Book Description
Marriage has never been more fragile. But the same things that have made it so have also made a good marriage more fulfilling than ever before. In this enlightening and hugely entertaining book, historian and marriage expert Stephanie Coontz takes readers from the marital intrigues of ancient Babylon to the sexual torments of Victorian couples to demonstrate how recent the idea of marrying for love is-and how absurd it would have seemed to most of our ancestors. It was only 200 years ago that marriage began to be about love and emotional commitment, and since then the very things that have strengthened marriage as a personal relationship have steadily weakened it as a social institution. Marriage, A History brings intelligence, wit, and some badly needed perspective to today's marital debates and dilemmas.
Customer Reviews:
Well researched and provocative.......2007-06-26
This is an extremely well researched investigation of the institution of marriage from earliest times to the present. It may prove shocking to some readers to discover how recent our concept of "traditional marriage" may be. But information such as this book provides is essential for those concerned about marital values. History provides us with immensely important lessons regarding the attitudes and feelings of human beings over the centuries; and we must not shrink from the observations made here as we seek to understand the social and economic and even religious crises of our times. The scope of the book is incredibly ambitious yet it is clearly and at times entertainingly written, and always inviting. It can point the way for further research in many areas. On all counts, a fine and important book.
Relevant and helpful, changed the way I think about love and marriage........2007-03-31
My fiance and I got this book so we could learn more about what we'd agreed to do. This book has radically improved the way we understand our relationship and our decision to get married. I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone planning on getting married.
Very worth while read........2007-01-11
This book gets to the heart of the matter. Is marriage about love, or about family?
Fascinating!.......2006-11-05
I can't add much more to the customer review above, except to note that one should keep an open mind while reading...I made the mistake of reading aloud a few passages on the early Christian views of marriage to a Christian friend, and she was very, very insulted and angry, snapping that the author was clearly wrong, as THIS is the way that passage in the Bible should be interpreted, and how dare she write something so blasphemous. I didn't press the matter.
I, however, being rather agnostic, enjoyed it immensely, and learned QUITE a lot! The various views on family structure and what defined a marriage over the centuries was illuminating, and I found myself quoting it to anyone in reach (hence my problem above). It's tilted toward Western culture in the last part of the book, being focused on the American history of marriage, but it's still an excellent read for anyone wanting to see how marriage was looked at in the past.
A perpetually relevant, crucial study of how marriages have been formed throughout history.......2006-04-24
Stephanie Coontz has devoted her career to waging war on ahistorical understandings of the family. She first came to national notice with her now classic book THE WAY WE NEVER WERE: AMERICAN FAMILIES AND THE NOSTALGIA TRAP, which attacked naive attempts to make what she termed the Ozzie and Harriett marriage as somehow normative, a family in which the father worked, the mother stayed at home, both stayed married for a lifetime, and their two lovely children completed an ideal, caring unit. Though massive sifting of historical and statistical materials she was able to show that this picture of the family--a picture that determines even today a vast amount of political debate about "family values"--was even in the fifties largely a myth. Nostalgia, a phenomenon that has long driven right-wing movements, is by its very nature ahistorical, referring to a past that never existed and would be undesirable today even if possible.
In MARRIAGE, A HISTORY: FROM OBEDIENCE TO INTIMACY OR HOW LOVE CONQUERED MARRIAGE Coontz fights nostalgia further by a fascinating and far-ranging study of the history of marriage in Western civilization. What is shocking is learning that so far from being a static, traditional relationship with a fundamental shape and form, marriage is instead a constantly evolving institution that has altered numerous times in the past thousand or so years in response to various social needs or pressures. Changing societal values, alterations in the material conditions at a particular point in time, or even changing ideas about romance have all exerted enormous influence on the understanding and practice of marriage at any particular time. Her discussion essentially renders virtually all right wing rhetoric about the need to protect "family values" or "marriage" utter nonsense. One almost needs to ask, "Of what decade?" The changes wrought in our understanding of marriage over the course of the past two hundred years alone are simply stunning. And the Ozzie and Harriett or male breadwinner marriage alluded to above really only thrived during the economic boom following WW II until its demise in the 1960s. Unless one is willing to ignore completely the lessons of history, any rational, sane individual is going to have to concede that any narrow understanding of what form marriage "must" take is inevitably going to be mistaken.
