Human Adaptability: An Introduction to Ecological Anthropology, Second Edition

Book Description

This is the first text to thoroughly cover nongenetic strategies of human adaptation to a variety of ecosystems. Designed to help students understand the multiple levels at which human populations respond to their surroundings, it is the most complete discussion of environmental, physiological, behavioral, and cultural adaptive strategies available. Among the unique features that make Human Adaptability outstanding as both a textbook and a reference are a complete discussion of the development of ecological anthropology and of relevant research methods; the use of an ecosystem approach with emphasis on arctic, high altitude, arid land, grassland, and tropical rain forest environments; the most extensive bibliography on ecological anthropology published to date, with over 700 references both classic and recent; and a comprehensive glossary of technical terms. In this updated edition, the author also addresses the impact of political economy, global environment change, demography, and health in the study of human ecology.

Customer Reviews:

Great integration of Modern Ecological Anthropology.......2007-05-09

I would say quite hastily that this book is probably the best introduction to Ecological Anthropology, written by a massive authority on the subject. What I love about the book is its ability to present the pertinent aspects of the subject matter in a way that forces you to understand why it is important. My only caveat about the book is that it does assume a certain degree of knowledge about environmental science that I found most students of anthropology (including myself when I read it) do not have. Keeping this in mind, if you do have supplementary texts available on the natural science aspects of this subject, than you will definately be able to appreciate the depths of human adaptability that Moran describes. This cannot necessarily be considered a weakness of the book, since the natural science has been discussed elsewhere. On the other hand, the material in this book is a great compilation of cultural, physiological, and genetic adaptations around the world. Since it is this that Moran stresses, it is of no detriment to the book that the natural science is not as detailed as it must be.

Below is a list of supplementary texts that should be read alongside this book, the most important one being the soil science textbook.

1) The Nature and Properties of Soils - by Nyle Brady & Ray Weil
2) Ecology: Theories and Applications - by Peter Stiling
3) A book on Human Biology and Human Physiology (I have not found one to my liking which is why I don't recommend a specific one here).

Human adaptability: an introduction to ecological anthropology, second edition & The muse of history and the science of culture.(Review): An article from: American Antiquity

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Human adaptability: an introduction to ecological anthropology, second edition & The muse of history and the science of culture.(Review): An article from: American Antiquity
George M. Crothers
Manufacturer: Society for American Archaeology
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from American Antiquity, published by Society for American Archaeology on October 1, 2001. The length of the article is 723 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Human adaptability: an introduction to ecological anthropology, second edition & The muse of history and the science of culture.(Review)
Author: George M. Crothers
Publication: American Antiquity (Refereed)
Date: October 1, 2001
Publisher: Society for American Archaeology
Volume: 66 Issue: 4 Page: 752(1)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Focusing on the tree species Nothofagus, or southern beech, ecologists and biogeographers here provide a comprehensive examination of the distribution, history, and ecology of this species that predominates in forests from highland New Guinea at the equator to the subantarctic latitudes of Tierra del Fuego. The Nothofagus genus offers a fascinating key to understanding historical plant geography and modern vegetation patterns.

Book Description

Wendy Perrin Secrets Wendy Perrin's Secrets Every Smart Traveler Should Know
By Wendy Perrin

The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Smart Traveler

Author Wendy Perrin,Condé Nast Traveler's consumer travel expert, has an unparalleled knowledge of how to anticipate, prevent, and handle travel mishaps. In this guide, she shares that knowledge in lively and spirited style, peppering her travel advice with perversely entertaining tales of actual travel disasters drawn from the Condé Nast files. No traveler can afford to leave home without reading her great introductory essay entitled "The Fine Art of Complaining."

Each chapter covers a different travel topic, including:
AirlinesLodgingTravel Agents and Tour OperatorsCruise LinesCar RentalShoppingEmergenciesPerrin's insider perspective and sound advice will make every reader a better traveler -- better at planning a vacation to make it trouble-free and more adroit at resolving the occasional unavoidable travel nightmare before it ruins the trip.

Customer Reviews:

A fun book to read.......2002-06-23

I travel a lot and know a lot about it. In her book I did learn a couple of things I did not know. I disagreed with a couple of things that were not really important. The book is a little dated and doesn't take into account the baggage searches we face since 9-11, or the fact that most Travel Agents no longer receive airline commissions. When I receive Conde Nast Traveler the first thing I do is read the Ombudsman section. Reading this was like having many years of the Ombudsman at once. I liked that.

