tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will soon be) available for purchase.
New and Recent Titles:
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Adams, Clark E. and Kieran J. Lindsey. Urban Wildlife Management (Second Edition). 2009. CRC Press. Hardbound: 403 pages. Price: $ 99.95 U.S. [Amazon: $99.95].
SUMMARY: This book is a thorough introduction to the topic of urban wildlife management. Instead of focusing on ways to evict or eradicate wildlife encroached on by urban development, this title takes a holistic, ecosystems approach. This work also educates readers on the changing landscape of wildlife management and future approaches.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with a technical interest in urban wildlife management. -
Burnett, D. Graham. Trying Leviathan: The Nineteenth-Century New York Court Case That Put the Whale on Trial and Challenged the Order of Nature. 2009. Princeton University Press. Paperback: 266 pages. Price: $21.95 U.S. [Amazon: $21.95].
SUMMARY: In this book, the author recounts the strange story of Maurice vs. Judd, an 1818 trial that pitted the new science of taxonomy against the then popular -- and biblically sanctioned -- view that the whale was a fish. What began as a seemingly mundane dispute over the regulation of whale oil soon fueled a sensational public debate in which nothing less than the order of nature was at stake. Falling between the scientific breakthroughs of Linnaeus and Darwin, the trial dramatized a revolutionary period for human understanding of the natural world.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in the history of science or whaling.
You can read all the Birdbooker Reports in the archives on this site, and Ian now has his own website, The Birdbooker's Bookcase, where you can read his synopses about newly published science, nature and animal books. But Ian assures me that he still loves us here, so he'll still share his weekly Birdbooker Reports with us!
Education
Humanities & Social Science