An enumeration of the interesting bits and pieces found in this book could fill several reviews the length of this one. The book always radiates a mastery of a vast range of facts but never ceases to be thoroughly insightful and even entertaining. This book isn't merely informative: it is fun.
The book also raises some disturbing questions. The book largely refutes the passion for nostalgia and a misguided frenzy to defend "traditional" marriage, but neither does the book revel in the alternatives. In fact, frequently Coontz notes features of modern marriage that makes one wonder if we aren't putting pressure on the institution that it should never have been asked to support. As she points out, while people in recent centuries married for reasons other than love, a marriage was a practical arrangement that met certain very specific needs for people. One discerns a certain reasonableness in their expectations. One sought a coworker, a person to help make a household successful economically, a companion, and a sexual partner for producing children. But today a marriage partner is expected to meet virtually impossible expectations. A wife or husband is supposed to be gorgeous, a best friend, a superb financial contributor to the relationship, sexy, and a marvelous parent. The marriage partnership is viewed as the single most important relationship a modern individual can experience. At no other point in history, as Coontz points out, has a marriage been expected to meet such extraordinary expectations. In the end, one is left wondering if the intense pressures of modern marriage might not lead to some new variant more realistic than the Disney version currently in place.
I'd place this in a short list of the "must read" books of 2005. Because marriage is at the heart of almost every human institution, this book is relevant to virtually every subject. And though it should prove relevant in future decades as well, it is especially important reading in the present, where all kind of cant is being spewed about what marriage "really means." No one should attempt to say what marriage really is or has been without reading this exceptional book.
Amazon.com
Politics, economics, greed, sex, cars—without them, matrimony wouldn't have caused the historical revolution ensuing today, concludes social historian Stephanie Coontz, in Marriage, a History. Modern marriage is in crisis; but don't pine for a return to "the good old days," when men earned money and women kept house. Don't even assume the crisis is all bad. For as Coontz reveals in this ambitious, multi-century trek through wedlock, marriage has morphed into the highest expression of commitment in Western Europe and North America; and though assumptions no longer exist regarding which partner may say "I do" to work, childcare, or other shared responsibilities, a clear set of rules about saying "I don't" (to infidelity and irresponsibility) rings loud as church bells.
"This is not the book I thought I was going to write," Coontz admits. She intended to show that marriage was not in crisis; merely changing in expected ways. But her exhaustive research suggested the opposite was true. Tracing matrimony's path from ancient times (when some cultures lacked a word for "love" and the majority of pairings were attempts to seize land or family names) through present day, she closely examines the many external forces at play in shaping modern marriage. Coontz details how society's attempts to toughen this institution, have actually made it more fragile. Her rich talent for analyzing events, statistics, and theories from a myriad of sources—and enabling the reader to put them all in perspective—make this provocative history book an essential resource.--Liane Thomas
Book Description
Marriage today is held up as a blissful haven of love and friendship, sex and stability. We long for the gold standard, the traditional marriage but marriage turns out to have a checkered past-the "traditional marriage" was evanescent. This real look at what people think of as "traditional" finally explains why so many married people are so unsatisfied.
In this groundbreaking book, award-winning historian Stephanie Coontz takes us on an eye- opening journey from the marital intrigues of ancient Babylon to the sexual torments of Victorian lovers to the current debates over the meaning and future of marriage. She provides the definitive story of marriage's evolution from the arranged unions common since the dawn of civilization into the intimate, sexually fulfilling but volatile relationships of today.
For most of our history, marriage was not a relationship based on mutual love between a breadwinning husband and an at-home wife, but an institution devoted to acquiring wealth, power, and property. Picking a mate on the basis of something as irrational as love would have been considered absurd. Only in the nineteenth century did marriage move to the center of people's emotional lives, when the wife became the "angel of the home" and the husband the "provider." Yet these Victorian ideals contain the seeds of today's marriage crisis. As people began to expect romance and intimacy in their marriages, their unions became more fragile. The postwar era of the 1950s ushered in a brief "Golden Age" of marriage-the Ozzie and Harriet years-but the same advances in birth control, increased individual autonomy, and women's equality that made marriage more satisfying than it had been in the past also undermined its stability.