Nothing New To Me..........1999-12-14

Although Wendy Perrin's book was very well-written and enjoyful to read (a lot of outrageous stories), the information and suggestions given are common sense to most, notably seasoned travelers. However, it does help to refresh your memory so you'll be on your toes before another exhausting business trip. In all, the book was not a waste of my money.

An outstanding and very readable travel resource book.......1999-10-16

This is a terrific reference book on travel. I've learned many helpful tips that have resulted in better trips - and a real savings of money! I recommend it to anyone who enjoys traveling. I hope she will write more in the future.

I don't know how I traveled before without it!.......1999-04-22

I thought I was a highly astute traveler; I'd read other guides before. Not until I read this marvelous tome did I realize how inept I was at negotiating through travel's often treacherous waters. I've been using many of these tips on recent trips and... lo and behold... now things go so much more smoothly! I've even gotten refunds from travel disasters which I didn't know were available before.

I was visiting Broadway in NYC recently and, it turns out, this book has been turned into a Broadway show (of the same name)! The show is every bit as funny as the book.

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Piper : a model genus for studies of phytochemistry, ecology, and evolution
Lee A Dyer , and Aparna D N Palmer
Manufacturer: Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000RJOAQE

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Elementary physical chemistry,: Adapted from A treatise on physical chemistry,
Hugh S Taylor
Manufacturer: D. Van Nostrand company, inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General & Reference | Chemistry | Professional Science | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006AK1MQ

Book Description

If you have not already heard about solitons, you will sooner or later encounter them. The soliton, a solitary wave impulse preserving its shape and strikingly similar to a particle, is one of the most fascinating and beautiful phenomena in the physics of nonlinear waves. In this engaging book, the concept of the soliton is traced from the beginning of the last century to modern times, with recent applications in biology, oceanography, solid state physics, electronics, elementary particle physics, and cosmology. The main concepts and results of theoretical physics related to solitons can be explained without using much mathematics. Indeed, on the descriptive and historical level, only some knowledge of high school physics and mathematics is needed. At a higher level, for understanding the elementary theory of oscillations and waves, the reader can intuit much from the numerous illustrations and perhaps skip the formulas presented. But to appreciate the deep connections in this book between apparently different and diverse phenomena and ideas, the reader must be able to follow elementary mathematical computations. Still more advanced mathematics is required for the appendices.

Customer Reviews:

NEW VIEWS OF AN OLD PROBLEM.......2005-01-04

The author of this lovely book writes about an important scientific problem - recognition of the importance of the soliton concept - in ways that will be of interest to both novices to nonlinear theory and those who are familiar with the underlying ideas. The latter will find much of value in the careful historical discussions, which make it clear that solitary-wave theory has been of interest to many scientists for the past century and a half, and in the references to Soviet and Russian contributions, which have been substantial. For those who come new to this subject, the Dr. Filippov explains all of the key ideas in clear English, using simple physical examples and metaphors. This book should be on the shelves of all who would better understand the many roles that soliton theory now plays in optical communications, superconductive electronics, elementary-particle theory, solid-state physics, and - last but not least - hydrodynamics, where the original Great Wave of Translation - studied in the middle of the nineteenth century by John Scott Russell provides a clear model for the tsunami that has recently devastated the rim of the Indian Ocean.

Average customer rating:

Absolutely contemporary

Literary Challenge

Multatuli

A rhetorical masterwork

A self-serving narrative that disappoints.

Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (Penguin Classics)
Multatuli
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

19th Century | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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GIRL FROM THE COAST, THE

ASIN: 0140445161

Amazon.com

When Max Havelaar was first published in Holland in 1860, it ignited a major political and social brouhaha. The novel, written by a former official of the Dutch East Indian Civil Service under the pen name Multatuli, exposed the massive corruption and cruelty rife in the Dutch colony of Java. Max Havelaar is an undeniably autobiographical novel; like his hero, Multatuli--the pseudonym for Eduard Douwes Dekker--was an Assistant Resident of Lebak in Java; like Havelaar in the novel, he resigned his position when his accusations of corruption and abuse were disregarded by higher authorities, resulting in years of poverty for both author and fictional hero. Max Havelaar is told from several different perspectives; the reader first meets an Amsterdam coffee dealer named Droogstoppel, a man so obsessed with coffee that his every thought and action is governed by it. Droogstoppel has come by a manuscript from an old schoolmate who, down on his luck, has asked him to get it published. The schoolmate is Havelaar, and the manuscript relates his experiences as an idealistic and generous young civil servant who tries to protect the poor and bring justice to the powerless.

