetteer is, its usefulness as a research tool is severely limited by the lack of an index to the thousands of narnes that appear in the text & footnotes. But this reprint edition puts an end to this unfortunate situation, as it incorporates Frank Place's Index of Names, a 16000-name index first published in 1962 by the Cortland County Historical Society. In 1969 the Society issued a second printing of the Index incorporating a "Supplement" of additions & corrections, & a third printing in 1983 included a "Supplementary Index to Place Names." With the Society's permission, we have incorporated the final index edition of 1983 with our reprint of the Gazetteer, making it the most complete & the most useful edition ever published.
Vols. 2-9: Edited by W. Edwin Hemphill; v. 10: Edited by Clyde N. Wilson and W. Edwin Hemphill; v. 11-18, 20-22: Edited by Clyde N. Wilson; v. 23-27 edited by Clyde N. Wilson and Shirley Bright CookVols. 10-15, 22: Published by the University of South Carolina Press for the South Carolina Dept. of Archives and History and the South Caroliniana Society; v. 23-28 published by the University of South Carolina Press Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
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