Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past

Book Description

The first-born son of his generation, Peter Balakian grew up in a close, extended family, sheltered by 1950s and '60s New Jersey suburbia and immersed in an all-American boyhood defined by rock 'n' roll, adolescent pranks, and a passion for the New York Yankees that he shared with his beloved grandmother. But beneath this sunny world lay the dark specter of the trauma his family and ancestors had experienced--the Turkish government's extermination of more than a million Armenians in 1915, including many of Balakian's relatives, in the century's first genocide.

In elegant, moving prose, Black Dog of Fate charts Balakian's growth and personal awakening to the facts of his family's history and the horrifying aftermath of the Turkish government's continued campaign to cover up one of the worst crimes ever committed against humanity. In unearthing the secrets of a family's past and how they affect its present, Black Dog of Fate gives fresh meaning to the story of what it means to be an American.

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The author of four volumes of verse, Peter Balakian writes with the precision of a poet and the lyricism of a privileged suburban child in 1950s New Jersey. He is shadowed by his relatives' carefully guarded memories of past trauma: the brutal Turkish extermination in 1915 of more than a million Armenians, including most of his maternal grandmother's family. Balakian seamlessly interweaves personal and historical material to depict one young man's reclamation of his heritage and to scathingly indict the political forces that conspired to sweep under the rug the 20th century's first genocide.

Customer Reviews:

Sad story, but a real one.......2006-12-20

The story of the author's grandmother is the same as the story my grandmother told me. Yes, her entire family was killed by the Turks. As a small child, I attended the Armenain school where all of us would compare stories as to how our grandparents survived the death marches. It is a very nice story that tells about history, a history that is kept hidden for many political reasons. Until the world fully ackhowledges what happened to the Armenians, and punishes the Turks, many more genocides and attorcities will take place. After all, if the Turks can get away with the torture, killing, rapes, and genocide (while countries such as the United States let them get away with it), then other similar regimes will committ similar attorcities.
I storngly recommend this book.

"Black Dogof Fate" Is a Fuzzy Grey Beast at Best .......2005-05-24

Peter Balakian's book, "Black Dog of Fate," tries to be too many things
and sadly fails at many of them. In essence, it is an attempt to tell a
sort of Armenian-American story which I find not overly interesting or
compelling. I wish the author had done a bit more in-depth work to learn
about his people and their rich heritage before embarking to represent it
or explain it or share it with non-Armenians, for he has much more to absorb
and understand himself first. I find the Armenianness in this book to be
tentative, unengaged and unconvincing. Pity, since the author seems to
have a lot of passion in his pursuit of other aspects of his life such as
football, the Yankees, modern poetry, and exposing Turkish attempts to
buy (among others) Princeton professors to act as mouthpieces giving
legitimacy to their vile historical revisionism, practiced by the
"modern" Turkish state and its organs.

It seems to be all the rage these days to elevate personal histories and
family testimonials into the realm of fiction and novels. The "I" and "we"
and "us" occupy center stage and the reader is invited to enjoy the
intimacy that must surely be in place via this artifice. But is it realy?
Since in order to make this legitimate, the writer must distance himself,
at least initially, from all this old world exotica, and like the reader,
question their validity or relevance in present day North American
society. What are all these old world, old fashioned ghosts and traditions?,
is the first cry of writer and reader alike, only, ofcourse, to be followed
by a sharp bank turn where the writer steers the satisfied and in-place
reader towards the opposite viewpoint wherein *this* culture and *this*
lifestyle become suspect in light of some tentative spotting of cultural
wealth that has been traded in or abandoned in order to swim swiftly towards
materialistic, memory-free, self-redefining, "comfort" seeking and buying
mores.

In the Balakian tale, one encounters suburbia instead of substance,
worldly goods acquisition instead of deep roots that steady the soul,
immediate family and relatives running away from their true identities either
towards surrealism, the abstract and unemotional, or else towards medicine,
respectability and detachment. Young Balakian observes but never
understands "the grandmother" for she is shielded culturally from being
able to reach him by her very offsprings who can not and will not instill
the Armenian identity he will eventually seek but never quite find. Their
crime is self-denial and a march to the tune of America's mixmaster
piper. "Be unlike your past and your future will be brighter," seems to be
what America promises, at the very least. The intermediate generation listens
and adopts this credo and Peter is left to find out but never quite
understand just what cost his ancestors have paid to remain Armenian and
to preserve our culture before the final denials on New Jersey pateos while
enjoying, as if to serve sweet irony, full course Armenian meals and the
mixing aromas of delicacies from the old country every Sunday.

