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Author: John Frederick Walker Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic ISBN: 155584913X Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
“[A] tour de force examination of the history of ivory . . . and the demise of the elephant and human decency in the process of this unholy quest.” —The Huffington Post Praised for the nuance and sensitivity with which it approaches one of the most fraught conservation issues we face today, John Frederick Walker’s Ivory’s Ghosts tells the astonishing story of the power of ivory through the ages, and its impact on elephants. Long before gold and gemstones held allure, ivory came to be prized in every culture of the world—from ancient Egypt to nineteenth-century America to modern Japan—for its beauty, rarity, and ability to be finely carved. But the beauty came at an unfathomable cost. Walker lays bare the ivory trade’s cruel connection with the slave trade and the increasing slaughter of elephants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By the 1980s, elephant poaching reached levels that threatened the last great herds of the African continent, and led to a worldwide ban on the ancient international trade in tusks. But the ban has failed to stop poaching—or the emotional debate over what to do with the legitimate and growing stockpiles of ivory recovered from elephants that die of natural causes. “Ivory’s Ghost is essential reading for anyone concerned with conservation and with the tenuous future of one of the most magnificent creatures our earth has ever seen.” —George B. Schaller, author of A Naturalist and Other Beast
Author: John Frederick Walker Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic ISBN: 155584913X Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
“[A] tour de force examination of the history of ivory . . . and the demise of the elephant and human decency in the process of this unholy quest.” —The Huffington Post Praised for the nuance and sensitivity with which it approaches one of the most fraught conservation issues we face today, John Frederick Walker’s Ivory’s Ghosts tells the astonishing story of the power of ivory through the ages, and its impact on elephants. Long before gold and gemstones held allure, ivory came to be prized in every culture of the world—from ancient Egypt to nineteenth-century America to modern Japan—for its beauty, rarity, and ability to be finely carved. But the beauty came at an unfathomable cost. Walker lays bare the ivory trade’s cruel connection with the slave trade and the increasing slaughter of elephants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By the 1980s, elephant poaching reached levels that threatened the last great herds of the African continent, and led to a worldwide ban on the ancient international trade in tusks. But the ban has failed to stop poaching—or the emotional debate over what to do with the legitimate and growing stockpiles of ivory recovered from elephants that die of natural causes. “Ivory’s Ghost is essential reading for anyone concerned with conservation and with the tenuous future of one of the most magnificent creatures our earth has ever seen.” —George B. Schaller, author of A Naturalist and Other Beast
Author: Caitlin O'Connell Publisher: Alibi ISBN: 1101883472 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 383
Book Description
“With descriptions and dialect so real you feel as if you might be turning pages while sitting deep in the bush, and a skillful narrative that teaches while it thrills, this novel is a win for any animal lover or reader with a conservationist’s heart.”—Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Spark of Light INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS AWARD FINALIST • In a blockbuster debut thriller brimming with majestic wildlife, village politics, and international intrigue, a chilling quadruple homicide raises the stakes in the battle to save Africa’s elephants. Still grieving over the tragic death of her fiancé, American wildlife biologist Catherine Sohon leaves South Africa and drives to a remote outpost in northeast Namibia, where she plans to face off against the shadowy forces of corruption and relentless human greed in the fight against elephant poaching. Undercover as a census pilot tracking the local elephant population, she’ll really be collecting evidence on the ruthless ivory traffickers. But before she even reaches her destination, Catherine stumbles onto a scene of horrifying carnage: three people shot dead in their car, and a fourth nearby—with his brain removed. The slaughter appears to be the handiwork of a Zambian smuggler known as “the witchdoctor,” a figure reviled by activists and poachers alike. Forced to play nice with local officials, Catherine finds herself drawn to the prickly but charismatic Jon Baggs, head of the Ministry of Conservation, whose blustery exterior belies his deep investment in the poaching wars. Torn between her developing feelings and her unofficial investigation, she takes to the air, only to be grounded by a vicious turf war between competing factions of a black-market operation that reaches far beyond the borders of Africa. With the mortality rate—both human and animal—skyrocketing, Catherine races to intercept a valuable shipment. Now she’s flying blind, and a cunning killer is on the move.
