Science Nature Books

This book has a great idea, which is to use maps to show how climate change is expected to affect various areas. The big flaw is that it lumps the entire United States together, rather than showing the changes expected in each region. Surely, climate change will have very different effects on Arizona, Maine, and Oregon. How about doing a book specific to the US?

Written to be a textbook, this book is a good introductory primer into the physical science behind global warming. There are also graphs and discussions on what each country is doing financially (by GDP) to help solve the problem and which countries emit carbon and at what rate. It utilizes an extensive amount of graphs and maps, which makes it very easy to visualize the various topics presented.

I am using this currently as a supplemental text book in a community college class in global warming and have found it to be wonderful. It is not, as some other reviewers have seemed to imply, the end all book on the subject and does not delve into extreme detail into any on particular aspect of global warming. In fact, at a mere 128 pages, I cannot see it as more than a light treatment of the subject. What is does is supplement other textbooks which contain more discussion and less visualization.

This would be a good book for those interested in global warming but that have a hard time visualizing the issues. Combined with other, more detailed books, this would provide excellent information. This would also be recommended as text for us in a high school or college introductory environmental science class.

This is an excellent book for those wishing to study the issue of climate change from a geographical standpoint. The maps are excellent - they show exactly where evidence is being found to support global warming, what aeas of the world will be most impacted by global warming, and which nations have committed resources to slowing carbon emissions.

It is a visual guide to global warming, giving a very graphic perspective of the earth as a whole. The scientific explanations of the interacting systems of global winds, ocean currents, atmospheric gasses, and how they are being affected by human alterations, are particularly easy to understand because of the clear diagrams and colorful maps.

As an instructor of physical geography, I find this to be an excellent book for the non-scientist to undertand the physical processes and the science of global warming. The detailed yet easy-to-understand maps and diagrams add another dimension to an often dry and theoretical topic.

This book enters the fray with a good overview relative to alternative energy as the answer - but, in my opinion, fails to embrace the "source" of today's dilemma. To precipitate a change in climate - we need a sea-change in the overall interaction of humanity with water. To achieve this, it would be wise for each of us to become conscious of how our daily decisions impact the world within our reach. What products we buy, how we use energy, the examples we set, what we say to others, how we help ease the burden of other life forms we come into contact with - all have an impact on water and the future of life in our biosphere. And, it is the condition of water within our biosphere that will determine the success or failure of our civilization.

My title says it all! This book is easy to read, pleasant to the eyes with its use of color and visuals, and food for the mind. At last, someone has taken pity on individuals who hear about climate change problems, but have not had the facts about it. I think this book is useful for everyone, and can be used in church, school, and living room settings.

Jay S. Southwick

I disagree with Dixie who had written the previous review! The book was not written for 3 year olds! A good parent reviews the info and suggested age levels in the review section before buying. We have been very happy with these books. After buying one other, we bought this one and love it just as much. These experiments are simple to read and study. But the teach important science concepts so I am as happy as a mom can be...but again...I read the age level before buying the book! Someday I hope to make a list of recommended books...this will be one!

My children and I have used this book until it has become tattered and torn. Not only are the science activities easy to understand, they are easy to do and don't require any special equipment. I would highly recommend this book...I loved it so much, that I now have a collection of all of this author's books.

I bought this book for my 3 year old son since he has an interest in science. When I got the book I was disappointed in the experiments listed, such as disecting an osyter and fish. Not that I have problems with that, but I was looking for something that you can find objects around the house and more cause and reaction type thing.

My children loved this book becasue they had fun with experiments. But my husband and I loved this book because it taught our children science conepts that we could never teach. We used this book until it got raggedy and torn and then my kids insisted on getting another copy!
We highly recommend this book.

Karen and Fred

My DH is using this and other books for a science and gadget class with 10 K-2 kids. He likes this book as the experiments are easy and fast paced enough to keep the kids' attention, a real issue with this bunch.

If scientists like Richard Dawkins and Victor Stenger are to be believed, science has decisively ruled out God and all but the material. If people (I cannot call them scientists) like William Dembski and Philip Johnson are to be believed, then science does the contrary: it PROVES God (but tiptoes around the fact, not wanting to undermine its so-called religion of materialism. In his book "When God is Gone, Everything is Holy," Chet Raymo takes issue with both extremes and argues for a completely different way to concieve of the world - materialistic and religious at the same time.

To get Raymo's main point, all one needs to do is read the title; it means what it says. While Raymo suggests that there is simply no real evidence for a God (especially the personal one we all want to believe in), he calls himself (oddly, I confess) a Catholic in that he sees the world and all in it as sublime and inspired. Raymo's philosophy is much like that of fellow agnostic John Dewey in his book "A Common Faith," where Dewey suggests that while there may be no God, there is such a thing as "religious experience," where one feels strongly one's connectin with everything and how splendid it all is. That is much of Raymo's point.

Raymo also owes much to the man who coined the term "agnostic:" Thomas Henry Huxley. Several chapters towards the beginning very rightly point out (contra Dawkins AND Johnson) that science is simply moot on many points, including some of those related to religion. Science cannot seem to answer the God question (though it may one day, any suggestion that it has now is highly inferrential at best). It cannot seem to answer the question of "Why are we here?" (though "How did we get to where we are?" has been well answered, it is a wholly different question.) Echoing Huxley's essays on agnosticism, Raymo suggests that he will remain silent on scientific questions for which no evidence has been adduced. Thus, Raymo is an agnostic.