Marriage has changed more in the last thirty years than in the previous five thousand, and few of the old "rules" for marriage still apply. In the courts, the op-ed pieces, and at the dinner table, battles rage over what marriage means, why people do it, and who can do it. Marriage, a History is the one book you need to understand not only the vicissitudes of modern marriage but also gay marriage, "living together" and divorce. Stephanie Coontz shatters dozens of myths about the past and future of married life and shows us why marriage, though more fragile today, can be more rewarding than ever before.
Customer Reviews:
Marriage as the acquiring of in-laws?.......2007-03-06
A good, very readable history on an interesting topic (especially for a newly-wed!). I read it for pleasure, and I will leave it to others more informed than I to judge its scholarly merits. Coontz does have a political bent in her prose, and often chooses to focus more on gender relationships than marriage, but then given that marriage and gender relationships are so intertwined, it would be hard not to. The politics are never over-bearing. She does spend some time discussing the recent initiatives concerning same-sex marriage and states that "traditional" marriage (i.e., the male-breadwinner/wife-homemaker marriage) was itself something of a historical aberration. She discusses divorce as a natural by-product of contemporary societal beliefs about marriage that one would be loathe to give up. Indeed, she states that the primary function of marriage that holds across cultures and time is the acquisition of in-laws!
You might agree with her. You might disagree with her. (I did a little bit of both.) However, she does back her views up with a considerable amount of well-reasoned argument and does it in a civilized manner, unlike some of the invective that currently passes for social commentary on both sides.
Her intended audience appears to be general rather than scholarly, and to that end, her use of case examples is well-done. (I can imagine a scholar of the topic becoming bored.) If I can make one critique, it is that too many of her case examples were royal examples. I would have loved to have seen more material, on marriage among common people throughout history. This isn't to say that there wasn't any, just that I wish there had been more.
Informative not definitive.......2006-12-15
This book traces the history of marriage from pre-modern society through the ages and until today. As such, it will probably contain a lot of interesting and informative information to the reader. It will possibly dispel quite a few myths the reader may have (almost everyone will have some kind of myth as part of their view of the past). The book is excellent in describing marriage in the ancient world, the middle ages, the rennaisance and the pre-modern era. The institution has been changed many times beyond recognition and some of the practices and ideologies require a very open mind, especially if you consider yourself traditional.
I think the author is less successful in dealing with the more modern era. It is probable that she has a political agenda, which is fine except the entire book seems to be a red carpet to this agenda. The book excludes most "extraneous" material like non-western marriage because it culminates in the current situation in the USA. It is probably short-sighted to ignore other major cultures this much - even if dealing with the US, the nation's multiculturalism requires this to be explored at least somewhat.
Makes for an interesting and informative read however there must be better general histories of marriage out there.
informative and eye opening.......2006-02-21
I've listened to a lot of church teaching about marraige over the years and not once did they hint that what marraige is to us is only remotely like what marriage was in years past. I mentioned to my sister that people have only married for love the last 200 years and she immediately said ya. She reads a lot of historical romance novels. I find it interesting that I was talking in Bible college that the historical-gramatical method was the way to view the Bible. Now I find that James Dobson doesn't even come close to using that method when he quotes the Bible.
I found I can now understand the Bible much more than I could before I read this book.
I'd say read this book.
worthless.......2006-01-29
Stephanie Coontz, "scholar" at prestigious Evergreen State College, has delivered yet one more broadside against reason and intellectual honesty. One need not spend time dismantling the arguments of those who find her work fair and balanced - propagandists have always had their supporters. Suffice it to say that this is characteristic of what passes for "scholarship" at today's college, which is to say, it is simply awful. Coontz relies entirely on whatever meager evidence she can muster supporting her premise, while totally ignoring any and all evidence to the contrary. In this case, that contrary evidence is massively overwhelming - but no matter - the end justifies the means. Tripe.
