More Than Nature

The Arctic is often associated with pristine wilderness, natural resources, and climate change. Yet settlements and infrastructure, which have received less attention, play a significant role in Arctic environments. Extractive industries, military activities, and scientific undertakings have driven the expansion of infrastructures. This book presents current research on Northern towns and Arctic and Subarctic infrastructure. It examines historical developments, the shaping of environments, sustainability, future planning, and associated living conditions, mainly from a social science perspective.

How did humans acquire cognitive capacities far more powerful than any hunting-and-gathering primate needed to survive? Alfred Russel Wallace, co-founder with Darwin of evolutionary theory, set humans outside normal evolution. Darwin thought use of language might have shaped our sophisticated brains, but this remained an intriguing guess--until now. Combining state-of-the-art research with forty years of writing and thinking about language origins, Derek Bickerton convincingly resolves a crucial problem that biology and the cognitive sciences have systematically avoided. Before language or advanced cognition could be born, humans had to escape the prison of the here and now in which animal thinking and communication were both trapped. Then the brain's self-organization, triggered by words, assembled mechanisms that could link not only words but the concepts those words symbolized--a process that had to be under conscious control. Those mechanisms could be used equally for thinking and for talking, but the skeletal structures they produced were suboptimal for the hearer and had to be elaborated. Starting from humankind's remotest past, More than Nature Needs transcends nativist thesis and empiricist antithesis by presenting a revolutionary synthesis that shows specifically and in a principled way how and why the synthesis came about.

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.

Reveal extraordinary stories form nature by best-selling author Ben Hoare with this awe-inspiring animal book for curious kids aged 6-8. The world is filled with curious objects made by plants,animals, and even by the Earth itself. The wonder of wildlife is so much bigger than young minds can fathom and there is always more to learn. Nature’s Treasures is a stunning nature encyclopedia for young readers to explore, with reference pages packed with fascinating information, little learners will be captivated as they dive into this collection of more than 100 intriguing items from the natural world and discover the stories behind them. Whether it’s learning how bristly mouths help huge whales capture tiny animals, how minute scales make butterflies shine in the sunlight, or how studying a leaf skeleton can tell us how it transports food, children can learn all sorts of fun animal facts from the storybook descriptions. Arranged into four chapters: Animals; Plants, fungi, and algae; Minerals and rocks, and Made by nature, objects are shown with truly stunning photography and colourful illustrations to help kids understand the science behind them. The lively descriptions by best-selling nature writer Ben Hoare explore the remarkable tales of each item and all are packed with fascinating information. Nature’s Treasures takes you on a tour of our planet through commonplace-but-incredible objects made by nature itself. The engaging storybook-style descriptions and simple text shed a light on the wonders of nature and wildlife, making this book ideal for inquisitive children aged 6-8 who loves to spot things when exploring outside and wants to know more about the wonderful and mysterious natural world. Celebrate your child’s curiosity as they: - Explore unique and intriguing approach to exploring nature - Reveal remarkable features of plants and animals, the nests and structures they make - Uncover more than 100 amazing individual objects found in the natural world This nature encyclopedia for children is the perfect blend of storybook style text with out of this world illustrations which makes it a fantastic nature book for children who are obsessed with wildlife and the natural world. Encourage young readers to go on a journey to explore a world of information, making this the ideal first reference book for kids aged 6-8 to enjoy for hours on end, whether reading with the family or reading alone, this fun fact book also doubles up as the perfect gift for curious kids who love to learn. Explore the vastness of space by uncovering: -Stunning Jacket Detail: gold foil, holographic foil & metallic gold edges -Striking photography & illustrations inside -A beautiful book for the whole family to treasure -A quality gift to be passed down through the generations More in the Series Nature’s Treasures is part of the beautiful and informative Anthology series. Complete the series and nurture your child's curiosity as they explore the natural world with The Wonders of Nature or let them walk with the dinosaurs who ruled the earth before them in Dinosaurs and other Prehistoric Life.

"When words in verse are paired with the awesomeness of nature, something magical happens ... Lewis curates [a] ... poetic celebration of the natural world in this ... collection of nature poems. From trickling streams to deafening thrunderstorms to soaring mountains, discover ... photography ... paired with contemporary (such as Billy Collins), classics (such as Robert Frost), and never-before-published works"--

Radical Environmentalism: Nature, Identity and More-than-human Agency provides a unique account of environmentalism - one that highlights the voices of activists and the nature they defend. It will be of interest to both students and academics in green criminology, environmental sociology and nature-human studies more broadly.

The German poet and mystic Novalis once identified philosophy as a form of homesickness. More than two centuries later, as modernity’s displacements continue to intensify, we feel Novalis’s homesickness more than ever. Yet nowhere has a longing for home flourished more than in contemporary environmental thinking, and particularly in eco-phenomenology. If only we can reestablish our sense of material enmeshment in nature, so the logic goes, we might reverse the degradation we humans have wrought—and in saving the earth we can once again dwell in the nearness of our own being. Unsettling Nature opens with a meditation on the trouble with such ecological homecoming narratives, which bear a close resemblance to narratives of settler colonial homemaking. Taylor Eggan demonstrates that the Heideggerian strain of eco-phenomenology—along with its well-trod categories of home, dwelling, and world—produces uncanny effects in settler colonial contexts. He reads instances of nature’s defamiliarization not merely as psychological phenomena but also as symptoms of the repressed consciousness of coloniality. The book at once critiques Heidegger’s phenomenology and brings it forward through chapters on Willa Cather, D. H. Lawrence, Olive Schreiner, Doris Lessing, and J. M. Coetzee. Suggesting that alienation may in fact be "natural" to the human condition and hence something worth embracing instead of repressing, Unsettling Nature concludes with a speculative proposal to transform eco-phenomenology into "exo-phenomenology"—an experiential mode that engages deeply with the alterity of others and with the self as its own Other.

Originally published: Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1994.