Peter is lost alright, but as the book sadly shows, he remains lost.
Paraphrasing or quoting Ambassador Morgenthau does not an Armenian genocide
expert make. Personal family testimonials of the Turkish atrocities does
not a genocide history make (For that, read Vahakn Dadrian's "The History
of the Armenian Genocide" Berghahn Books, 1995). Episodic accounts can be
dismissed by the Turks as hear-say and as mere isolated incidents, leading
to more harm than good (for if better evidence existed, the arguement
goes, why would anyone resort to such flimsy fare?). For the story to have
worked, for the story to have *really* worked, as I would have liked it to,
Balakian's life and lifestyle would have had to have changed
significantly and his child rearing practices would have had to reflect
it, and his relationship with his wife who, like him, is not leading a strongly
Armenian existence, would have had to have changed, solidifying his roots,
celebrating his new found identity, and nurturing the metamorphosis by
sustained community involvment and grass roots movement participation
which, alas, never appear on the pages of this book. How else to explain
the lack of a turning around of the tide of assimilation to which Balakian
is a grand personal witness, except that the transition has not occured?
The ship of Armenianness sails by Balakian. He is finally aware enough to
be able to identify the ship and wave it goodbye and write about it, but
not resolved enough to climb aboard. That is how the book fails and that is
how his story fails. This is a story of assimilation and loss with a bit of
mid stream self awareness thrown in. For a real story of an Armenian
finding his roots and letting them take root in his own life and future,
read Mark Arax's book, "In my Father's Name (Simon & Schuster, 1996),"
where the transition is real and the early youth of disaffection is
replaced by a profound adoption of our essence revealed in exquisite
frankness and power by Mark Arax. One can only hope that Balakian's
partial reorientation towards our culture and traditions and essence will
somehow continue and that some day he will wish to live with a more meaningful
attachment to our cause and needs than merely as an able observer (not
withstanding his laudible actions as an April 24th -- Armenian genocide
commemoration speaker and an exposer of Turkish infiltration in the US
academic arena by buying spokesmen turned professors who mascarade as
unbiased researchers). This criticism I direct to the predecessor of this
genre of American Armenian writing first and to Balakian second. I speak
here of "passage to Ararat" by Michael Arlen (Hungry Mind republication,
1996) where a disinterested soit-disant Armenian goes to Armenia in the
70's and by the end of the short trip is somewhat more closely touched by
this strange people's woes and dreams. Too little, too late, and always
detached, is all I can say to these meagre displays of ethnic or cultural
reorientation. Much more needs to be absorbed before the essence is
transmitted to future generations to take and behold.

However, I remain hopeful that future transformatory stories and ethnic
identity survival stories *will be* written which will show that the tide
of assimilation and cultural abandonment are not the only outcome of this
experiment of transplanting peoples and cultures to this continent we
proudly call our home.

"AFTER LONG SILENCE".......2004-12-07

'Speech after long silence; it is right...'-William Butler Yeats

I have had this line from Yeats' poem in my mind as I've been reflecting on the contents of this book by Peter Balakian written in 1997. (This book was rated one of the best books of 1997 by the LA Times, Publisher's weekly and Library Journal.) I've read about Armenian history as I made many acquaintances of Armenians in the Boston area where I lived. I've put off reading this book because I thought the information would not be new since I've read The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Balakian's 2003 book The Burning Tigris, and Bat Ye'Or's book Islam and Dhimmitude. However, I loved this book even though some of the same information is found in The Burning Tigris. This book is different however. The Burning Tigris is history, The Black Dog of Fate is personal history of great relevance for today. It's a memoir of not only Balakian's life, but also his family's life during his lifetime and their past before he was born. The book is divided into 6 sections. The first three are devoted to his grandmother, his mother, his father. The last 3 cover his gradual understanding of his ancestors' trials and tribulations, their ancient history. Armenia was the first nation to embrace christianity as their official religion in the third century. An editor of Josephus notes that an early church father and mystic, Moses Chorensis, wrote that a tribe of jews designated Bagratidae migrated to Armenia during the time of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, the time of the destruction of Solomon's temple in 586 B.C. Although his family never talked about the genocide, he became curious by the very circumstances of his family. He never knew his grandfathers. He later comes to realize that his grandfathers suffered the common fate of many Armenian men during the Great War (WWI). The turkish gendarmes in charge of "protecting" the Armenians during their forced march routinely shot Armenian men in the back of the head killing them instantly. Other Armenian men attempted to disguise themselves as women to foil the Turks' bloody target practice. When his father suggested to him that he do a school report on Armenia, he chose to write about Turkey because he could not find any information about Armenia.

