Much of the story takes place in the land of my own journeying, and I followed the story on my topographical maps. After reading I felt a tremendous urge to go there, to see the land Lundrigan writes about. I didn't. The journey outlined is not one of the physical, but of the spirit, impossible to recreate, but totally able to be experienced within one's soul on a brisk fall day.
This is absolutely the best book I have read on the spirit of the hunt. I recommend it to absolutley anyone who has experienced the thrill of flushing a covey and not known how to explain it; Lundrigan explains it perfectly.
In particular, I liked some of the later chapters when Ted talks about hunting with friends or hunting over the ground of a pair of local farmers.
Crosswords are America's most popular word game. Created by master puzzler Richard Manchester, this new collection contains more than 200 intriguing puzzles — including diagramless and oversized super-stumpers — that cover a wide variety of themes, subjects, and styles. An ideal companion for rainy evenings and quiet mornings, the puzzles, which range from easy to intermediate to difficult to very difficult, challenge and delight crossword fans of all ages and abilities.
This riveting history of the formation of Britain’s Special Air Services (SAS)—and its activities through the last battles of World War II—reads like a novel. Written by a distinguished war journalist, it is the first account of the SAS officially sanctioned by the veterans and based on their unique first-hand testimony. More than 60 men who were there at the start provided personal documents on founder David Stirling and the organization he turned into the stuff of legend.
Homer-Dixon is very good when he tackles particular problems, and his interests are wide-ranging, moving from the psychology of an airplane cockpit during a crisis to the depletion of the world's fisheries to differences between the minds of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. He also dredges up fine details. Did you know that "the largest human-made structure on the planet is not an Egyptian pyramid or a hydroelectric dam but the Staten Island Fresh Kills landfill near New York City, which has a depth of one hundred meters and an area of nine square kilometers"? There's plenty to argue with on these pages, and some readers will find Homer-Dixon's tendency to write in the first person a bit self-indulgent. Yet fans of big-think books like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, David Landes's The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, and Robert Wright's The Moral Animal will find The Ingenuity Gap riveting. --John J. Miller
. Shirley MacLaine anyone? Everything to him is a metaphor for the human predicament: complexity, high speed, crises, unpredictability, confusion, despair, ad nauseum. (Maybe the author needs to read a book on chaos theory.) For those with an epistemology of reason, there is nothing to be learned from this treatise. For those who are as despondent as the author, well the good news for you guys is that life is utterly hopeless.
Probably one of the best scholastic works I've ever read.......2004-02-10
I grabbed this book in a duty free store in Asia and read it all the way back to the US. Needless to say that despite it being an academic book, it was very engrossing and interesting to read. After the first few chapters, I felt both helpless that we're moving at such a pace and have constructed a society where our ingenuity for solving problems is far less than the complexity of the problems and yet optimistic that someone brilliant was able to write a book of this caliber and it was fairly understandable. At times I found it hard to believe I was reading an academic book because it was just a very well written book (and highly researched with dozens of pages of endnotes).
I would highly recommend this book to thinkers and public policy students and professionals and to anyone who would appreciate a better understanding of the complexity of the world around them.
An angry beast of a book!.......2003-03-16
Thomas Homer-Dixon states his purpose in the Prologue:
"In this book I'll argue that the complexity, unpredictability, and pace of events in our world, and the severity of global environmental stress, are soaring. If our societies are to manage their affairs and improve their well-being they will need more ingenuity - that is, more ideas for solving their technical and social problems. But societies, whether rich or poor, can't always supply the ingenuity they need at the right times and places. As a result, some face an ingenuity gap: a shortfall between their rapidly rising need for ingenuity and their inadequate supply."
After reading him, I believe him. This book is very convincing, and it is (what seems to me) an unbiased look at the real situation facing our planet not only environmentally, but socially, and economically.
Homer-Dixon has travelled the world, exploring the situations that give rise to the "ingenuity gap". Partial exposure to the world (Western prosperity etc.), can lead us to adopt misinformed and unrealistically optimistic conclusions about how we will manage future difficulties. This book takes off the rose-colored glasses, exposing us to some harsh UV rays of reality!
Can the world be sustained by solar energy?
This books says NO!
In 1960 the income of the richest 20% of the world's population was 30 times that of the poorest 20%. In 1998, it was 82 times greater.
Let this book educate you to the coming problems that are likely to result from this increasing (and unchecked) economic disparity. Wow, its sobering.
All of this is startling, but nowhere is the ingenuity gap more disturbing than in the problems related to the environment. There are existing challenges that we can barely understand, let alone address. We've all heard about the greenhouse effect. Blah,blah, blah! Right? Ozone layer, big hole... big deal! Am I right?