The central part of the novel details conditions in Java, particularly Havelaar's efforts to correct injustices in the face of a corrupt government system. That his efforts will prove futile soon becomes apparent, and there is something almost Greek in the inevitability of Havelaar's declining fortunes. Despite its tragic themes, Max Havelaar is savagely funny, particularly the chapters narrated by Droogstoppel, a character unmatched for his veniality, narrow-mindedness, or singular lack of understanding or imagination. Though Multatuli's masterpiece is nearly 150 years old, it wears its age well, and Roy Edwards's excellent translation offers English-speaking readers a wonderful opportunity to experience one of the Netherlands's great literary classics.

Customer Reviews:

Absolutely contemporary.......2007-06-03

Most people turn to this book in order to learn about 19 century colonialism. However the book is stunningly contemporary as a picture of universal human types, and of a particular type, which is especially well refined and developed in the Netherlands. I suppose because of the Netherlands history of Calvinism, wealth, "apartheid", provincialism - people living in separate sub communities defined by religion, who only care for those in their own group. Moreover the book is a multimedia self-referring extravaganza avant-la-letter, masterfully written. Approached in the right frame of mind it is at the same time desparately funny and funnily desparate.

I recently asked 8 Dutch university students if they had read it - the most famous book in Dutch literature. 7 had not. One had started but had thrown it away half finished because it was all so depressingly familiar. (Familiar as a picture of present day attitudes in the Netherlands).

Literary Challenge.......2006-04-17

Max Havelaar is the best story of the 1000 years and the Uncle Tom's Cabin of the Dutch East Indies, according to the Indonesian novelist Pramodeya Ananta Toer. The billing piqued my search for the novel.
Max Havelaar, of the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company was written in 1860 by Eduward Douwes Dekker under the pen name Multatuli. The intrigue unfolds from the points of view of Droogstoppel, a stuffy Dutch coffee broker; Scarfman, an aspiring writer; Havelaar, an idealist and newly appointed Resident of Labak, Java; Blatherer, a preacher; Saijah, a young servant yearning for his love; and others, all affected by coffee markets. Interspersed are direct writings from author to reader. These asides are at times lengthy, quaint, or preachy. Not an easy read, yet intriquing enough to drive me to keep turning the pages. Indeed, the author himself describes his work as "chaotic, disjointed, striving for effect, bad in style, lacking skill.....but the substance is irrefutable." Most appealing are descriptions applicable today. Anyone who has ever been expected to report only the positive to corporate superiors, is bothered by products made by "millions who are maltreated or exploited in your name," or notices empires go to war more easily than mills are moved is bound to welcome this book. The novel hastened abolition of the Dutch Cultural System requiring compulsory growing of particular crops. Toer's characterization, if over the top, afforded me the opportunity of a brilliant read.

Multatuli.......2006-03-04

One can say that this work is a small man's grudge against hsi former employer.

But one cannot really sunstantiate such a point. Even if he did write it as a kick to the boss's shin it still is a major work.
Apart from the message which was and sadly still is and perhaps increasing issue in this world, it is magnificently told.
Perspective in perspective tell you in often as much as four layers and thus four filters the point the writer is stating.
As stated above by a more undoubtedly more learned reader, his technigues of argument are simply brilliant and any scholar should read this book just to brush up his essay writing.
Finally, his way with words is just dragging you through this novel in a way I've only seen Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde come close to.

p.s. Note to the guy above, did you happen to know that Multatuli indeed lived many years in poverty because of his believes, that when he became a succesful writer he dropped the pen after realising people only read his work and didn't act on it.
Living his last years as a recluse in Germany, bittered, and hopeless, instead of cashing on his succes.

