Humbling, invigorating analysis.
Veteran travel writer de Villiers (Timbuktu, 2007, etc) explores our planet’s destructive tendencies, and it’s a thriller.
Volcanic eruption, cosmic destruction, earthquake, tidal wave, tornado, hurricane and disease are all analyzed with academic pragmatism and occasional reassurance. However, such niceties fall short in light of the evidence he offers that we could soon face a global catastrophe that would make the December 2004 tsunami look trivial. If we’re living in a relatively rare era between ice ages called an “interglacial period,” which is characteristically marked by a preceding global warming, then our reckless destruction of the environment might make the next 100,000 years or so more uncomfortable, but it’s hardly going to alter the inevitable. Besides, a wayward meteor or SARS might kill us first. De Villiers is not all gloom and doom. Experts since the dawn of communication have been predicting apocalypse, he writes, but in fact disasters of extinction are unpredictable and rare. Population may well be the more pressing issue. If humans, particularly in developing nations, continue to reproduce at the current pace, we will simply run out of space and resources, while exponentially improving the conditions for disaster. Overforestation worsens flooding; overcrowding breeds disease; overdevelopment near tectonic shift sites invites calamity by earthquake. In modern times, places like Tokyo, Sumbara and Yellowstone are recognized as vulnerable, yet populations choose to play down the risk until calamities like New Orleans’s breached levees force the issue. While it may remain a tenuous argument that human behavior has strengthened natural disasters, it has exacerbated the ensuing devastation—and recent U.S. leadership certainly hasn’t helped the situation. The answer, if there is one, lies in a combination of education, prevention and planning. Innovations such as electric cars and nuclear power, with a hearty dose of sex ed, might make all the difference, de Villiers concludes, but the time to act is now.
Humbling, invigorating analysis.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36569-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2008
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.
An account of the mysterious life of eels that also serves as a meditation on consciousness, faith, time, light and darkness, and life and death.
In addition to an intriguing natural history, Swedish journalist Svensson includes a highly personal account of his relationship with his father. The author alternates eel-focused chapters with those about his father, a man obsessed with fishing for this elusive creature. “I can’t recall us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to best catch them, down there by the stream,” he writes. “I can’t remember us speaking at all….Because we were in…a place whose nature was best enjoyed in silence.” Throughout, Svensson, whose beat is not biology but art and culture, fills his account with people: Aristotle, who thought eels emerged live from mud, “like a slithering, enigmatic miracle”; Freud, who as a teenage biologist spent months in Trieste, Italy, peering through a microscope searching vainly for eel testes; Johannes Schmidt, who for two decades tracked thousands of eels, looking for their breeding grounds. After recounting the details of the eel life cycle, the author turns to the eel in literature—e.g., in the Bible, Rachel Carson’s Under the Sea Wind, and Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum—and history. He notes that the Puritans would likely not have survived without eels, and he explores Sweden’s “eel coast” (what it once was and how it has changed), how eel fishing became embroiled in the Northern Irish conflict, and the importance of eel fishing to the Basque separatist movement. The apparent return to life of a dead eel leads Svensson to a consideration of faith and the inherent message of miracles. He warns that if we are to save this fascinating creature from extinction, we must continue to study it. His book is a highly readable place to begin learning.
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-296881-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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