While the midle voice is often the most reasonable, it is often also the least cogent. This certainly applies to Raymo. He may try to be a philosopher, but he proves to be a bad one and, as such, his case is very confusing. For instance, when Raymo suggests that humans (despite being wholly material) have free will, all he seems to suggest is that there are so many variables that human action cannot be predicted (we may be determined, but we cannot predict our actions with 100% accuracy). Hardly a compelling case for free will for which there are many better arguments. Nor does Raymo explain how he suggests that there is no God, but expects that even if this were so, the church would keep its "sacremental and liturgical nature." In other words, what point is there of ritual, church attendance, and talking of the sacred when one does not believe in a God. Raymo may have convinced himself, but ask any church-goer whether the sacrements have any meaning if one does not believe in Jesus. Again, not very convincing, and Raymo is short on any cogent arguments here.

In the end, I give the book 3 stars, for while Raymo's musings are interesting and fresh, they are also quite baffling. In terms of argument, he is much less than either Dawkins or Johnson (even though he may have more reasoned sense than either). If one wants to hear the middle voice, read this book but also read Mary Midgley's "Science and Salvation," and Carl Sagan's "Demon-Haunted World." While this book was fun, the others are a bit stronger.

I have devoted a couple of pleasant hours to a first reading of Chet Raymo's new book, WHEN GOD IS GONE, EVERYTHING IS HOLY: THE MAKING OF A RELIGIOUS NATURALIST. Here is my first impression. I shoot from the hip and expect to have second thoughts.

The book makes a case for "agnostic Catholicism," for natural religion aka religious naturalism and praises Socrates' belief (though Chet Raymo does not attribute it to Socrates) that "I know that I know nothing." WHEN GOD IS GONE makes a case for systematic doubt, praises science for illuminating the darkness of mystery, dislikes miracles and any ultimate reality possessed of something resembling "anthropomorphic" intellect, will and personhood. Chet Raymo writes, "This is a book about living in the portal between knowledge and mystery, between the commonplace and the divine" (p. 17).

I began by liking the book almost instantly for its author's love of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, S. J. (pp. 7 - 10 and elsewhere) and for a text that provided a well stated Cardinal Newman-evocative apologia for the author's "history of my own mind." At reading's end, however, I liked it less. As a competent, spritely, stand-alone exercise in one leading 21st century style of reasoning, it represents nothing I have not read dozens of time before. Still, it is very, very well expressed, at least most of the time.

Some context: in recent months I have been reading heavily into a bunch of Roman Catholics who are older contemporaries of cradle Roman Catholic Chet Raymo. They made up a large part of his intellectual milieu.

-- I began in January 2008 studying a disgraced Jesuit priest, Father Leonard Feeney, S. J. (1897 - 1978), whose FISH ON FRIDAY was published by Frank Sheed. Feeney (who had lived at Oxford University in the very room of Chet Raymo's beloved Gerard Manley Hopkins) disliked Cardinal Newman both as a "worldly" Catholic and as a writer (saying approximately that Newman's style was as "clear as the cold water of a fishbowl without the fish"). Author Raymo (1936 - ) was in his early teens when Feeney began to make his noisy, disruptive move as a spokesman for the sort of ultra-dogmatic, backward looking, narrow, intolerant Roman Catholicism that both the Vatican and Raymo radically and peremptorily reject.

-- During the same years, the son of Eisenhower's Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was relishing his conversion while an undergraduate at Harvard from agnosticism to Catholicism, had just founded the Saint Benedict Center in Cambridge which became Father Feeney's fortress and was beginning studies that led him to the Jesuit priesthood and in 2001 to the Cardinalate. I refer to Avery Dulles, S. J. (1918 - ).

-- Australian Lay theologian Frank Sheed (1897 - 1981) was still writing away. It was Sheed's THEOLOGY AND SANITY that young Raymo, still a Roman Catholic, albeit a questioning one, studied in an apologetics class at Notre Dame University (p. 51).

This was Raymo's American milieu as he came of age -- a last hurrah of post-Reformation traditionalist Catholicism.

I suspect that even today "Catholic agnostic" Chet Raymo might nod approvingly at Leonard Feeney's caution not to confuse a puzzle with mystery. A puzzle (scientific, mathematical or otherwise) we are pretty sure we can solve. On a mystery we can shed a little light around the edges. This is a distinction which Raymo captures in other words.

Came the Second Vatican Council (1962 - 1965) and much musty Catholic thinking was officially turned on its head or effectively shelved. Was Raymo looking, in his pet phrase, "attentive?" If so, I did not catch it in his book.

In his seminal 1971 (reissued 1982) THE SURVIVAL OF DOGMA, Avery Dulles laid out an entirely empathetic appeal to traditionalist Christians to have respect for and listen carefully to and learn new ways from people beginning to think and write after the fashion of Chet Raymo. Times had changed. The best thinking was scientific thinking. The world was moving into an age of technology and rapid material progress.

According to Dulles, religious doubt and methodical skepticism are authentic Christian virtues, mandated by conscience for any honest, thinking man or woman. Even faith itself "is open to doubt" (SURVIVAL OF DOGMA 1982, p. 141). If a person who reasons and experiments like a scientist finds cognitive dissonance when he tries to think like a Lutheran or a Jew, then those faiths had better learn to re-express the core of what they have received from God in new ways that make sense to followers of Kepler, Newton, Darwin, Einstein and on and on. To survive, Christianity has to speak to the perceptions and needs of men who think new thoughts. If outmoded forms of prayer and worship do not touch the hearts of scientific men, out those forms must go -- for the sake of the unchanging core of Christianity.