Author: Agata Szczeszak-Brewer Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press ISBN: 1611175305 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 398
Book Description
Critical Approaches to Joseph Conrad is a collection of essays directed to both new and experienced readers of Conrad. The book takes into account recent developments in literary theory, including the prominence of ecocriticism, ecopostcolonial approaches, and gender studies. Editor Agata Szczeszak-Brewer offers a comprehensive and comprehensible introduction to Conrad's most popular texts, also addressing the most recent academic debates as well as the conversations about narrative and genre in Conrad's canon. Students and scholars of Conrad, twentieth-century literature, and modernism will appreciate the clear, accessible prose by nineteen internationally recognized contributors who approach Conrad in different ways, from postcolonial and ecocritical perspectives, through explorations of gender, to psychoanalysis, narrative theory, and political analysis. Beginning with a biographical introduction by Szczeszak-Brewer, the collection offers an essay outlining the cultural and historical contexts that influenced Conrad's fiction and an essay on reception of Conrad's work. Following that, contributors provide critical approaches to Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Typhoon, Nostromo, The Secret Agent, The Secret Sharer, and Under Western Eyes. In these sections scholars offer insights about complex issues in Conrad's fiction, ranging from the study of specific literary tools and narrative development in his books to the political theories in Conrad's portrayal of the threat of terrorism and violent revolutions.
Author: Supriya Chaudhuri Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351620002 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 284
Book Description
Commodity, culture and colonialism are intimately related and mutually constitutive. The desire for commodities drove colonial expansion at the same time that colonial expansion fuelled technological invention, created new markets for goods, displaced populations and transformed local and indigenous cultures in dramatic and often violent ways. This book analyses the transformation of local cultures in the context of global interaction in the period 1851–1914. By focusing on episodes in the social and cultural lives of commodities, it explores some of the ways in which commodities shaped the colonial cultures of global modernity. Chapters by experts in the field examine the production, circulation, display and representation of commodities in various regional and national contexts, and draw on a range of theoretical and disciplinary approaches. An integrated, coherent and urgent response to a number of key debates in postcolonial and Victorian studies, world literature and imperial history, this book will be of interest to researchers with interests in migration, commodity culture, colonial history and transnational networks of print and ideas.
Author: Carl Safina Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 0805098887 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 480
Book Description
Hailed conservationist Carl Safina examines animal personhood as told through the inspired narrative portraits of elephants, wolves, and dolphins
Author: Stephen Lyn Bales Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press ISBN: 1572337176 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 281
Book Description
“Everyone who is interested in the ivory-billed woodpecker will want to read this book—from scientists who wish to examine the data from all the places Tanner explored to the average person who just wants to read a compelling story.” —Tim Gallagher, author of The Grail Bird: The Rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker In 1935 naturalist James T. Tanner was a twenty-one-year-old graduate student when he saw his first ivory-billed woodpecker, one of America’s Istudent when he saw his first ivory-billed woodpecker, one of America’s rarest birds, in a remote swamp in northern Louisiana. At the time, he rarest birds, in a remote swamp in northern Louisiana. At the time, he was part of an ambitious expedition traveling across the country to record and photograph as many avian species as possible, a trip organized by Dr. Arthur Allen, founder of the famed Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Two years later, Tanner hit the road again, this time by himself and in search of only one species—that ever-elusive ivory-bill. Sponsored by Cornell and the Audubon Society, Jim Tanner’s work would result in some of the most extensive field research ever conducted on the magnificent woodpecker. Drawing on Tanner’s personal journals and written with the cooperation of his widow, Nancy, Ghost Birds recounts, in fascinating detail, the scientist’s dogged quest for the ivory-bill as he chased down leads in eight southern states. With Stephen Lyn Bales as our guide, we experience the same awe and excitement that Tanner felt when he returned to the Louisiana wetland he had visited earlier and was able to observe and document several of the “ghost birds”—including a nestling that he handled, banded, and photographed at close range. Investigating the ivory-bill was particularly urgent because it was a fast-vanishing species, the victim of indiscriminant specimen hunting and widespread logging that was destroying its habitat. As sightings became rarer and rarer in the decades following Tanner’s remarkable research, the bird was feared to have become extinct. Since 2005, reports of sightings in Arkansas and Florida made headlines and have given new hope to ornithologists and bird lovers, although extensive subsequent investigations have yet to produce definitive confirmation. Before he died in 1991, Jim Tanner himself had come to believe that the majestic woodpeckers were probably gone forever, but he remained hopeful that someone would prove him wrong. This book fully captures Tanner’s determined spirit as he tracked down what was then, as now, one of ornithology’s true Holy Grails. STEPHEN LYN BALES is a naturalist at the Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. He is the author of Natural Histories, published by UT Press in 2007.