His fondest memories were of his grandmother telling him stories which began with the Armenian "djamangeen gar oo chagar", in English, there was and there wasn't. One of her stories was an Armenian parable about a poor woman and her black dog offering to God probably modeled after Christ's parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. Her stories are similar to any immigrant to America from their old, peasant countries. Peter Balakian was a second generation American; his parents were adamant that their children live as Americans, yet their Armenian culture is distinctive and is not totally erased by embracing the American one. Many Americans should be able to relate to this in some way since nearly all of our ancestors were immigrants at some time.

Peter Balakian is an English Professor at Colgate University, his aunt at Columbia University, both of whom also write poetry. Being able to write about history and making it interesting is not an easy task; I was impressed by his writing in The Burning Tigris, he kept my attention the whole time. I highly recommend this book and I highly recommend this book for book clubs in that the subject matter is very relevant to today, Armenia's history instructive in so many ways.

'Speech after long silence; it is right...'. The Armenian genocide happened almost 100 years ago, his grandmother one of the survivors. He comes to realize that for her to have spoken openly about it was probably much to much painful for her. He finds out later from his aunts that following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, her psyche was set into a tailspin. She suffered a nervous breakdown. That act of terrorism too much like the violence that she lived through. Strangely, the Turkish government today cannot come to terms with the truth about events of 1915 and goes so far as to influence governments and Ivy League Universities by contradicting the massive documentary evidence that exists confirming the atrocities and claiming that there is another side of the story that needs to be told. However, there is not much to discuss when you see mounds of bodies, women and innocent children, with an armed man capped with a blood-red pillbox hat standing right by. Strange that they cannot speak the truth, one hundred years later.

An Average Book/An Important Story.......2004-07-03

Until the end of our days, we will hurt each other for no reason. Hate our neighbors because they exist. Kill strangers without conscience. Why? Because we're barbaric? Are we naturally predisposed to evil deeds in order to keep the population boom in hand? Why in the world should I ever have to come across a story that chronicles the unknown hatred of one civilization to another? I should not have had to read this book because the reason for it written should never have happened.

Black slavery is the second-most despicable atrocity the United States has ever known. I say second-most because at least most lives of black people were spared so that this country could be built on the strength of their backs. No, the worst thing to happen to America was the inhuman treatment and near total destruction of the Native Americans.

Everybody knows the story.

No act of horror is more documented than the Jews being decimated at the hands of Nazi cavemen. Misguided into thinking that they were elite. Bombings, horrible experiments, endless gunfire, starvation, gas chambers, ovens made for cooking...people. A blight on the face of a planet replete with a history of destruction and malicious intent.

Maybe you've heard of it.

But "Black Dog Of Fate" tells another version of terror and hate. It's a story you've heard a thousand times but from the mouth of a different victim. Another voice. It very vividly tells us about the Armenian genocide, allegedly at the hands of the Turkish government. What begins as a memoir about young Balakian growing up in an Armenian family, yet doing his darnedest to stay waist-deep in the pool of Americana, becomes a quest of an adult Peter searching for his roots. The lives and deaths of his people.

To this day the Turks deny that they almost wiped out an entire civilization and I'm no one to argue here nor there. But the evidence, the painful words from those who were there, that escaped - it's like a whirlwind of torment to the ears and eyes of those who will listen and learn. But nobody knows anything about this stain on humanity because very few victims lived to tell about it and literally none of the suspects will atone for their crimes.

This is one of many novels that will endear and enlighten. My only real gripes are that it becomes a tad preachy (though it hardly cannot be) and it's two stories, two tones in the same book. It starts out a little happy-go-lucky. Somewhat light-hearted and sometimes funny for the first half. Then, things take a 180 and it's all out depressing. The entire second half of the book is killing and shooting and stealing and just plain bleak. Sometimes life has to be that way but as a reader it was a bit overwhelming.