I think that it would be great fun as well as enlightening to listen to a fireside exchange of ideas between two eloquent Americans: a 72 year old science writer and a 90 year old Cardinal/theologian. Chet Raymo has every right, Dulles would say, to be proud of his science and its triumphs. If Raymo borrows a non-scientific word "inscape" from Gerard Manley Hopkins or sees some merit in the evolutionary goal Omega in Teilhard de Chardin, that is just fine, great, Dulles would concede. But Raymo is under no obligation either to use the language or think the thoughts of the world views of Heraclitus, Pascal, or indeed any previous age. Times change and the burden is on religious writers to change with them in the direction of scientific thought categories.

I think that a good result from WHEN GOD IS GONE EVERYTHING IS HOLY, would be for Chet Raymo and Avery Dulles to meet face to face and talk, then share the results of their dialog with the rest of us. I would love to hear each do justice to the other's position. Alternatively, absent any face to face meeting, Chet Raymo has earned at least a footnote, probably even a chapter, in the next book Cardinal Dulles writes. Raymo, Dulles would explain, brilliantly talks the talk of our times, science talk, a language that disciples of Jesus must learn to talk for the sake of a soul that Raymo for the moment at least disbelieves in.

I give WHEN GOD IS GONE high marks for its language, lower marks for originality or for familiarity with many concepts of that philosophia perennis which runs from Socrates through Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas and John Paul II to today's world. -OOO-


AN ASIDE: any author who scatters as many names about his text as Chet Raymo: e. g., names like G. M. Hopkins, Larry Dossey, Mary Oliver, Joseph Needham, Meera Nanda, and on and on, owes his readers an INDEX.

This astonishing book was at first a difficult read due to the authors style. Raymo's conversational style and sharp mind jump from idea to idea and classic work or author as well, so it took me a couple of chapters to adjust to his rhythm, but adjust I did. Also, the first few chapters are his foundation for the book, so they are filled with references and quotes as he lays out the history of Catholic belief and his journey through that faith.

However, with that aside, Raymo takes readers from the farthest reaches of the universe, past the spiral galaxy to the most intimate reaches of nature where we are cousins to a worm the size of this letter i. He sets forth a strong case, which may be frightening to some readers, for there being no soul, no self that goes on after death of the body, while at the same time making the reader comfortable with this knowledge because of the bounty, beauty, mystery, and awe of nature.

Raymo's writing reflects what is echoed in other new spiritual theologies, that we can be spiritual without being religious. We can have an agreement between science and religion. We can stop killing each other and our earth and start appreciating this complex work that "connect us all the way down". We can accept that god may be in our DNA, but is also in our culture. We can set aside the centuries old dogmas while retaining the comfortable rituals, and find grace everywhere.

Yes, an astonishing read for anyone...and you don't have to be Catholic - I'm not - to understand or see the broader connections.

As a religious naturalist who grew up in a Southern Baptist church I often ponder how such a great change in one's worldview could come about. In his wonderful little book, When God Is Gone Everything Is Holy, The Making of a Religious Naturalist, Chet Raymo reflects on a similar change in his life, from a very religious Roman Catholic reared in the South to a religious naturalist who calls himself a "Catholic agnostic". His journey is remarkably similar to my own, even to the same names of those in our pantheons from which we have garnered much: poets Gerard Manley Hopkins and Mary Oliver, early Christian thinkers Pelagius and Meister Eckhart, scientists Charles Darwin and Ursula Goodenough. Common also is the urgency to make our experiences of the material world, of nature, consonant with our spiritual understandings.

Raymo traces his development as a religious naturalist in beautiful words that only an experienced and talented writer can muster. His sense of mystery found in the cosmos and his love of science allow him to confirm that it is okay to say, "I don't know." Yet this sense of mystery is what makes living worthwhile:

"The prayer of the heart is not garrulous. It listens in silence, expectant. If, as so many of the mystics said, the creation is the primary revelation, then it is when we listen to what is that we hear the voice of God."

This book is a must read by all who "hear the voice of God" in nature and are awed by what it tells.

To be quite honest I had to look up what religious naturalism was on Wikipedia. It is a belief based on the natural world reflecting the Divine. Knowing that now helps me to understand the book with a reflective eye and not one of complete confusion.

As a writer Chet Raymo is pretty good. What I had issue with was the way the narrative wandered all over with quotes and other references thrown in almost willy-nilly. If you get the obscure movie, philosophical or graduate level references then more power to you. All they did were to distract me from the real meat of the narrative.

Being religion is entirely an experiential thing it is exceedingly difficult to explain it in text. How I mean this is; if you are walking in the woods one day and bump your toe and see God. Then, you go back to tell your friends. You will have a very difficult time explaining it. To replicate the experience a person would have to go into the woods and stub their toe exactly the same way. It may or may not happen to them. So religious texts for years have had this issue. Trying to explain the Divine in anything is difficult and often impossible.

Overall it is a very nice introduction to Religious Naturalism. If you fancy yourself a scholar then you might get more out of this book than I did.

It had been suggested by another mom to check out Amazon.com for a duplicate history book for student to have at home for two reasons. One to keep from having to carry the heavy book back and forth from school and second to have your own book you can make notes in margin, highlight, etc. So it was the perfect solution for my daughther!!

Having being taught only the "Mr. Rogers" version of American history by my previous teachers (the Revolutionary War started with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776), I found this book very disagree able. Then, of course, I realized that we had to hand a nice, happy, packaged to Americas young ones.

The book digs into the top soil of American history. It gives general happenings, events leading up to and following wars, and reactions to wars off the battlefield. It labels some of the key events in history as being "Turning Points" and devotes a section in chapter to these happenings.

This is a great resource for teaching freshman and sophomore American history and you are hearing this straight from a student himself.