Not the most definitive book in the field, but very enjoyable.......2005-12-28
I was excited when i heard that Coontz was coming out with another book because I found her books The Way We Never Were and The Way We Really Are to be incredibly informative and eye-opening.
I really enjoyed this particular book because she looks at the phenomenon of marriage from an objective, historical point of view. People who are interested in history, interested in the social development of relationships and interested in womens studies would really enjoy this book.
However I found that some of the information that was displayed in this book was done in more depth in previous books on the subject. Coontz pulls together a very basic history of marriage and pieces it together from her sociological historical perspective. Other books that go into more depth on the details of the history of such things would definitely be: Hands and Hearts, Public Vows, The History of the Wife, All Dressed In White, From Front Porch to Backseat. Also, getting in touch with old etiquette books as well as getting a hold of the books Pink Think and Feminine Mystique would be very useful as well in terms of understanding the development of romantic relationships the way that they are. She uses her previous books as a springing point for some of the stuff displayed in this book as well. However a lot of the books that I previously mentioned are appropietely used in the bibliography for this particular book. As a result, i think that her work is well researched. Its probably not the most definitive book in the field, however people who are interested in the history of marriage and family will probably this resource. Fans of Coontz will more than likely enjoy being exposed to another aspect of family studies as well.
What Coontz does best is finding ways to address these issues in a way that both the casual and academic reader would be interested in. It is easy enough for people who may not have been to college to understand and substantial enough for the more academic reader to find further areas of research.
Average customer rating:
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Last comes love.(Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage)(Book Review) : An article from: The Progressive
Elizabeth DiNovella
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This digital document is an article from The Progressive, published by Thomson Gale on September 1, 2005. The length of the article is 1148 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: Last comes love.(Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage)(Book Review)
Author: Elizabeth DiNovella
Publication:
The Progressive (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 69
Issue: 9
Page: 47(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Amazon.com
Where's your next disease coming from? From anywhere in the world--from overflowing sewage in Cairo, from a war zone in Rwanda, from an energy-efficient office building in California, from a pig farm in China or North Carolina. "Preparedness demands understanding," writes Pulitzer-winning journalist Laurie Garrett, and in this precursor to Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health, she shows a clear understanding of the patterns lying beneath the new diseases in the headlines (AIDS, Lyme) and the old ones resurgent (tuberculosis, cholera). As the human population explodes, ecologies collapse and simplify, and disease organisms move into the gaps. As globalization continues, diseases can move from one country to another as fast as an airplane can fly.
While the human race battles itself ... the advantage moves to the microbes' court. They are our predators and they will be victorious if we, Homo sapiens, do not learn how to live in a rational global village that affords the microbes few opportunities.
Her picture is not entirely bleak. Epidemics grow when a disease outbreak is amplified--by contaminated water supplies, by shared needles, by recirculated air, by prostitution. And controlling the amplifiers of disease is within our power; it's a matter of money, people, and will. --Mary Ellen Curtin
Customer Reviews:
More riveting than The Hot Zone .......2007-09-03
If you liked The Hot Zone, you will love this book. The Hot Zone told the scary story of a variant of Ebola that turned out to be harmless to humans. The Coming Plague narrates the history of little-known but lethal diseases such as Machupo, Ebola, Four-Corners Hantavirus, Lassa Fever, Marburg and others. In each of these cases, the list of victims was relatively small, but the onset and progress of these illnesses were frightful. Garrett examines how "disease cowboys" worked backward to patient zero, followed the course of the illness, discovered its means of transmission and identified each disease. In a few cases, the original vector could not be found, despite a careful search. How even medical professionals react when they find out that they too, have the disease is a fascinating psychological study. Often they go into a state of denial, like the researcher in New York who came down with Lassa after studying some samples. At the other extreme was one doctor, who, fearing he was exposed to Ebola, hit the bottle hoping that alcohol would kill the virus. To his relief it turned out to be measles.