And it's supposed to be. Lucky me. I just read it. Too many people lived it. You read it too. And talk about it. Because not enough people know.

beautiful memoir.......2003-06-17

This is a wonderful book, it made me cry, one of the best memoirs I have read and I highly recomend it.

Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past. (book reviews): An article from: ETC.: A Review of General Semantics

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Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past. (book reviews): An article from: ETC.: A Review of General Semantics
Martin H. Levinson
Manufacturer: International Society for General Semantics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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This digital document is an article from ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, published by International Society for General Semantics on March 22, 1998. The length of the article is 424 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.

Citation Details
Title: Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past. (book reviews)
Author: Martin H. Levinson
Publication: ETC.: A Review of General Semantics (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 1998
Publisher: International Society for General Semantics
Volume: v55 Issue: n1 Page: p112(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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Throughout history, women have been shielded from the heat of battle, their role limited to supporting the men who do the actual fighting. Now all that has changed, and for the first time females have taken their place on the front lines. But, do they actually belong there? A distinguished military historian answers the question with a vehement no, arguing women are less physically capable, more injury-prone, given more lenient conditions, and disastrous for morale and military preparedness. Groundbreaking and controversial.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting and informative but uneven and lacking passion.......2002-03-28

You can often tell the value of a work by the enemies that an author has made.

This book, which opposes women in military combat, written by Martin Van Creveld, is readily compared with Brian Mitchell's similar work. Van Creveld acknowledges his debt to Mitchell.

But Mitchell's work is written with the passion of an activist and of an ex-soldier, and Van Creveld's work is written with the passion - well, of a historian.

For the high crime of being opposed to women in combat, Mitchell actually lost his job with the oil company that employed him. How Van Creveld's work stands him in academia is anyone's guess, but this doesn't read like the sort of book that would cost anyone his job.

Van Creveld IS a historian, of course, and he cannot be blamed for his academic tone, but it's fairly easy to surmise which of the two books is more readable.

This book IS informative, and gives a pretty thorough summary of the history of women in warfare.

He runs the gamut from their roles as objects of conquest and instigators (yes - as instigators, good news; contrary to feminist realpolitik, men are actually no more to BLAME for wars than are women), as commanders (largely monarchial women born into the position), to combat support personnel (administrators, nurses, suppliers, etc.), participants in uprisings or against them, and the occasional female foot soldier and/or unit.

Really, the text often reads like it was written by a supporter of women in combat since it utilizes the familiar argument that this has happened throughout history.

But Van Creveld parses neatly away from this argument by drawing distinctions between stories justified by historical evidence, on the one hand, and myths and anecdotes, on the other.

And for those stories that have a factual basis, he argues that it is precisely because the female involvement in military combat is isolated, infrequent, and often distant from the action, the historical examples serve as evidence AGAINST the idea and not for it.

He also borrows from other sources such as the Mitchell book to run through the usual physical advantages that men have over women that make them better suited to combat. These need not be repeated here.

But as one might expect from an academic, Van Creveld suffers from the same affliction that most writers making an anti-feminist statement suffer from (and that Brian Mitchell did NOT suffer from) - he is apologetic.

Apologetic anti-feminists go into battle (so to speak) with their morale tied behind their back and their objectivity damaged.

Van Creveld asserts several times, without providing any evidence, that women who have died in warfare have died as courageously as men. Maybe some of them, but the same process of human evolution which made most men bigger and stronger than most women also appears to have made men more aggressive and more willing to risk their lives.

One would not EXPECT women to display equal amounts of THAT type of courage, and for Van Creveld to suggest without evidence that they have sounds like a way of trying not to sound TOO stridently anti-feminist.

And even while enumerating in great detail the physical differences between men and women that Van Creveld says make it "criminal" (his word) to send women to the front, he concurrently and paradoxically maintains that the all-male nature of combat is based LESS on those differences than it is based on the desire of men to institute a rite of passage that excludes women. Oh, come on now!

He specifically states that if men and women were of equal size and strength, men might STILL exclude women from combat for "rights of passage" reasons.

Well, but if men and women really were similar, the species likely would not perpetuate, or if it did, the forces that sometimes drive men to distance themselves from women likely would not be nearly as prevalent, would they, Professor?