Well, when we say that this factor could change the earth's overall temperature by 2 degrees, we should remember that the difference between today's climate and the coldest period of the last ice age, is only about 5 degrees!
I mean, get out the Gore-Tex! This is serious stuff.
Population?
Between 1960 and the year 2000, the population of the world has doubled! Currently, if everyone were spread out across the habitable land of the earth, we would all be within calling distance of each other (about 100 metres apart, in every direction). This is sobering.
Homer-Dixon travels the world within the pages of this book. This guy is really collecting the Air-Miles! He lets us tag along: through North, Central, and South America, Europe, Asia, India. The reader might as well be a piece of carry-on luggage! He puts together a very eloquently written synopsis of the challenges that mankind faces. There are portions of this book, that when one realizes were written prior to Sept. 11, 2001... are just downright PROPHETIC!
The book is divided into four parts/sections, which are presented as questions. I close my review by answering these questions with my newly acquired Homer-Dixonian knowledge:
1. How Are We Changing Our Relationship To The World?
Dramatically! Between 1/3 and 1/2 of the planet's land area has been fundamentally transformed by our actions. (p.54) Let's not even get into what we have been doing to the oceans! (But he does).
2. Do We Need More Ingenuity To Solve The Problems Of The Future?
Yes! If we were to know the true state of our situation, we would feel the sort of panic one feels when strapped into an out-of-control jet liner on its way to a crash-landing. (I'm extrapolating/summarizing here).
3. Can We Supply The Ingenuity We Need?
Probably not. It is theoretically possible, but unlikely, given the current rate of gap widening set against the boundaried limitation of our brains. It is much easier to create certain problems than solve them.
4. What Does The Ingenuity Gap Mean For Our Future?
It means we ought to be in favor of getting our act together.
So... not exactly a book to stuff in Grandma's Christmas stocking over the mantle this December... but one that every thinking, concerned, person-that-thinks-they'll-be-around-for-a-while ought to read!
My favorite line?
"Climate is an angry beast, and we are poking it with sticks."
Over-rated, but.......2003-01-12
Don't get me wrong, I think this is a good book. I'd give it 5 stars for social relevance, and 3 stars for 'all things being equal'. But I'm giving it only 2 here because it was so highly recommended by the folks at the bookstore where I bought it.
Given the kudos, at the store and inside the cover, I was expecting something really cutting edge, a landmark work of sorts. As for as those books go, this book is truly subpar.
My problem is that I learned all this before, before even those times when the 'environment' because trendy in the liberal arts. My undergrad degree was in International Studies, with minors in Economics, Political Science and Sociology, and as such, this book reads more like a review for me than anything else.
This would be a great book for somebody at the sophomore level of liberal arts education. It's basically a 200-level read; a bit too far ahead for those who don't know their micros from their macros, yet far too superficial on any given topic to qualify for upper level material. It would be great for those so-called practical types - our business and vocational types - who have never thought much or very deeply about those 'global' issues they hear discussed on CNN daily and Sunday morning whenever a group of DCers gather somewhere in Washington and indulge themselves in what I call 'smart talk'. As one who has lived and breathed this kind of material for many years, I can attest to the fact that this is stuff that a lot of people, most in fact, do need to gain exposure to.
I have no strong criticisms of the book; I just think it's overrated. Even the central thesis of an ingenuity gap, (while novel and expounded upon in a book that's basically as long as a novel itself), is hardly original nor especially clever. Anyone close to these subjects invariably asks questions relating the books core: Do we have the ability to deal with the messes we're creating in time to undo the damage we're doing? Do we have the will? Why do I invoke the term 'clever': because anyone close to academia knows that professors are constantly trying to find some new spin or twist to call their own. I'm not accusing the author of that kind of narcissism here - I don't think that's his intention at all, actually - but given the pervasiveness of those kinds of attempts in the world of social theorists, his play on the 'ingenuity gap' concept does beg comparisons. Qualitatively speaking, I find this particular innovation very average.
If there was one thing I didn't like about the book it would be its introspective quality, eg, 'Seeing Las Vegas made me think of the world at large.' 'Seeing those buildings at Canary Warf made me think of the world at large.' Some of this would be fine but I thought this was overdone. Then again, it actually suits the mindset of the readers for whom I think this book is most well-suited: college sophomores who are in the process of mind expansion, a process which is largely sustained by intellectual epiphanies.
Ultimately though, these criticisms could be rightly regarded as unfair and petty. There's no doubting that this book has immense relevance; it touches on a subject that can hardly be exceeded in terms of overall importance. Perhaps the most relevant aspect of it is the author's sense of realism: without saying it explicitly he leads us to a conclusion which any sane and truly honest person must come to. We're biting off way more than we can chew, and it really might be too late to undo what will turn out to be some major and permanent damage.