A rhetorical masterwork.......2004-08-02

This book is one of the most important books of Dutch literature. The writer combines humour, emotion and facts. The book has a complex structure, without making it difficult to read, an outspoken view, but also more subtle jokes (at least in the Dutch language, and for people aware of Dutch culture), a perceptive view on the way the institutions in the Dutch East Indies worked to promote the corruption and the exploitation of the people. All these things make the book an enjoyment to read.

The writer, however, isn't trying to make an objective unemotional description of the events in the East Indies, but he is arguing - making a treatise - for a different/better treatment of the people in the Indonesia, basing his treatise on facts and emotions (he stresses the parts which are undisputed facts in a very natural way). For this he uses al his (well developed) rhetorical abilities.

To give some examples of his rhetorical abilities and the working of the structure:
- at some point in the book he argues against painters which try to show the multitude of misery caused by a certain event, by painting the quantity involved. He argues that this makes people numb for the suffering shown on the painting. Why the writer tells this is unclear, until later when he starts telling a dramatic story about the injustice and suffering endured by an Indonesian boy. Then it becomes clear that this suffering is endured by many Indonesians, but instead of making you dazzle with numbers he tries (and succeeds) to make you feel compassionate with one individual. Only to make you realise afterwards that there are/were many individuals which are enduring the same suffering!
- and instead of stating with certain facts: `this is a fact', he makes himself angry about how shocking/outrages something is, only to afterwards state: `it is true: you can look it up here, or there'.
These are just two examples, but the entire book is a rhetoric masterwork!

However, readers expecting a balanced book will be disappointed. The writer didn't strive for consensus, he strove to make an as great as possible contrast between his ideals (good) and the Dutch merchantmen spirit (evil). The treatise worked much in the same way as the books/movies of Micheal Moore do today. Mixing emotion, fact and rhetorical ability (although Multatuli has greater literary abilities) to create a document that polarises society about great contemporary political issues.

A self-serving narrative that disappoints........1999-02-23

This book is first and foremost an attempt to establish an alternative version about the author's tenure as an official of the Dutch East Indian Civil Service. In short, he was removed from office for disagreeing with his supervisors' policies, and chose to vent through this book. The disgusting narrative continually portrays the author as something near a Christ-like personality battling a completely inept and corrupt civil service (the latter is almost a redundant description). The author does nothing to contain his raging ego, thus producing a nauseating description of self. The resulting cast of characters are as deep as cardboard cutouts. The cost of this immodest picture is a shallow representation of the plight of the colonized. The reader is forced to sift through page after page of self-serving drivel to extract meager details of the corruption in the Dutch East Indies.

The book has not aged well. Contemporary cynicism--resulting from, in part, Watergate, Vietnam, a stream of revelations of various colonial regimes and a plethora of political scandals--makes the cursory information about the Dutch East Indian Civil Service under whelming. One has to repeatedly remind themselves that the original readers were idealistic about their government's intentions.

One can glean interesting social and cultural glimpses of the period from the bloated pages. This indirect benefit is one of the few reasons to read the book.

If the author had spent more time providing information about the colonies instead of rambling on and on with his self-aggrandizement, this book could have been an invaluable piece of history. As it stands, it is a testimony to the hubris of a flawed man.

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Max Havelaar : Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company [Bibliotheca Neerlandica]
D.H. (intro.); Edwards, Roy (ed.) Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker); Lawrence
Manufacturer: Sijthoff/ Heinemann/ London House & Maxwell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LF4ERY

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Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of A Dutch Trading Company (Classics S.)

Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000I22W38

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Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company
Multatuli
Manufacturer: UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS PR
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OK6UA0

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Max Havelaar (or The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company)

Manufacturer: Sijthoff London House Heinemann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Lawrence, D.H. | Classics | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000I25UU0

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Max Havelaar : Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (Penguin Classics)
Roy Edwards, R. P. Meijer Multatuli
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJ67C2

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Max Havelaar, or, The coffee auctions of a Dutch Trading Company (Penguin classics)
Multatuli
Manufacturer: Penguin Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

German | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: B0006F7JDK

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Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of A Dutch Trading Company (Classics S.)
'Multatuli'
Manufacturer: Penguin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UIFX2C

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Max Havelaar;: Or, The coffee auctions of the Dutch trading company
Multatuli
Manufacturer: Edmonston & Douglas
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B0006AEO38

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