Again, I sense that this argument is Van Creveld's way of apologizing for pointing out that men really are more combat-ready. Vignettes like this show why he's less likely to lose his job than Brian Mitchell.

Interestingly enough, while Mitchell warns of imminent disaster if the women-in-combat policy continues, Van Creveld simply shrugs his shoulders and declares that per the historical record, women will always advance in the military during peacetime when they aren't needed and that when war breaks out, sanity prevails and the fighting is turned over to the men.

In my opinion, Van Creveld is making a mistake that others before him have made - assuming that human nature and common sense inevitably prevail. He doesn't take into account that the war on human nature and common sense being waged today is more ferocious than any such war waged before.

Still, written before 9/11/2001, this book is quite prophetic. As the war on terrorism progresses, women indeed have been pulled back from the front lines and Great Britain and Australia pull back from the policy of integrating women into combat forces.

Van Creveld also has interesting information for 1)reactionaries like me who blame feminism for the unfeminine ferocity demonstrated today by women in popular culture and 2) evil pro-feminist cultural mandarins who promote such imagery with the motive of warring on gender.

The information is that there is nothing new under the sun. History is replete with prior examples of warlike female imagery promoted either to titillate, to shame, or to provide inspiration or instruction. It has, says Van Creveld, little effect on how normal men and women conduct their lives.

Well, maybe. But I declare myself not really convinced.

In the end, Van Creveld's book, for all its good points, suffers from the same flaw that EVERY conservative, pro-military, and anti-feminist work (including Mitchell's) suffers.

It fails to answer two simple questions: 1) What exactly is there about Western society that is worth defending? and 2) What exactly is there about Western women that is worth protecting?

Book Description

Since September 11, 2001, much has been said about the difficult balancing act between freedom and security, but few have made specific proposals for how to strike that balance. As the scandals over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the "torture memos" written by legal officials in the Bush administration show, without clear rules in place, things can very easily go very wrong.

With this challenge in mind, Philip Heymann and Juliette Kayyem, directors of Harvard's Long-Term Legal Strategy Project for Preserving Security and Democratic Freedoms in the War on Terrorism, take a detailed look at how to handle these competing concerns. Taking into account both the national security viewpoint and the democratic freedoms viewpoint, Heymann and Kayyem consulted experts from across the political spectrum -- including Rand Beers, Robert McNamara, and Michael Chertoff (since named Secretary of Homeland Security) -- about the thorniest and most profound legal challenges of this new era. Heymann and Kayyem offer specific recommendations for dealing with such questions as whether assassination is ever acceptable, when coercion can be used in interrogation, and when detention is allowable. They emphasize that drawing clear rules to guide government conduct protects the innocent from unreasonable government intrusion and prevents government agents from being made scapegoats later if things go wrong. Their recommendations will be of great interest to legal scholars, legislators, policy professionals, and concerned citizens.

How American Democracy can Thrive in the War on Terror.(Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror)(Book review): An article from: Naval War College Review

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How American Democracy can Thrive in the War on Terror.(Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror)(Book review): An article from: Naval War College Review
Jane G. Dalton
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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This digital document is an article from Naval War College Review, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2006. The length of the article is 605 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.

Citation Details
Title: How American Democracy can Thrive in the War on Terror.(Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror)(Book review)
Author: Jane G. Dalton
Publication: Naval War College Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 59 Issue: 3 Page: 149(2)

Article Type: Book review

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Torture in the war on terror: Kenneth Roth reviews Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror.: An article from: Harvard International Review

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Torture in the war on terror: Kenneth Roth reviews Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror.: An article from: Harvard International Review
Kenneth Roth
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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This digital document is an article from Harvard International Review, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2006. The length of the article is 1362 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.

