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THE NATURE OF HORSES

EXPLORING EQUINE EVOLUTION, INTELLIGENCE, AND BEHAVIOR

Budiansky, a writer at U.S. News and World Report, may not provide as many ``insights into the true nature of the beast'' as he hopes, but he serves up fascinating historical, behavioral, and biological nuggets about our equine friends. Troubled that our understanding of Equus caballus is badly flawed, Budiansky (Nature's Keepers, 1995) endeavors to set the record straight, clearing the air of ``what millenniums of tradition, love, and wishful thinking have sometimes muddled,'' and telling the horses' story through the ``objective tools of science.'' He starts at the beginning of domestication, 6,000 years ago, with the Sredni Stog people. They, it is surmised, either clambered atop the horse or ate him; their bones are mixed together at archaeological digs in the Ukraine, marking the onset of a long, fruitful association. Horses and humans discovered what they had in common: an intuitive language of dominance and submission, an adaptation to grasslands, a social fabric built on subordination to authority and trust. Budiansky's portrait delves into mitochondrial DNA analysis, the mechanics of movement and eyesight and vocalization, but he's hesitant to guess at the ultimate meaning of this data. He is less edifying but far more entertaining when he occasionally hazards subjective rather than scientific information, as in his observation of the horse's ability to interpret subtle social cues shared with humans (dispelling notions of horses as mind readers) or when he simply throws out an idea he has concerning their fabled homing instinct. And he's incisive when describing the curious world of the stud book and the ambiguous effects of inbreeding. As a science journalist, Budiansky brings together a wealth of equine research; as the devoted horseman he is, he knows there is more than the objective interface, and that magic is a persistent part of the equation. (70 drawings and photos)

Pub Date: April 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-684-82768-9

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Free Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997

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SILENT SPRING

The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!

It should come as no surprise that the gifted author of The Sea Around Usand its successors can take another branch of science—that phase of biology indicated by the term ecology—and bring it so sharply into focus that any intelligent layman can understand what she is talking about.

Understand, yes, and shudder, for she has drawn a living portrait of what is happening to this balance nature has decreed in the science of life—and what man is doing (and has done) to destroy it and create a science of death. Death to our birds, to fish, to wild creatures of the woods—and, to a degree as yet undetermined, to man himself. World War II hastened the program by releasing lethal chemicals for destruction of insects that threatened man’s health and comfort, vegetation that needed quick disposal. The war against insects had been under way before, but the methods were relatively harmless to other than the insects under attack; the products non-chemical, sometimes even introduction of other insects, enemies of the ones under attack. But with chemicals—increasingly stronger, more potent, more varied, more dangerous—new chain reactions have set in. And ironically, the insects are winning the war, setting up immunities, and re-emerging, their natural enemies destroyed. The peril does not stop here. Waters, even to the underground water tables, are contaminated; soils are poisoned. The birds consume the poisons in their insect and earthworm diet; the cattle, in their fodder; the fish, in the waters and the food those waters provide. And humans? They drink the milk, eat the vegetables, the fish, the poultry. There is enough evidence to point to the far-reaching effects; but this is only the beginning,—in cancer, in liver disorders, in radiation perils…This is the horrifying story. It needed to be told—and by a scientist with a rare gift of communication and an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Already the articles taken from the book for publication in The New Yorkerare being widely discussed. Book-of-the-Month distribution in October will spread the message yet more widely.

The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!  

Pub Date: Sept. 27, 1962

ISBN: 061825305X

Page Count: 378

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1962

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A FIRE STORY

Drawings, words, and a few photos combine to convey the depth of a tragedy that would leave most people dumbstruck.

A new life and book arise from the ashes of a devastating California wildfire.

These days, it seems the fires will never end. They wreaked destruction over central California in the latter months of 2018, dominating headlines for weeks, barely a year after Fies (Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?, 2009) lost nearly everything to the fires that raged through Northern California. The result is a vividly journalistic graphic narrative of resilience in the face of tragedy, an account of recent history that seems timely as ever. “A two-story house full of our lives was a two-foot heap of dead smoking ash,” writes the author about his first return to survey the damage. The matter-of-fact tone of the reportage makes some of the flights of creative imagination seem more extraordinary—particularly a nihilistic, two-page centerpiece of a psychological solar system in which “the fire is our black hole,” and “some veer too near and are drawn into despair, depression, divorce, even suicide,” while “others are gravitationally flung entirely out of our solar system to other cities or states, and never seen again.” Yet the stories that dominate the narrative are those of the survivors, who were part of the community and would be part of whatever community would be built to take its place across the charred landscape. Interspersed with the author’s own account are those from others, many retirees, some suffering from physical or mental afflictions. Each is rendered in a couple pages of text except one from a fellow cartoonist, who draws his own. The project began with an online comic when Fies did the only thing he could as his life was reduced to ash and rubble. More than 3 million readers saw it; this expanded version will hopefully extend its reach.

Drawings, words, and a few photos combine to convey the depth of a tragedy that would leave most people dumbstruck.

Pub Date: March 5, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-4197-3585-1

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Abrams ComicArts

Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018

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