A large amount of this book is devoted to AIDS. Garrett details its emergence in the early 80s. She is critical of the government's slow response, which she says was partly due to the insistence of some in the Reagan administration that since it affected only homosexual men it was beneath concern. On the other hand, she suggests that the rampant promiscuity of some members of the gay community didn't help matters either. While there was enough blame to go around, the real heroes were a handful of careful physicians who noted some bizarre symptoms among their gay patients and brought this medical condition to the CDC and the world's attention. While this book presents an excellent history of the emergence of AIDS in both America and Africa, Garrett's information on AIDS is now unfortunately out-of-date.
The author presents more chapters on antibiotic-resistant TB, Legionnaire's Disease, the problem with overdosing farm animals with antibiotics and even Toxic Shock Syndrome. At one point, I bogged down with information overload. But during Garrett's chapters on hemorrhagic and other exotic fevers, this book is difficult to put down.
Fascinating and frightening.......2007-07-23
This book, when it came out, pointed out the coming problems in our medical system like antibiotic resistance, long before it became common knowledge. But it also suggests that as we continue to transform our environment, new plagues and diseases will continue to threaten our existence.
My only criticism of the book is that it was a difficult read, because it is very densely packed with information. This book requires patience to read, but it is well worth it.
Extraordinary.......2007-03-31
After finishing this book you will never read a newspaper the same way again. I am amazed, and a little scared, at how much of what Laurie Garrett wrote in 1995 has come to pass in 2007. Her story about the "disease cowboys" who track the causes of unexplained epidemics in the remote corners of the world is both absorbing and eye-opening. And it has helped me to see disturbing trends in current news stories that I would have missed had I not read The Coming Plague.
When it first appeared, I avoided this book because it seemed depressing and alarmist. In the years since I have had occasion to work on some international communications projects and in the process came to be interested in global public health. Once that happened, reading Garrett's book was essential. She is one of the most informed individuals writing on global public health in the US today.
Amazingly, although the material is sobering and sometimes truly scary, the book is not in the least depressing. It often reads like an adventure story. If you like detective puzzles, you'll be drawn into Garrett's tales of Ebola turning up in Reston, Virginia, and Marburg virus being unwittingly spread by do-gooder missionaries in the Congo.
Irony abounds. It turns out that much of the good we thought we were doing in the developing world was exactly the wrong thing. Garrett relates that many development projects and purported medical "advances" served to promote the evolution of drug resistant bacteria and viruses, while also raising wildly unrealistic expectations for the eradication of disease among the public and the medical establishment. The results are the return of diseases we thought were gone for good, such as TB and -- get this -- bubonic plague, and they are even harder to treat this time around because the microbes are resistent to many antibiotics and drug therapies.
Don't be daunted by the 700+ pages of this book. It is a great read and definitely worth the time you will invest in educating yourself about the the impact of human beings and our technological development on the ecology of microbial environments. I recommend The Coming Plague most highly.
One of the Four Horsemen.......2006-08-30
I read this book when it first came out and lost it when a friend didn't return it. This a fascinating book and since it was first published SARS and Bird Flu has entered our world. If you are prone to panic attacks or nightmares don't read this book because the author did a fantastic job at research and has revealed our future and the diseases that will alter it.
Superb research.......2006-08-07
This book is superb for a number of reasons but the meticulous research behind it really stands out. There is not an idea or suggested proposition that is not referenced to one - and sometimes - mulitple sources. The tentive conclusions that are laid out are suggested only after exhaustive research and tightly logical arguments.
It is not just the research and the logic, however, that makes this book so good. The book is well written and conveys the difficult subject matter of emerging, infectious diseases in a highly readable but detailed and informative matter.
The book is also laid out in a very logical fashion. In different chapters it covers everything from the etiology of new diseases to methods of transmission to social and cultural factors involved in their spread to the drama of in-field investigation of new and fiercely lethal pathogens.
The book also explores the most recent research on the evolution of new diseases, with discoveries that may portend revolutions in the understanding the natural world.