I am using this book at a public school after transferring form a private school with an excellent History teach who could add endless information on top of our old text book. This book is horrible at a true image of history; it idolizes America and its major political figures. It places emphasis in areas that do not need it does not make connections to today's world as the title would imply. I have even found some factual errors in the book such as saying that Lincoln was an abolitionist (he wasn't for those that think he was). As I said before the book really gives you the fluffy happy history of America and makes us always seem like a saint county that is the best. When I read books like this it makes me wonder how people can criticize other countries for censoring text books. [...]

most history books are pretty dry, but this one teaches me. i actually do learn the history of america from a concise text.

This book is a colection of small to tiny hidropower instalations mainly in Canada and gives general details about how the power is generated for isolated houses or cabins.
Does not give you ways to learn how to solve your specific situation, simply is a description of different solutions that can be of general model if you have a similar situation on hand.
If you are looking on how to build a microhydro there are other books that are more suited to the task, if you just want to learn how people have solved their energy problem with hydro generation then you will find it useful.

Not the best book I've read about Microhydro. I read one published in the 70's and it did a much better job explaining how electricity works and the problems associated with making power from water. Through out microhydro he make references to other parts of the book, it was kind of like teasers when you are watching bad tv, "in just a moment we'll find out what's in Al Capone's secret vault". It was like he didn't have enough to say so he kept stretching it out and repeating things he already said. He also kept talking about the case studies at the end of the book. They were not too informative. All and all I just wanted to let people know I was disappointed. This was supposed to be The Book on microhydro and it just didn't measure up . I more recently read a catch all book for wind, water and solar energy and it did a great job. I would recommend "[[ASIN: Power with Nature Second Edition: Alternative Energy Solutions for Homeowners Updated]]"

Scott Davis does a wonderful job at explaining every aspect of microhydro. I highly recommend this for teaching or personal use if you are interested in building your own system.

After reading this book, I must say that energy from water is outstanding compared to other alternative sources. I must say also that I am left with a little puzzlement as the book explains things and parts and equipment in terms as if I was a practitioner of the field of study. I have no experience in the subject so some of the terminology and advice made little sense for my understanding. However, I will keep this book for future reference. I found that this book was written with the idea that though water can provide for most of the needed energy for a small household, understanding the greater need of the household employs more than one source of alternative energy. Few water sources can provide for all needs, and the book stressed this in the biginning. I would have liked to have seen colored photos. The black and white photos were shadey and when referred to them for understanding, I was unable to identify the pointed out areas. I must add that though I am not an engineer or a mathmatician and could only understand about 89% of the subject, I am sold on the idea of microhydro power and it's performance. I am willing to try my hand at my own system, with the help of the book and professionals that is.

Very good practical overview of micro-hydro and alternative energy in general for residential users. Basic primer that anyone who is considering installing such a system should read.

This is a jaw-dropper of a book. Of all the books about the Anasazi, this is the only one that tells it all, puts it all together. Craig Childs has trudged his soulful way through all the dwellings, all the literature, tracing these mysterious people's movements over hundreds of years and hundreds of miles. He has given full rein to common sense and intuition in figuring out who they were, what they did and why. Adding to the excitement of continuous discovery, the reader is led through mile after mile on foot through dangerous terrain and weather, into caves, straight up mountains and deep into canyons. And as the story unfolds, each moment is as astonishing as if one were there. There is no impenetrable archaeological jargon here; plain English reigns. It is thrilling reading, understandable in every way and immensely satisfying.

House of Rain weaves anthropology, desert experiences, and backcountry interactions with archeologists and family. The focus is field archeology, which academic publications cover formally and in much greater detail. They are cited in 22 pages of bibliography. The pictures are few and printed on pages with text. Stylized maps appear on the section headers. One might appreciate large color pictures and traditional, functional maps. But consider the $25 cost of this 500 page book. I've become accustomed to paying $30 - $35 for such a book and suspect that reduced photos and maps played a role in restricting the cost. There are other books with superb photographs of most of the ruins and artifacts Childs describes, or with maps at all scales depicting the northern regions covered by House of Rain. This book purposely and successfully blends education and entertainment. Becoming tired of speculation about ancient migration from a site? Childs shares his adventure there. Soon enough you are returned, refreshed, to the past. For unadulterated archeology House of Rain cannot compete with the referenced publications; for sheer life-threatening adventure it is no match for typical accounts of Himalayan climbs. And probably the descriptions of his toddler in the backcountry are eclipsed by Silverman's "Backpacking with Babies and Small Children", which I admit I have not read. But Childs set out to narrate passionately a mix of his ideas about southwestern archeology and his experiences in acquiring them. I find his attempt to be very successful.

As a former journalist fascinated by the people we call "Anasazi", I was totally captivated by Craig Childs' House of Rain. The writing is highly readable, the research thorough, and the information fascinating. It's a particularly compelling read for someone who's traveled the Southwest. This book is by far the best of several I've read about pre-Columbian peoples in the Southwest, and seems to present the most balanced view.

I am glad I read HOUSE OF RAIN and I can easily recommend it to others interested in the "Anasazi" (the controversy over this name is discussed at some length in the book) and related peoples of the Southwest. Nonetheless, I am somewhat ambivalent about this book, more so than with many I have read.

On the plus side, HOUSE OF RAIN probably is the most comprehensive non-academic book dealing with the Anasazi and related peoples I have encountered, and one of the most readable. It traces the Anasazi and their extensive archaeological record from Chaco in New Mexico, north to Aztec and Mesa Verde, then west to the Utah canyonlands, then south to Kayenta and Antelope Mesa in Arizona, further south to the Mogollon Rim along the New Mexico/Arizona border, and even further south into the Sierra Madre in Mexico. Childs discusses in a non-pedantic fashion quite a few of the theories about the Anasazi, their way of life, their artistic, engineering, and organizational/political accomplishments, and their ultimate fate. Moreover, he is to be commended for not being deterred by political correctness from discussing such matters as cannibalism, warfare and slavery, ritual violence, and dementia and hallucinations induced by an exclusively corn-based diet. Nonetheless, he clearly is highly respectful of the Anasazi, and he communicates a sense of wonder and awe.