Citation Details
Title: Torture in the war on terror: Kenneth Roth reviews Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror.
Author: Kenneth Roth
Publication: Harvard International Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 28 Issue: 2 Page: 80(2)

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Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror (BCSIA Studies in International Security)

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Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror (BCSIA Studies in International Security)
Philip B.; Kayyem, Juliette N. Heymann
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQG46O

Book Description

For decades, Conservation International has devoted itself not only to saving endangered regions on the planet but also to chronicling, in lavish volumes, the biodiversity of these areas. These volumes, according to Choice, are"a superbly produced . . . source of hard-to-find information on biodiversity, biogreography, and conservation."Hotspots Revisited continues this rich tradition, drawing on the organization's continuing work to identify, research, and document biologically diverse yet dangerously threatened regions. The first Hotspots volume identified twenty-five endangered regions; Hotspots Revisited reveals an astonishing nine additional areas, from Melanesia to northern Mexico, that now meet the same criteria. Hotspots Revisited presents the most up-to-date analyses of the ecology of these endangered areas—including new information on freshwater fish and other animal populations. But the heart of the volume is in the hundreds of vibrant color photographs of the animals and plants under threat. Magnificent in conception and flawless in execution, Hotspots Revisited is equally at home on a scientist's shelf or an ecotourist's coffee table.

Customer Reviews:

First Rate Summary of Planetary Biodiversity and How to Go About Saving It.......2005-08-07

It isn't often that a sumptuous coffee table book is both visually appealing and scientifically packed with well-researched data. Hotspots Revisited hits the mark on both scores. This updated revision of the 1999 edition of Hotspots expands the number of planetary hotspots to 35. This is an information-packed compendium on those areas of our planet that are species-rich and home to the highest levels of species endemism. The book acknowledges that all biodiversity is important and that all nations and communities must do everything possible to protect our planet's rich biological heritage. Life, however, is not evenly distributed around the world and because of this fact, this volume presents a convincing and forceful rationale for adopting the hotspot strategy for prioritizing areas for biological conservation. This is done by summarizing the distributions of plants and vertebrate animals in a way that is both comprehensive and intelligible to even the lay reader who does not have an extensive background in the biological sciences. This volume is both a visual feast and a celebration of life. It is hard to set it aside once you have opened it. Without a doubt, it is one of the best bargains of any book offered by Amazon.com and should be required reading for all governmental and private organizations charged with saving our natural resources at a time when the fabric of life on planet Earth is being threatened by overexploitation, environmental destruction, violent conflict, and countless other factors. Buy it, read it thoroughly, learn more stunning facts about planetary geography and biodiversity than you have probably ever been exposed to at one sitting, and by all means loan it to a friend once you have immersed yourself in this model expose of our planet's extraordinary biodiversity.

Hotspots: Earth's Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions

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Not a disservice to the cause...but close
An outstanding contribution to conservation studies.
Hotspots
Review of Hotspots....

Hotspots: Earth's Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions
Russell A. Mittermeier , Norman Myers , and Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier
Manufacturer: Conservation International
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Conservation | Environment | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

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Wilderness: Earth's Last Wild Places

ASIN: 9686397582

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A fraction of the earth's surface--1.4 percent--is home to 60 percent of the world's living species. Conservation International has identified these "hotspots" as needing immediate protection in the effort to safeguard the planet's biodiversity. More than just reservoirs of abundant plant and animal life, however, the hotspots are at-risk areas already significantly degraded by humankind. By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, these exceedingly important natural areas could be but a memory. But, according to author-biologist Russell Mittermeier, a relatively small amount of capital could help protect a combined area the size of Alaska and have a dramatic effect in conserving biodiversity. Some of these hotspots include the tropical Andes, Central American forests, Southeast Asia and the Philippines, the Cape region of South Africa, and the Mediterranean basin.

As a book, Hotspots is a weighty glimpse at a world in jeopardy. The color photography by the likes of Art Wolfe and others is first-rate--and literally eye opening: a surreal aerial photo of the Betsiboka River in Madagascar, for instance, shows massive erosion that is visible even from outer space. Each of 25 hotspot regions around the world is accompanied by text, scientific charts, maps, and lots of photos depicting both the destruction and the wonders of the natural world.

Book Description

Polynesia, the mountains of south-central China, the coastal forest of Tanzania, New Zealand--all are breathtakingly beautiful sites with a crucial fact in common. They are four of the Earth's twenty-five "hotspots," geographical areas which, according to scientists and naturalists, are home to the world's greatest plant and animal diversity. The numbers are staggering: fully sixty percent of all terrestrial animal and plant species are found in these hotspots, which are themselves only 1.4 percent of the Earth's surface; they contain 54 percent of amphibian species and nearly half of all the plant species on Earth. They are the richest and most threatened reservoirs of plant and animal life on Earth.