In short, this is an indespensible work for anyone wishing to understand the emergence of new diseases and cutting edge science in the modern world.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Human Biology, published by Wayne State University Press on December 1, 1997. The length of the article is 1449 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: The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. (book reviews)
Author: Janet W. McGrath
Publication:
Human Biology (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 1997
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Volume: v69
Issue: n6
Page: p891(3)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. (book reviews): An article from: Issues in Science and Technology
Gail H. Cassell
Manufacturer: National Academy of Sciences
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This digital document is an article from Issues in Science and Technology, published by National Academy of Sciences on September 22, 1995. The length of the article is 2180 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: The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. (book reviews)
Author: Gail H. Cassell
Publication:
Issues in Science and Technology (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 1995
Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
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- A Timely Perspective On Humanity in the Biosphere
- Timely and thought-provoking
- Reality for Environmental Dummies
- Another anti-business rant from the hard left
- If you are here, you are looking in the wrong place...
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From Naked Ape to Super Species: A Personal Perspective on Humanity and the Global Ecocrisis
David Suzuki , and
Holly Dressel
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ASIN: 0773731946 |
Book Description
Human beings have acquired enormous technological muscle power, and - coupled with our numbers and our soaring consumption - we are now having an impact on the planet that no other species has ever had. We are trying to dominate nature, but we are still part of it.
Foresight has always been a key to our survival and we have never needed it more than we do now. As we look ahead to an uncertain future, we have to examine some of our most cherished notions, like the ability of science to give us the power to manage nature, the benefits and hazards of genetic engineering, the real impact of information explosion, and the need to keep the global economy growing forever.
As you will hear in the programs, despite the sophistication of our technology, we remain biological beings, animals, inextricably embedded in the natural world. We must redefine progress and find ways to live in balance with each other and nature.
Produced at the state of the art recording studios of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Approximate Duration 4 Hours
Customer Reviews:
A Timely Perspective On Humanity in the Biosphere.......2002-04-23
SUZUKI:
Although David Suzuki was trained to genetically engineer fruit flies to grow arms from their heads, his perspective on science and life is remarkably human. I would go so far as to say that his understanding of humanity and its place in nature is perhaps unequaled among environmental philosophers today. Aside from working as a scientist, Suzuki also spent some 30-some years producing nature documentaries. This gave him the opportunity travel the globe, visit many different cultures and geographic regions, from indigenous tribes to povrety-striken Third World nations. It was through profound cultural education that Suzuki unlearned the mad science he studied as a youth and gained new understand about culture, economics and biodiversity. Nowadays, Suzuki mainly spends his time writing books and articles. He also runs an environmental organization in Canada, where he and his family live, called the David Suzuki Foundation. The website address is: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/
DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK:
In this book Suzuki teams up with writer and researcher Holly Dressel to produce a sort of global guide to the biosphere-a work of scope and detail that will amaze you. They will walk you through ancient arboreal forests and the global economy with the ease of an experienced mountain tracker. They will be introduced you to people and movements that are sure to move. And perhaps most importantly the book will provide you with an important ecological perspective. Filled with stories, anecdotes, interesting facts, and tons of suggestions and references, from books to organizations - "From Naked Ape to Super-Species" is nothing less than a manual for humanity. Simply put, this is one of the most important books I have read.
EXERPT:
"Time is the one ingredient that is absolutely for vital for nature. It is the vast sweep of evolutionary time that has allowed life to flourish and huge changes to occur. In the 4 billion years that life has existed, the sun has increased in intensity by 25 percent, magnetic poles have switched and reversed back, continents have smashed into each other and then pulled apart, ice ages and warm periods have come and gone, and the atmosphere has been transformed from a non-oxygen to a oxygen-rich one. Yet life has persisted, simply because of the immense periods of time it has to make adjustments.
Today, the rate at which we are extracting trees, fish, topsoil and clean water, as well as creating pollutants and greenhouse gases, may match the speed of information technology and the economy, but it is not in synch with the reproductive rates of natural systems. More and more, our sources of information are no longer connected to the natural world and its limits. Politics, civic action and participatory democracy need time too. Democratic groups like PTAs and other voluntary human institutions take time to do their work.
Until we slow down the rate of growth in information and technology and learn to pay attention to the true pace of the non-technological planet, we'll keep making unrealistic demands that can't be fulfilled. At the very least, we need to understand that our accelerated rates of production and use of human-made technical information function at a completely different pace from that of the natural rates of information exchange, like those I experienced in the Brazilian rain forest."
MAIN ISSUES:
General Environment Issuses: from the toxification of our environment to Environmental Justice.