On the other hand, certain aspects of the book are annoying or distracting, at least to me. Foremost among them is the author's overly "personal" narrative, all-too-generously sprinkling the book with anecdotes from his travels through the Southwest as he tracks the Anasazi. I recognize that he wants to establish his credentials and also to avoid a dry, academic tone, but many of his anecdotes are banal in the extreme (for example, many of the interactions between he and fellow travellers or he and his family). Childs also too frequently lapses into sappiness or melodrama, leading me to fear that perhaps his account may be overly imaginative, too much the product of a romantic mind bent on understanding and explaining where anything close to absolute understanding and explanation simply is not possible. Finally, given the numerous accounts of large, carefully engineered and built structures, even cities, many of which were occupied for only a few decades, I would have appreciated some discussion of how these massive construction projects were accomplished.

Despite the (to me) annoying flaws of HOUSE OF RAIN, the book is highly informative, definitely worth reading, and probably worth returning to.

Note that I did not say "disappearance."

That said, you don't need to read Craig Childs to tell you that. A number of good modern authors, not necessarily Ph.D. anthropologists, have been writing about that for going on a decade.

That then said, Childs book has a wider geographic and chronological spread than others of these books. Starting with the rise of Chaco Canyon, he takes us through Mesa Verde, Kayenta and the Mogollon Rim down into northeastern Sonora, and runs from around 1000 CE to first Spanish contact in Sonora and the start of written history.

He uses pottery, architecture, skeletal and skeletal DNA evidence to trace the movement of the Ancestral Puebloans (the best term, rather than either Anasazi or Hisatsinom) to across all these areas.

His thought provocation includes wondering what level of culture, religious observance, etc., these peoples had at different times and places in their history. Since his beat, as a layperson, tends more toward archaeology than anthropology, he doesn't get into these issues too much, but does stimulate thought.

That said, this book isn't five-star, or even quite four-star, for a few reasons.

I was going to four-star at first, but just couldn't quite pull the trigger, especially based on what this book could have been versus what it actually is.

1. The "personal happenings" anecdotes are longer, and contribute less to the flow of the narrative, than in, say, David Roberts in "In Search of the Old Ones."

2. Without revealing too much about site locations, Childs could at least have had a few general area maps in the book. Again, compare Roberts.

3. He didn't anything with tying in the Mimbres culture of SW New Mexico into his thesis; perhaps that's because it's lack of apparent Chacoan influence or connectedness upsets some of his ideas.

4. He gets a bit New Agey at times, especially in his chapter(s) on the Great Sage Plain. No thanks.

5. Finally, to the degree he focuses on pottery, the lack of color plate pages is just not acceptable.

I was not surprised to see that Derrick Jensen would be a great interviewer, He also picked a great bunch of people to interview. Thier personal beliefs and the way the express them with word and actions really made me look at myself and wonder what else I can do.

This is the LABORATORY MANUAL, not the biology text book. There is nothing that I can see in the description to indicate this. .

I read the 2001 paperback of the 2000 book. It is very well written, which can't be said about all books on the topic. It is clear, at times funny, macabre, eye-opening, repulsive due to topic, fascinating and thought provoking.

Parasites outnumber other forms of life 4:1, are much more ubiquitous than commonly thought, have been essential for evolution and have directly influenced human DNA. (Not even considering mitochondria getting integrated in most forms of life.) Parasites make it necessary to revise the tree of life into a bush of many merging branches. Human cells within the average human are outnumbered by a factor of ten by non-human cells. Getting knowledgable about parasites is much more important a topic than the obvious peculiar yuk effect. Though I promise you that this book will fulfill the latter to the fullest as well.

I thought I knew a bit about parasites. For example those wasps which lay eggs in other invertebrates. To begin with, I didn't know that there were some 200,000 parasitic wasp species out there. I had also no idea, how EXACTLY some of them work. Like the species, whose two eggs, one female, one male, subdivide in the host, to produce ever more eggs, with the females developing into different classes of maggots, such as the soldier maggots whose only job it is to kill other parasitic wasps' maggots in the host - and all but one of the male siblings. Or that the social parasite, the cuckoo baby is able to mimic the sound of a CHOIR of eight singing host bird babies and the sign stimulus of as many youngsters in the nest to the parents' eyes. (Though the book doesn't mention that some birds cannot be fooled anyway and depose of the cuckoo (egg) and also doesn't mention that the near-by cuckoo parents may retaliate by killing all the hosts' surviving kids...) Or that there is something like plant bacteria, not as in bacteria of plants, but as in green bacteria. Being an essential part (originally parasite) of the parasite named "bad-air" aka malaria.

The book answers even the nagging question, wether there are homosexual parasites. (I wondered that ever since I read Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity (Stonewall Inn Editions) about mammals and birds.) The flukes mentioned here are the first parasites I encountered (as in READING about them), which act homosexual in a benign way. To each other that is. (Other parasites - not mentioned in this book - may act homosexual in very twisted ways to procreate to the detriment of same-sex competitors.) Thinking about it: Shouldn't homosexual parasites of the former kind be our favorite parasites, if there is such a thing, because presumably they do NOT procreate, as in: in us? The book sure doesn't answer the question wether there are homosexual solidarity activists like there are for maltreated homosexual zoo animals.

