Natural History Books - October 2007

Ebb and Flow: Tides and Life on Our Once and Future Planet by Tom Koppel
Tides have shaped our world. They have carved out shorelines, transformed early life on Earth, and altered the course of human civilization. Tides frustrated Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, and aided General MacArthur. They govern the way our planet moves, provide us with an alternative source of energy, and may be aggravating global climate change.

Drawing on science, history, and personal memories, Koppel’s fascinating book engages and enlightens, demonstrating that a subject we take for granted affects all our lives. He weaves together three grand narratives, exploring how tides impact coasts and marine life, how they have altered human history and development, and how science has striven to understand the surprisingly complex way in which tides actually work.

The Great Lakes: The Natural History of a Changing Region by Wayne Grady
The Great Lakes: The Natural History of a Changing Region is the most authoritative, complete, and accessible book to date about the biology and ecology of this vital, ever-changing terrain. Written by one of Canada’s best-known science and nature writers, this essential resource features superb nature photography and numerous sidebars that focus on specific animal, plant and invertebrate species.

Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility by Michael Shellenberger & Ted Nordhaus
In 2004 Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger triggered a firestorm with their essay “The Death of Environmentalism,” which argued that the politics that dealt with acid rain and smog can’t deal with global warming. Environmentalism must die, they argued, so something new could be born.

Now, three years later, Break Through delivers on their promise to articulate a new politics for a new century, one focused not on complaints and ecological limits but on aspirations and human possibility. If environmentalists and progressives are to seize the moment offered by the collapse of the Bush presidency, they must break from “the politics of limits” and grapple with some inconvenient truths of their own.