Author: Keith Somerville Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 1787382222 Category : African elephant Languages : en Pages : 412
Book Description
Half of Tanzania's elephants have been killed for their ivory since 2007. A similar alarming story can be told of the herds in northern Mozambique and across swathes of central Africa, with forest elephants losing almost two-thirds of their numbers to the tusk trade. The huge rise in poaching and ivory smuggling in the new millennium has destroyed the hope that the 1989 ivory trade ban had capped poaching and would lead to a long-term fall in demand. But why the new upsurge? The answer is not simple. Since ancient times, large-scale killing of elephants for their tusks has been driven by demand outside Africa's elephant ranges - from the Egyptian pharaohs through Imperial Rome and industrialising Europe and North America to the new wealthy business class of China. And, who poaches and why do they do it? In recent years lurid press reports have blamed mass poaching on rebel movements and armed militias, especially Somalia's Al Shabaab, tying two together two evils - poaching and terrorism. But does this account stand up to scrutiny? This new and ground-breaking examination of the history and politics of ivory in Africa forensically examines why poaching happens in Africa and why it is corruption, crime and politics, rather than insurgency, that we should worry about.
Author: Alan McKenzie Publisher: AuthorHouse ISBN: 1463493037 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 184
Book Description
It all began in the bloody Vietnam War as two platoons led by Lt. Jack McKeon and Lt. Keith Kirkland united in a joint effort to overpower the North Vietnamese Army on the battle of Hill 57. Many will die and few will survive this dirt-chewing war. Nine years later, a violent tragedy will take the lives of Jack Mckeon’s wife and daughter. Trying to live a normal life, Jack McKeon, a natural outdoorsman ventures on an African Safari tour. An unfortunate event in Nairobi, Kenya causes him to run from the law. Innocent, he journeys deeper into the grasslands of the grand Serengeti plains. Confronting big-game hunters and poachers in his expedition, Jack McKeon makes it his mission to stop the ivory-bloodshed that has decimated the rhino and elephant populations. Unbeknownst to Jack, all the poachers’ work for Lt. Keith Kirkland, cartel-leader of the ivory-world, and the man who saved his life in the Vietnam War.
Author: Michael K. Steinberg Publisher: LSU Press ISBN: 0807137669 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 200
Book Description
Unseen for more than sixty years and thought to be extinct, interest in the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker exploded in 2004 when two birders reported capturing the bird on film while searching a bottomland forest in Arkansas. STAKING THE GHOST BIRD examines the lengthy debate over the ivory-bill's status by examining the reported sightings and extensive efforts to find the rare bird in Louisiana. In this absorbing study, author Steinberg turns his lifelong interest in the majestic ivory-billed woodpecker into a tale that encapsulates both the mystery and intrigue surrounding the legendary bird.
Author: Alexandra Celia Kelly Publisher: University of Washington Press ISBN: 0295748826 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 279
Book Description
The economic prosperity of two nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century New England towns rested on factories that manufactured piano keys, billiard balls, combs, and other items made of ivory imported from East Africa. Yet while towns like Ivoryton and Deep River, Connecticut, thrived, the African ivory trade left in its wake massive human exploitation and ecological devastation. At the same time, dynamic East African engagement with capitalism and imperialism took place within these trade histories. Drawing from extensive archival and field research in New England, Great Britain, and Tanzania, Alexandra Kelly investigates the complex global legacies of the historical ivory trade. She not only explains the complexities of this trade but also analyzes Anglo-American narratives about Africa, questioning why elephants and ivory feature so centrally in those representations. From elephant conservation efforts to the cultural heritage industries in New England and East Africa, her study reveals the ongoing global repercussions of the ivory craze and will be of interest to anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, and conservationists.
Author: John Frederick Walker
Author: John Frederick Walker
Author: Caitlin O'Connell
Author: Agata Szczeszak-Brewer
Author: Supriya Chaudhuri
Author: Carl Safina
Author: Stephen Lyn Bales
Author: Keith Somerville
Author: Alan McKenzie
Author: Michael K. Steinberg
Author: Alexandra Celia Kelly