Talking about questions I never knew existed: The book is full of them. Sticking with the homosexual topic, there's a fungus, which TURNS flies into necrophiliac homosexuals. As much as another parasite doesn't only fool crabs into believing that their attached parasite babies are crab babies to care for, but fooling male crabs to believe they themselves are females all of the sudden in order to (be able to) do that to begin with. If you ever sought a flabbergasting book, this will be it. Some animals have a bodyguard class against parasites (ants), others employ blind snakes as maids to free the nest of parasites (owls). And how much DNA itself can get parasitic in various ways sure wasn't on my radar of existing topics.

The book talks about allergies caused by the modern lack of parasites, complete fusions of life, the parasitic origin of sexuality, and that humans may be considered as parasites in the gaia concept. As stupid parasites that is, which are those defined who kill their host. Some readers may be a little lost with this spirituality capping ending of the book. As a Rasta, personally, I am not. As such, I was surprised to find welcome information on the spread of parasites through colonialism. Not only via the conquerors' imported bugs and slavery's transmission, but via relocating cattle within Africa. And via forcing the indiginous populations to live and work in areas unsuited for humans and/or their cattle. All of that having caused most severe and lethal epidemics. The Western apologetic lore has it that their colonial doctors brought healing power to their conquered new lands. (The book doesn't mention that some vaccines were necessary, because the diseases had been imported in the first place and that some FORCED cattle vaccinations occasionally caused more deaths in livestock than the diseases themselves, sometimes intended, sometimes not.) In today's shifted colonial world, the book warns (indirectly) against huge dams, which dramatically expand standing water, which in turn dramatically expands the habitat of dangerous to human parasite carrying snails. In case you are wondering how dams are colonial, please read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. I find it also interesting to read that Konrad Lorenz didn't change his views of parasitism in the Nazi sort of way at all - even not a few days before his death in 1989. As celebrated as he gets in Western school books, it is usually not known (and not elaborated in this book) that he fully embraced the Nazi party and became an eager member immediately after Hitler marched into Austria. On a more enlightening subject around parasites, I didn't consider before I read this book that human (pre-)history can be reconstructed via tapeworms.

I have a little bit of criticism. Some things are sketchily mentioned only. There is a parasite which eats the flesh of the human face. Ok, horrid. But if I think about it after the initial impulse to turn the page immediately: How exactly do I have to imagine that? What consequences does this have? How is that livable? No answers in this book. The captions of the FEW black and white pictures on 16 pages in the middle of the book are sometimes not that precise. With that parasite, which replaces a fish's tongue, the caption is all we will ever read in this book about that parasite. How does it eat the tongue, i.e. getting into the mouth? How does the parasite help the fish grabbing food? How does the parasite mate? Does it cause infected fish to french kiss or what? If I want to research that, I would have appreciated the parasite's name. Or the name of the host. The caption only says a crustacean in a fish. Wow, that's precise! I don't even know, where on this planet I should look into a fish's mouth before eating it. Well, I was able to find some answers elsewhere nevertheless: The parasite is called Cymothoa exigua, lives in California and only in the mouths of Lutjanus guttatus aka spotted rose snapper. The parasite crawls under the tongue and severes its blood supply in a vampiric manner, causing the tongue to wither away to be replaced by the growing tongue with eyes. I still don't know how it procreates, so anybody who does know, please leave a comment with source. Five years after the book had been written, the first fish with second tongue was found in EU waters (in the UK). The book may not be that incredibly up to date, with some issues still pending when written. For example on the eradication of some parasites. As of 2008 some more countries could be added to the list of eradicated guinea worms, but with other countries still lacking behind.

The Hamilton-Zuk theory got its own book by Marlene Zuk herself: Riddled with Life: Friendly Worms, Ladybug Sex, and the Parasites That Make Us Who We Are, itself a great book about parasites, with little overlap. And if, it goes more in-depth, like with the fungus which attacks insects. If you like a coffee table book of the nasty treat, in which you can also read, which (utterly unexpected!) places in your household are the most yukky ones, "enjoy" the Canadian Human Wildlife: The Life That Lives on Us. If you are interested in more symbiotic body roomies, largely restricted to bacteria and in a systematic text book presentation, read the rather dry Microbial Inhabitants of Humans: Their Ecology and Role in Health and Disease. Much more grippingly written is Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health and Survival in a Bacterial World by a science journalist. Which is also about the history if antibiotic treatments and their failure due to mounting resistance. About former parasites, today our energy source and DNA family tree provider, mitochondria, read Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life. A more general biological approach of symbiosis is Liaisons of Life: From Hornworts to Hippos--How the Unassuming Microbe has Driven Evolution. A theoretic re-thinking, including reconstructing taxonomy and theories about gaia, read Symbiotic Planet: A New Look At Evolution.

I bought this book quite a long time ago and forgot to review it until now...I am a parasitologist and this is one of my favorites. Zimmer is funny and engaging and scientifically accurate--I HAVE GOT TO READ THIS AGAIN SOON.

"Parasite Rex" is great science writing. For readers familiar with evolutionary and ecological theories, they will meet these theories in a new guise. For readers not familiar, Zimmer has a talent for explaining complex ideas in a very simple fashion. In only one case did I detect a minor oversimplification: there is more to generating novel antibodies than shuffling genes. My only complaint about style is that Zimmer sometimes tries to make the reader horrified at what parasite does to prey, and when the prey is a lower order animal like a caterpillar, I am doubtful that having its insides eaten is as horrible as it sounds. I say this as a person who only eats free range meat. As regards content, fewer case histories of individual parasites would suffice to illustrate the ideas, and for me at least, make for an even more interesting book.

