Gorgeous Beasts takes a fresh look at the place of animals in history and art. Refusing the traditional subordination of animals to humans, the essays gathered here examine a rich variety of ways animals contribute to culture: as living things, as scientific specimens, as food, weapons, tropes, and occasions for thought and creativity. History and culture set the terms for this inquiry. As history changes, so do the ways animals participate in culture. Gorgeous Beasts offers a series of discontinuous but probing studies of the forms their participation takes. This collection presents the work of a wide range of scholars, critics, and thinkers from diverse disciplines: philosophy, literature, history, geography, economics, art history, cultural studies, and the visual arts. By approaching animals from such different perspectives, these essays broaden the scope of animal studies to include specialists and nonspecialists alike, inviting readers from all backgrounds to consider the place of animals in history and art. Combining provocative critical insights with arresting visual imagery, Gorgeous Beasts advances a challenging new appreciation of animals as co-inhabitants and co-creators of culture. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Dean Bavington, Ron Broglio, Mark Dion, Erica Fudge, Cecilia Novero, Harriet Ritvo, Nigel Rothfels, Sajay Samuel, and Pierre Serna.

More than 900 species of birds are known from North America, an avifauna made up of native year-round residents and seasonal migrants, modestly enhanced by introduced exotics and neighboring vagrants. Bird Is the Word is an unequalled compilation of the names of almost 800 of those birds and the record of how, when, where, and by whom those names were created and became parts of the history and science of North America's avifauna. This book is made up of three parts. Part I provides an introduction to the discovery and recording of North American birds by Europeans and to the scope and structure of avian taxonomy. Part II, which consists of 26 chapters and makes up most of the book, is devoted to the names of the individual species and the historical and cultural context of those names. Part III includes three appendixes, the largest of which introduces more than a hundred naturalists and other persons who participated searching for, finding, recording, naming, describing, or illustrating the birds of North America. Bird Is the Word is a rich, and readily accessible, collection of information about finding and naming the birds of North America. It is much more than a reference book; it is a journey of discovery that will enrich the reader's birding experience.

Pt. 1. Introduction to general aids. pt. 2. Regional: v.1. The United States of America.

Published in 1987, Historical Perspectives and the International Status of Comparative Psychology is a valubale contribution to the field of Psychology PP.

This intriguing volume provides a thorough examination of the historical roots of global climate change as a field of inquiry, from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century. Based on primary and archival sources, the book is filled with interesting perspectives on what people have understood, experienced, and feared about the climate and its changes in the past. Chapters explore climate and culture in Enlightenment thought; climate debates in early America; the development of international networks of observation; the scientific transformation of climate discourse; and early contributions to understanding terrestrial temperature changes, infrared radiation, and the carbon dioxide theory of climate. But perhaps most important, this book shows what a study of the past has to offer the interdisciplinary investigation of current environmental problems.

From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plain is an account of the making of a large part of the American landscape following European settlement. Drawing upon land survey records and early travellers' accounts, Dr Whitney reconstructs the 'virgin' forests and grasslands of the north-eastern and central United States during the pre-settlement period. He then documents successively the clearance and fragmentation of the region's woodlands, the harvest of the forest and its game, the ploughing of the prairies, and the draining of wetlands. The degree to which these activities altered the soil, climate, plant and animal communities, and water cycle are evaluated, and the sustainability of present-day ecosystems is brought into question in this account.