Hotspots is the definitive compilation and status report on these twenty-five areas. Russell Mittermeier, Cristine Mittermeier and Norman Myers, who pioneered the "hotspots" concept, take you through each of these regions, describing the various ecosystems and the threats to their existence. They have gathered the work of more than one hundred international experts on plant and animal life together with hundreds of spectacular color photographs, essentially creating a tour of the magnificent array of life found in each region.

How we address and reverse the tide of destruction in coming decades will determine the planet's course for centuries to come, and Hotspots actually offers hope that this destruction can be slowed. By showcasing the specific areas that contain the greatest diversity, it demonstrates that we can conserve a major share of this terrestrial biodiversity by focusing efforts on relatively small geographical areas. Hotspots is not only an important work for conservationists; it is also an extraordinary view of life on Earth.

"Hotspots represents a breakthrough in the way we regard life on Earth and should be required reading for government decision-makers, corporate leaders, and college students alike."--From the Foreword by Harrison Ford

Customer Reviews:

Not a disservice to the cause...but close.......2000-07-11

Yes, many of the photographs are spectacular. But the beautifully reproduced pictures aside, HOTSPOTS is an excellent example of how not to produce a tome designed to further the cause of conservation and ecological awareness. The bigger the book of this type (and HOTSPOTS is a very big book indeed), the more important variation in layout becomes, so that the eye will not become bored. In HOTSPOTS, full-page photographs alternate relentlessly with double-page spreads of interminably dry text better suited to an article in Nature or Scientific American than a coffee-table book intended for the general public. Even the Bulletin of the OTS (Organization for Tropical Studies) is livelier. Herein, endless lists and quoted statistics are interrupted only by the occasional attempt to actually interest the general reader in what is being said. The most accessible prose in the book is the foreword by Harrison Ford, and the publishers don't even have enough sense to put his name on the cover, where it might help to sell a few copies. Do I detect thereby a whiff of scientific snobbery? Attempting to plow through the unbearably monotonous text that only succeeds in rendering fascinating and vitally important information dull as dishwater, one has the impression of a group of scientists dedicated not to furthering the cause of conservation so much as effusively stating their own priorities. Only a few of the included maps are rendered with an eye (pun intended) toward enlightening the reader. In many, color separations are insufficiently boldly conceived and rendered, with the result that their interpretation becomes muddled. The book contains no explicatory drawings, diagrams, or other art work. These would not only serve to make the points lost in the text understandable, but would make the book far more pleasing to look at. Some of the most interesting photographs are set in the margins of the plodding text...and reproduced there so minutely as to render them virtually unviewable. Except for a few pages at the end of each section, there is no middle ground...photos are either full or double-page spread, or absurdly (for a book this size) tiny. More photographs, of varying size, should have been used in place of the monumentally dull text. The entire project cries out for the hand of a good designer. People will buy HOTSPOTS for the photographs or not at all because the text is, for the general public, virtually unreadable. What a shame and a disappointment. As an example of what might have been, I recommend THE LAST RAINFORESTS (Oxford; ed. Collins), MANU (Francis Patthey; MacQuarrie) and one of the most informative and best laid out of this type of volume, JUNGLES (Crown; Ayensu). Next time, they should let Harrison Ford write the whole book.

An outstanding contribution to conservation studies........2000-06-04

Hotspots is rich presentation which provides an extensive survey of the most biologically diverse and endangered ecoregions on the planet, compiling the studies and perceptions of a range of scientists and conservationists to provide a strategy for coping with conservation challenges to each of these regions. 25 areas receive focus from the Andes to Africa and the Philippines. Extensive illustrations compliments in-depth, detailed articles. Very highly recommended: a special presentation.

Hotspots.......2000-04-17

This is a great book. My Aunt Avecita Chicchon helped in makeing this book, so I learned a bit more about it. This book has helped me understand a little bit more about the rain forests of the world, and appreciate the work my aunt and uncle are doing for South America.

Review of Hotspots...........2000-04-02

Looking for a GREAT coffe table book. From front cover to back "Hotspots" contains some of the most compelling natural history photographs that I have ever seen. It is a wonderful mix of scientific information and "wake-up call" to the fragility of our planet. It is the photographs that will captivate you, exquisitly printed in large format this is a must have book for eco-minded readers.

Hotspots Revisited: Earth's Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions

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Hotspots Revisited: Earth's Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions
Russell A. Mittermeier
Manufacturer: Conservation International
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000N6Y0YS

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