Consumer Issues: How do our shopping habits effect the world aroud us?
The Question of Progress: What does it mean?
Food Issues and Biotechnology: In Canada, America, the world abroad.
Globalization Issues: Impacts at home and abroad
Global Warming and Forest Issues
Non-Violent Direct Actions: some groups and individuals fighting against large international corporations for local sovereignty
Human Rights, Environmental Rights
Timely and thought-provoking.......2000-06-14
In his new book, From Naked Ape to Superspecies, David Suzuki explores a myriad of topics of profound importance. The environment is his central theme, though there are are chapters on genetic engineering, globalisation, and environmental activisim. Like other authors before him, Suzuki is deeply concerned about the current nature of the world. Biodiversity is threatened, cultural diversity is diminisihing with the onslaught of globalisation, and our very health and well-being are potentially in danger from genetically-modified (GM)food. Each of these topics is explained through the viewpoint of numerous experts in the various fields, as the book is based on a radio series which interviewed many people.
For a student of biological science, the book was real eye-opener as it exposed me to many of the ramifications of broad issues I had previously taken little notice of. I knew little of globalisation, now I think I know enough to be able to form an opinion. Same for GM food. I had not realised that Suzuki was so green, but he clearly has an active interest in the perhaps not-so-scientific side of environmentalism. He is a wise man who deserves to receive ample attention.
Overall, I found the book to be highly interesting and thought-provoking, and I recommend it to anyone with a more than a passing interest in the environment and other portentous issues. I have no criticisms to make, besides the fact that little written material seems to be referred to. As a result, the accuracy of some his comments must necessarily come under suscipician. This, however, should not detract from the overall superior quality of the book.
Reality for Environmental Dummies.......2000-03-26
I encountered this book first on tape, and have now ordered a copy for my town library, another for a faculty member at Norwich University who chairs a committee that makes an annual Earth Stewardship Prize award to students/faculty, and one for the Environment bookshelf in my own library. Unfortunately, this is a message that is far too late, but " better late than never". Those who think that simply expanding world trade, or consuming as usual, or that technology will save us from the results of human predation and exploitation of the ecosystem of the planet, or that there is no real global warming, or that the world can sustain an unlimited human population are the ones who MUST read this book. Yes, the earth will recover from what we humans are doing to it , but there won't be any of our (highly endangered) species around to find out what the world will look like then!
Another anti-business rant from the hard left.......2000-03-21
Yet another of-the-left anti-free market anti-business rant by a second rate 'scientist' that few people take seriously these days. Suzuki should keep to his last. Still, if you're already persuaded to his viewpoint -- a fellow traveller -- this book is a beauty.
If you are here, you are looking in the wrong place..........2000-03-02
If you are reading this review and contemplating whether or not to buy this book, consider the fact that it would be hypocritical to buy this book instead of borrowing it from the library.
Books:
- A Passion for the Impossible: The Life of Lilias Trotter (Northwind Book)
- A Peace Corps Profile
- A Small Place in Italy
- Back in Action: An American Soldier's Story of Courage, Faith and Fortitude
- Battered Bastards of Bastogne
- Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind the Legend (Missouri Biography Series)
- Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy
- Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (New Directions Paperbook, 161)
- Blood and Vengeance: One Family's Story of the War in Bosnia
- Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Ultimate Gift
- The Children of Now: Crystalline Children, Indigo Children, Star Kids, Angels on Earth, and the Phen
- Sweet Hereafter: A Novel
- Some Practical Magic
- So You Think You Know Thomas Hardy
- Protein Crystallography
- The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization
- Edwin Dickinson: Dreams and Realities
- River Of Cliffs: A Linville Gorge Reader
- Annual rings in big sagebrush: Artemisia tridentata
Jazz Age Poet: A Story About Langston Hughes (Creative Minds Biographies)
Words Of Promise: A Story About James Weldon Johnson (Creative Minds Biographies)
A Pocketful of Goobers: A Story About George Washington Carver (Creative Minds Biography)
Booker T. Washington (First Biographies)
First Son And President: A Story About John Quincy Adams (Creative Minds Biographies)