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- More Important Today than When It Was Written
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Environmental Conflict in Alaska
Ken Ross
Manufacturer: University Press of Colorado
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ASIN: 087081589X |
Book Description
In Environmental Conflict in Alaska, Ken Ross presents a detailed yet readable account of the salient environmental controversies of Alaska's statehood period. As "the last frontier," Alaska lured unusually fervent devotees of the exploitation ethic who sought to make quick profits or recreate the pioneer experience in a land of minimal regulations. The state also attracted passionate environmentalists-enthralled by natural beauty-who found increasing support from a public anxious about pollution and resource depletion.
At statehood, Alaska awaited apportionment among state, federal, and Native claimants. A unique mix of conditions, Ross maintains, precipitated high-stakes, often dramatic battles over whales, wolves, and other wildlife as well as the lands and waters where they roamed. The conflicts helped shape the national environmental agenda and generated a vibrant environmental community in Alaska. They doomed some destructive projects, mitigated others, and gave birth to more open, interdisciplinary, and international models of natural resource management.
Ross maintains that over the years, the conflicts strengthened principles of government and corporate accountability, public participation in management decision, and sustainable use of natural resources. At the millennium, this leaves Alaska a chance to retain much of the pristine quality regarded by so many as its primary value. Sure to be the standard account for years to come, Environmental Conflict in Alaska documents one state's fateful trials surrounding its own irreplaceable portion of our nation's great natural heritage.
Customer Reviews:
More Important Today than When It Was Written.......2001-03-08
Since Alaska became a state in 1959, it has largely been ignored by the continental forty-eight states. The largest state in the Union, it sits quietly, noticed primarily by travelers who are called to its rugged natural beauty, and by investors and workers who are lured by the promise of oil or gold or fish. Over the past four decades, environmentalists have fought to protect whales and wolves and ecosystems from pollution and destruction, while businesspeople have struggled to find and make use of the abundant resources Alaska offers.
Inevitably, conflicts have arisen-these two groups have mutually exclusive needs and wants for the State, and they have been equally passionate about supporting their causes. ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICT IN ALASKA traces the history of these conflicts, and shows how Alaska's developing environmental movements and regulations have influenced the rest of the United States.
The book is readable, and full of fascinating stories of beleaguered officials, and plucky citizens who learn to form effective organizations. There are heroes and villains, but the tone is always respectful and fair. It is all grounded in solid research, and the stories are supported with dozens of helpful photographs, maps and tables. Ross has done his homework, and the result is a thorough and reliable study.
For many young citizens of the United States today, the debate over George W. Bush's plan to permit drilling for oil in Alaska is a brand new debate. My college students were born well after the Alaska Pipeline was laid, and the Exxon Valdez spill happened while they were in elementary school. For the most part, they picture Alaska as a pristine wilderness, dotted here and there with isolated log cabins. It's so vast as to be limitless, and they don't understand why some people make a fuss over poking a few holes in one corner of it. ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICT IN ALASKA will do its most important work if it reaches this generation of readers, providing them a sense of the history and the community that has brought us to today's debate.
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Governing the Tongass: National Forest conflict and political decision making.: An article from: Environmental Law
Martin Nie
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
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ASIN: B000GFRG24
Release Date: 2006-12-14 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Environmental Law, published by Thomson Gale on March 22, 2006. The length of the article is 55271 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
From the author: The Article examines one of the most enduring and intractable environmental conflicts in the United States: forest management on southeast Alaska's Tongass National Forest. It analyzes the Tongass conflict by asking three broad questions: 1) what factors drive this conflict, 2) how has it been dealt with in the past, and 3) how might it be dealt with in the future? The Tongass is used as a springboard to investigate more inclusive issues about public lands governance--many of its lessons are applicable elsewhere. Conflicts over the Tongass are driven by multiple factors, from overlapping and problematic statutory language to adversarial processes. The article highlights how political disagreement, and the nature of public land law, move conflict about forest management onto alternative decision-making paths--resources planning, administrative appeals, executive involvement, appropriations, science, and litigation take up where Congress left off. Though often beneficial, many of these alternative processes are not well-designed for conflict resolution and problem solving, The analysis demonstrates that changes to these venues and processes will likely rechannel, rather than resolve, the underlying conflicts because of the stakes involved and their irrepressible nature. Nonetheless, part of the Article is devoted to sketching a few possible solutions drawing heavily from intriguing ideas and developments in public lands management. In this context, the article briefly outlines legislative reform, public participation and collaboration, and community forestry.
Citation Details
Title: Governing the Tongass: National Forest conflict and political decision making.
Author: Martin Nie
Publication:
Environmental Law (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 36
Issue: 2
Page: 385(96)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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