I was very surprised to learn of the strong environmental component to such autoimmune diseases as Crohn's: while once thought to be characteristic of a few ethnic groups, e.g. Jewish, it has become much more common in other groups as sanitation has improved, and the immune system has fewer parasites to fight off. Zimmer suggests parasites play a critical role in ecological balance, and points to some compelling case histories. Parasites are often able to control behavior of their hosts, and thus are a potentially important source of new behavioral drugs.

Another excellently-written work from Carl Zimmer. This book will give you a bad case of the creepy-crawlies in parts. It will also completely change your outlook on the nature of life, because you will learn that parasites are not really the gross, "devolved" hangers-on that most think of them as, but rather a vibrant, important part of the web of life...

... that is sometimes really disgusting.

Still, an outstanding book, one that give parasitology a much-improved face. Written in Zimmer's usual clear, very readable style.

I don't know why, but I find parasites interesting. However, I wasn't exactly looking for a book on this particular subject; rather I merely stumbled upon it. When I go to the book store I typically peruse my favorite sections, one of which is science. On the shelf I came across the title "Parasite Rex"... so I picked it up "King Parasite...huh." Then I made the mistake of reading the back of the book and found out what it was about. I had to buy this book immediately!

I'm always reading, so I had to finish up a couple other books before I could start reading this one, so I waited patiently in eager anticipation. I'll usually read two or three books at a time, and when I finally got freed up, I started this book. I didn't read another book until I finished this. It is one of the most engrossing scientific books I have in my collection. Carl Zimmer is actually a phenomenal writer. I'm not a scientist, but I enjoy reading about it and it's written in a manner just about anyone should be able to understand. It's like a science report that flows, but doesn't sound overly scientific, yet it's still science!

Parasite Rex doesn't just deal with one specific parasite, like the title might suggest, rather it's a veritable tour of the parasitic world. The reader finds themselves enthralled with each creature. It really changes your perspective on the world as a whole, realizing that the major importance of sex is so that we can vary up our genetic code to better defend against such parasites. It also makes you realize that for all intents and purposes the fetuses of mammals would also be parasites as well because they force the mother to change her chemical reactions to support the fetus. Also the mother treats the fetus initially as a threat to her system. I personally found all this very fascinating and made me realize that perhaps Agent Smith in the Matrix, when he assessed the human race as a virus, probably should have identified them as a parasite.

The book is also terrifying in some regards because there are parts where it explains where parasites go wrong. Parasites are essentially programmed to thrive in specific locations in your body (or some other creatures). So a parasite that gets lodged in your brain, but it's supposed to be in your stomach could end up killing the host. Or screw up which species it attaches itself to. From what I gathered, the parasites main focus isn't to kill the host, but to feed off of the host's life, so when a parasite is in the wrong spot it executes its program, but it ends up having terrifying affects on the host.

In the end this was a phenomenal read and I can't recommend this enough. In fact I will probably read this a second time because when I read it the first time through I read it pretty quickly. One other thing this book made me not want to do is visit any location that's in the central area of the earth, such as the Amazon. Considering there have been 2,500 different parasites identified in one small location. Carl Zimmer is seriously the kind of writer we need in science to help transfer complex knowledge to the lay population.

The planet is being destroyed. Endless war, unprecedented ecocide, nuclear weapons proliferation...the aforementioned are just a small sampling amongst the many measures that wreak havoc upon today's world. And how are ordinary human beings expected to combat this hulking giant that is the capitalist military-industrial complex? Consider that millions of people suffer under literal slavery (see Laos, Burma, Thailand, etc.) and scores more endure wage slavery (the "sophisticated" form of slavery...see the United States, Canada, Great Britain, etc.) Then consider the widespread cultural practices that brutally oppress women and the bloody ethnic/racial conflicts that permeate nearly every corner of the globe. When put in these terms, the outlook looks rather bleak. But once again, what can we do?

"I don't have time to think about deforestation in South America, I'm just trying to put food on the table."

Throughout the course of this book, environmental activist Derrick Jensen explores this prevailing culture of violence. We learn that as a child, Jensen faced horrific abuse under the hands of his father. Jensen concludes that his father's violence was not unique in the sense that it is symptomatic of a culture that accepts (even encourages) authoritarianism, oppression, and psychic devastation. Likewise, the Holocaust was not unique, as there have been numerous holocausts throughout the course of human history, all resulting in mass deaths of "lesser" human beings.

To Jensen, silence is the most salient part of the problem. As a child, Jensen attempted to deny the fact that abuse was taking place in his household. The facts were just too gruesome, too overwhelming. "I don't want to think about, so I won't think about it. If I never think about it, it's like it never actually happened." Jensen connects the micro to the macro; claiming that society at large operates under the same pathological mindset. The atrocities we witness everyday are so intense and harrowing that we minimize (negate, really) their impact. Only after breaking free from this cycle of silence will humanity begin to free itself by taking action in the face of destruction.

Jensen's writing style is unique. His prose is very casual and accessible. He weaves together his personal opinions with an ample amount of empirical evidence and varying philosophical and psychological perspectives. Included also are interviews and conversations Jensen has had with close friends, most of them sharing an ideology similar to his own.

Jensen's solutions are radical, not reformist, in nature. He believes that only the complete and utter abolition of industrial civilization will free humans and the environment alike. His position is that of an anarcho-primitivist or a neo-Luddite. These ideas are expanded upon and explained more thoroughly in Jensen's subsequent body of work.

This is a great book, very well written and moving. Even if you do not agree with Jensen's arguments or ideological standpoints (I actually disagree with him on several issues) there is great value to be found within these pages.

The survival of the human species depends on our ability to transcend the confinements of symbolic language. It has its uses but, ultimately, is limited. Derrick Jensen, masterfully and with powerful prose, not only explores his journey of discovering the sacred mundane but also offers a call to every individual, on the basis of how he or she interacts with the world, to reopen the vaults of childhood wonder and ardently refuse the mountains of trash heaped upon our persons by the narrow mind of modern culture. Thank you, Derrick.

