I love nature, both on land (backcountry hiking) and underwater (scuba diving and underwater photography). Ed Yong's book about how animals sense or perceive the world had been widely praised, and once I started reading it upon the recommendation of my son, I could hardly put it down. Absolutely superb writing by this science journalist, and seemingly every page holds a new, exciting insight. I recommended the book to my daughter, and now she is devouring it as well. Yong explores how animals perceive the world through their set of senses, some of which we humans share such as sight or hearing, but share with often vastly different degrees of ability to perceive. For instance, we cannot see infrared and cannot hear ultrasound. But nonhuman animals also have senses that we humans appear to lack entirely (e.g., echolocation), and how scientists invent clever ways of accessing and exploring these non-human senses is part of what, for me, made this book so enjoyable to read.
'Wonderful, mind-broadening... a journey to alternative realities as extraordinary as any you'll find in science fiction' The Times, Book of the Week
'Magnificent' Guardian
Enter a new dimension - the world as it is truly perceived by other animals.
The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving only a tiny sliver of an immense world. This book welcomes us into previously unfathomable dimensions - the world as it is truly perceived by other animals.
During a first-time visit to Ireland's southwestern coast, I picked up two books in Dingle's aquarium shop. One of them is The Islander (An tOileánach), an autobiographical account by Tomas O'Crohan (Tomás Ó Criomhthain), originally written in "Munster Irish" (a form of Gaelic), and appearing in English (in 2012) in a painstakingly researched new translation (by Professors Gary Bannister and David Sowby). O'Crohan lived from the mid-1850s to the 1930's on The Great Blasket Island, off the Dingle peninsula. He was a fisherman and as an adult taught himself to read and write. The book, originally a series of diary entries, has a rawness to it that has no equal I know of. It is an unadorned, highly evocative account of a harsh daily life, making a living off marine resources and a handful of sheep of a near God-forsaken island. There is a directness and plainness in the accounts that makes one feel as if one were part of the story, part of the community, one of the people. If you'd like to explore something very different in your reading, this book should do it.
This superb account of life on the Great Blasket Island off the west coast of Kerry, written as the nineteenth century draws to its close and the dawn of a new era trespasses on the lives of its small community, is both a shocking and captivating read.
Here is the first complete translation of Tomas O'Crohan's autobiography An tOileanach, first published in 1929. This edition is based on Professor Sean O Coileain's definitive 2002 Irish language edition. It contains many passages omitted from the previous English language translation by Robin Flower from the 1930s, some of which were thought…
Roald Amudsen, Robert F. Scott, and Ernest Shackleton are perhaps the most well-known names of Antarctic explorers, with expedition leader Amundsen and four companions being the very first humans to reach the South Pole (in December 1911). Scott and his companions reached the South Pole a month later (January 1912) but they all perished on the return trip to their base on the Antarctic shelf. Shackleton never ever made it onto the continent, his ship, the Endurance, having been caught in the ice before even reaching the Antarctic landmass (in 1915). But far less well-known are the stories of their companions, including the sailors who handled and sailed the ships, managed the landings on Antartica, established the main bases where the ice met land, and built and stocked the supply depots on the frozen continent en route to the pole. One of them was Tom Crean who, incredibly, went on and survived not one, but three South Pole expeditions in conditions and circumstances that defy the mind. Michael Smith's biography of Tom Crean is somewhat repetitive in its detailed accounts of Crean's expeditions but what details they are! If you think you'd love a good explorer story, grab a blanket and cup of hot tea (for it's cold in Antartica), and settle down for an immersive read.
Tom Crean was the indestructible farmer's son from Kerry who sailed on three major expeditions to the unknown Antarctic over a century ago. He was among the few men who served with both Captain Robert Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton. He spent longer on the ice than either and outlived them both. Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary said he was a 'great man of immense strength and endurance and afraid of very little'.
Crean was among the last to see Scott alive a few miles from the Pole in 1912. His astonishing 56km trek to save the life of…
Castles, Battles, and Bombs reconsiders key episodes of military history from the point of view of economics—with dramatically insightful results. For example, when looked at as a question of sheer cost, the building of castles in the High Middle Ages seems almost inconceivable: yet, though stunningly expensive, a strong castle was far cheaper to maintain than a standing army. The authors also reexamine the strategic bombing of Germany in World War II and provide new insights into France’s decision to develop nuclear weapons. Drawing on these examples and more, Brauer and Van Tuyll suggest lessons for today’s military, from counterterrorist strategy and military manpower planning to the use of private military companies in Afghanistan and Iraq. The book has been translated into Korean, Russian, and Mandarin Chinese and has been used as a text at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.
"This study is serious, creative, important. As an economist I am happy to see economics so professionally applied to illuminate major decisions in the history of warfare."—Thomas C. Schelling, Winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics.
