I’m an animal behaviorist who's passionate about understanding the evolution of life on this blue marble we call home. Behavior in nonhumans comes in all shapes and sizes, from cooperation to dominance, from play to fighting, from feeding to avoiding being fed upon, from finding a home to defending that home, from choosing your mate to raising your offspring, and much more. Over the last four decades, I have been fortunate enough to study many of these behaviors in both the lab and the field. I savor the opportunity to share, with anyone and everyone, what I have learned from that work and from the work of so many of my devoted and brilliant colleagues.
I savored Weiner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book chronicling the work of Peter and Rosemary Grant on the mating behavior, and so much more, of finches in the Galápagos Islands.
You’ll feel as if you are there with these modern-day Darwins as they uncover the private lives of birds that have played such a seminal role in evolutionary biology.
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A dramatic story of groundbreaking scientific research of Darwin's discovery of evolution that "spark[s] not just the intellect, but the imagination" (Washington Post Book World).
“Admirable and much-needed.... Weiner’s triumph is to reveal how evolution and science work, and to let them speak clearly for themselves.”—The New York Times Book Review
On a desert island in the heart of the Galapagos archipelago, where Darwin received his first inklings of the theory of evolution, two scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, have spent twenty years proving that Darwin did not know the strength of his own theory.…
If you want to understand the seemingly infinite complexity of our closest relatives, as well as get a glimpse of the deep evolutionary roots of politics, this is the book to read.
I felt transported into a world of political maneuvering and machinations that was eerily like our own and yet wonderfully different from it.
The first edition of Frans de Waal's Chimpanzee Politics was acclaimed not only by primatologists for its scientific achievement but also by politicians, business leaders, and social psychologists for its remarkable insights into the most basic human needs and behaviors. Twenty-five years later, this book is considered a classic. Featuring a new preface that includes recent insights from the author, this anniversary edition is a detailed and thoroughly engrossing account of rivalries and coalitions-actions governed by intelligence rather than instinct. As we watch the chimpanzees of Arnhem behave in ways we recognize from Machiavelli (and from the nightly news), de…
Doctors at War: The Clandestine Battle against the Nazi Occupation of France takes readers into the moral labyrinth of the Occupation years, 1940-45, to examine how the medical community dealt with the evil authority imposed on them. Anti-Jewish laws prevented many doctors from practicing, inspiring many to form secret medical…
You’ll never look at our best friend the same way after reading The Genius of Dogs.
An engaging tour de force of how to understand an animal that has helped shape human history for more than 15,000 years.
Hare and Woods are not only experts on all things dog, but also have done pathbreaking work on chimpanzees, bonobos, and Homo sapiens, so they know what they are talking about as far as primates go as well.
The journey began with a gut reaction. When award-winning scientist Dr Brian Hare watched a chimpanzee fail to read a simple human hand gesture in an intelligence test, he blurted out, 'My dog can do that!' The psychologist running the test challenged him to prove it, sending Hare on an odyssey to unlock the cognitive and evolutionary mysteries of our four-legged friends.
Hare's research over the past two decades has yielded startling discoveries about how dogs think. He has pioneered studies that have proven that dogs exhibit a brand of genius for getting along with people that…
In Sounds Wild and Broken, he explains, in almost poetic terms, how a human-caused sonic crisis threatens to blow apart millions of years of exquisite adaptations.
Haskell carries readers into the world of sound and its profound impact on animal behavior. You’ll feel as though you are travelling through time and space with the author as he takes you on this journey.
"[A] glorious guide to the miracle of life's sound." -The New York Times Book Review
A lyrical exploration of the diverse sounds of our planet, the creative processes that produced these marvels, and the perils that sonic diversity now faces
We live on a planet alive with song, music, and speech. David Haskell explores how these wonders came to be. In rain forests shimmering with insect sound and swamps pulsing with frog calls we learn about evolution's creative powers. From birds in the Rocky Mountains and on the streets of Paris, we discover how animals learn their songs and adapt…
No Color is My Kind tells the stories of the desegregation of Houston, TX, in 1960, the life of civil rights leader Eldrewey Stearns, and the author's relationship to Stearns.
They met in a psychiatric case conference while Stearns was hospitalized at the University of Texas Medical Branch. After his…
In this book, Seeley takes you into honeybee hives with him to visit the denizens of these remarkable societies that humans have been fascinated with for thousands of years.
In an era when democracy itself seems under siege in our own species, after your hive tours are complete, you may walk away with hope that at least one species on this planet has mastered the art of self-sacrifice and communal living.
Honeybees make decisions collectively - and democratically. Every year, faced with the life-or-death problem of choosing and traveling to a new home, honeybees stake everything on a process that includes collective fact-finding, vigorous debate, and consensus building. In fact, as world-renowned animal behaviorist Thomas Seeley reveals, these incredible insects have much to teach us when it comes to collective wisdom and effective decision making. A remarkable and richly illustrated account of scientific discovery, "Honeybee Democracy" brings together, for the first time, decades of Seeley's pioneering research to tell the amazing story of house hunting and democratic debate among the honeybees.…
In the 1870s, horses were the lifeblood of cities like New York, Boston, and Toronto, which relied on tens of thousands of workhorses to power daily life. Then, in late 1872, a devastating outbreak of horse flu—known as the Great Epizootic—swept across the continent. Fires raged unchecked without horse-drawn wagons, and city development stalled for lack of horsepower. Just as the Gilded Age was dawning, the Great Epizootic slowed progress to a crawl.
Yet the Great Epizootic also catalyzed revolutions in medicine, animal rights, and transportation. Medical reports from the epidemic helped validate germ theory and discredit outdated beliefs; fledgling animal welfare groups like the ASPCA rose to prominence; and the vulnerability of relying on animals for transport spurred a shift toward mechanized systems.
The Day Rachel Carson Invented Environmentalism
by
Bryant Wieneke,
Rachel Carson was an eminent scientist and the foremost nature writer in the United States when she stumbled - or rather crashed - into the realization of what the indiscriminate use of insecticides and pesticides was doing to water systems, plants, and animals, and ultimately the health of the American…
My book is a loving exploration of the pets you miss so deeply and how they stay connected to you long after their final breath. They don’t just disappear—they stay woven into your life in the most beautiful ways; still present, still aware, and still loving you from beyond the…