Derrick Jensen is a brilliant literary stylist. Even if you hate everything he argues for in this book, it's still worth reading.

As novels go, this one is OK. Too bad it's not a novel. Taken as a work of "philosophy of nature," I am not sure whether I am more surprised or depressed by all of the positive, swelling reviews of this poorly written, terribly irrational and profoundly dishonest book. References to Jensen's courage are sprinkled generously throughout these reviews but having slogged through this book, I would say the author is more narcissistic than courageous, more self-absorbed than profound.

From the first page on, the writing resembles the efforts of the average high school sophomore's early attempts at profundity. On the one hand, page after page of "matter-of-fact" assertions about what is wrong with nearly everyone and everything except Jensen himself are linked by spurts of polemical rant that are simply under-documented or, worse still, totally undocumented. Jensen writes with the sloppy hyperbole and loosely formed metaphor of one who is eager to fill pages. Confirming my suspicion that Jensen is aiming for a "big book" is the endlessly repetitive quality of the events narrated: no event in his life bears telling only once. The resulting text is one of the most poorly written books I have ever forced myself to read. (Some here have claimed this book was the best they have ever read, I personally can't imagine such a dire reading list.)

To defend himself against the obvious charge that his basic arguments are unscientific, irrational and purely anecdotal, Jensen attacks Cartesian philosophy early in his book, making of it a rather flimsy structure and then pompously knocking down the over-simplified Descartes he himself has created. Quoting (without references)someone who may or may not be Descartes, Jensen points out that the philosopher held many of the horrible world views of his day (racism, sexism, anti-Semitism) as if Descartes' philosophical insights are simply invalid because he does not meet the benchmarks of contemporary cultural values some 300 plus years later. Ditto Jensen's dismissal of science and the scientific method. Roughly put, Jensen argues that scientists torture animals and have created terrible and destructive forces, like atomic weapons, therefore the argument that something ought to be demonstrably reproducible and confirmable is just part of the whole evil and silencing system and need not be brought to bear on his own assertions about life, the planet, etc.

One painfully obvious example is the "conversation" Jensen has with the coyotes eating his poultry and the "conversations" he has with the poultry itself asking their permission to kill and eat them. Jensen is convinced, based on his observations, that when he politely asks the coyotes to stop eating his birds in exchange for bird parts he will give them that they hear him and act according to his wishes. He does not consider any other possible explanation for the animals' behavior; they are not agents of their own lives but rather puppets in a world of his creating in which he has the god-like ability to convey his desires to other species and they, apparently conversant in English, obey. Similarly, Jensen threatens his drakes by saying whichever one next sexually assaults a female will be slaughtered. Again, the ducks understand and one "chooses" to be his dinner.
No need to establish any evidence that such communication happens, just interpret events as they suit your world view and they are so. Oddly, it never seems to occur to Jensen that perhaps the coyotes have communicated with the ducks too, receiving as Jensen does, the ducks' permission to eat them.

This raises the question of Jensen's honesty. Throughout the book he asserts that the stars, the coyotes, trees, his dogs and bees have spoken with him. They are intimately aware of his needs and change their behavior to meet them. And so it goes, it turns out that it is OK for Jensen to eat meat because he bought the chicks he raises to "meathood" and they belong to him, and what's more they gave him permission. But didn't slaves "belong" to their masters, didn't wives 'belong" to their husbands, and children to their parents? No need to answer these or any questions, because Jensen is not interested in a verifiable truth, just in the Truth as he creates it to justify his own actions and condemn the same behaviors in others.

Like the biblical god he emulates, Jensen holds jealous sway over the world he rules, broaching no interlopers or false gods (science, reason, other points of view, his neighbor's home) and swaying wildly between a message of love (with caveats) and a wrathful and destructive impulse to punish the unworthy and the sinful. And, as with proof of god, there seems to be no human or natural event that cannot be ruthlessly twisted to support Jensen's arguments. The list of his evidence is long: the holocaust, African bondage in the Americas, genocide in Rwanda and of Native peoples, extinction of species, rape, child murder, racism, sexism, homophobia and even Jensen's own sexual abuse at the hands of his father. The list goes on and on, but rather than actually analyze any of these events trying to get to understanding through contextualization, Jensen proffers a "you're either with me or with my father who raped me" argument. Believe on him or burn in eternal hell fires.

Clearly from the reviews here, Jensen has many followers (they refer to him by his first name, even in these reviews) but I remain firmly committed to rational discourse and evidentiary argument. But don't just take my word for it, my oregano plant hated this book and the starlings in the tree outside can't stop telling me how awful it truly, truly is.

I can't think of another book that has affected me as profoundly as this one. It woke me up to the living world, or rather, made me remember what I knew as a child and managed under this coercive culture to forget: that the natural world speaks to us, if only we listen. As we witness the world being murdered before our eyes, we urgently need to learn to listen, before it's too late.

In all of Derrick Jensen's work, he offers brilliant insights about why civilization is killing the planet and what we can and must do about it. Many people have described this book as "heartbreaking," and that's true -- it breaks through the surface of hearts hardened by denial, confronts us with despair, then leads us carefully to the other side of that despair into healing and the possibility of conscious action. It combines investigation and well-reasoned political analysis with an engaging personal style and rare honesty that together offer the reader both intellectual understanding, and just as importantly, a deep emotional comprehension.

After reading this book I immediately bought three copies to give to relatives, in the hope that they would be strengthened by it as I have been, to break the silence, join the world, and stop the horrors.