Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things is a densely packed book of the then evolving science of botany in the 18th and 19th centuries. Reading Signature was like taking a walk in the woods or in a botanical garden. Spanning the globe, from…
Well…it seems that the sea lions that at one time were hunted into near extinction for their coats, valuable commodities that 19th century China traded or paid troves of silver may now be a victim of climate warming. My prior blog review of When America First…
Eric Jay Dolin, in When America met China, recounts the beginnings of the American love affair with Imperial China, it culture, tea and other goods and China’s quest for silver, furs, sandalwood, ginseng, as well as the pernicious opium. It is also the story of…
The edge of the earth means different things to different people. It also depends on the context. Mount Everest is one edge–the top edge at approximately 29,035 feet. To people living in the 17th and 18th centuries’ Europe, Australia was probably the edge of the…
Inferno by Dan Brown is a thriller. It is also a warning that so many others have tried to pass onto their fellow man. The others include Al Gore and Jimmy Carter, who infamously said that we, humankind, will have to learn how to live…
Edith Forbes in Nowle’s Passing writes of the aftermath of a father’s (Vernon) death when his children return home in rural Vermont for the funeral. The story is told through the eyes of Vincie, the daughter and the eldest of three children. After Vincie goes…
If you are under thirty five, George Seielstad’s Dawn of the Anthropocene predicts a grim story for your dotage and for your children and grandchildren’s lifetimes. If scientists are right, the U.S. may be one state less ultimately — the seas may envelop Florida. Say…
Update — check out the story on Georgia’s newest ocean reef — made of chicken cages and an old barge, near Tybee Island. ************************************************************************************************* The need to value nature much like…
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