The Desert: Lands of Lost Borders
- ISBN-10
- 1780233892
- ISBN-13
- 9781780233895
- Series
- The Desert
- Category
- Nature
- Pages
- 232
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2014-09-15
- Publisher
- Reaktion Books
- Author
- Michael Welland
Description
From endless sand dunes and prickly cacti to shimmering mirages and green oases, deserts evoke contradictory images in us. They are lands of desolation, but also of romance, of blistering Mojave heat and biting Gobi cold. Covering a quarter of the earth’s land mass and providing a home to half a billion people, they are both a physical reality and landscapes of the mind. The idea of the desert has long captured Western imagination, put on display in films and literature, but these portrayals often fail to capture the true scope and diversity of the people living there. Bridging the scientific and cultural gaps between perception and reality, The Desert celebrates our fascination with these arid lands and their inhabitants, as well as their importance both throughout history and in the world today. Covering an immense geographical range, Michael Welland wanders from the Sahara to the Atacama, depicting the often bizarre adaptations of plants and animals to these hostile environments. He also looks at these seemingly infertile landscapes in the context of their place in history—as the birthplaces not only of critical evolutionary adaptations, civilizations, and social progress, but also of ideologies. Telling the stories of the diverse peoples who call the desert home, he describes how people have survived there, their contributions to agricultural development, and their emphasis on water and its scarcity. He also delves into the allure of deserts and how they have been used in literature and film and their influence on fashion, art, and architecture. As Welland reveals, deserts may be difficult to define, but they play an active role in the evolution of our global climate and society at large, and their future is of the utmost importance. Entertaining, informative, and surprising, The Desert is an intriguing new look at these seemingly harsh and inhospitable landscapes.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Plant Identification: Creating User-Friendly Field Guides for Biodiversity Management
By William Hawthorne, Anna Lawrence... Farjon et al (A Field Guide to the Pines of Mexico and Central America, 1997) and Timberlake et al (Field Guide to the Acacias of Zimbabwe, 1999).
-
Birds of Maine
By Peter D. Vickery, Charles D. Duncan, Jeffrey V. Wells... counts: several hundred annually at Stratton I. and at E. Egg Rock, ... 15 Jan 2014 (R. Timberlake, eBird); Reid S.P. (Lower Kennebec R. CBC): 1 on 20 ...
-
Wasting the Rain (Routledge Revivals): Rivers, People and Planning in Africa
By William M. Adams AdamsMaltby, E. (1988) Waterlogged Wealth: Why waste the world's wet places? Earthscan, London. ... Timberlake, L. (1985) Africa in Crisis: the causes, ...
-
Plant Identification: Creating User-Friendly Field Guides for Biodiversity Management
By William Hawthorne, Anna Lawrence... E. and K. M. Wong (eds) (1995–ongoing) Tree Flora of Sabah and Sarawak, FRIM, ... Journal of Biological Education, vol 18, pp293–304 Timberlake J., ...
-
Plant Identification: Creating User-friendly Field Guides for Biodiversity Management
By William Hawthorne, Anna Lawrence, Alan Charles Hamilton... E. and K. M. Wong (eds) (1995–ongoing) Tree Flora of Sabah and Sarawak, ... pp293–304 Timberlake J., C. Fagg and R. Barnes (1999) Field Guide to the ...
-
Happiness, Well-being and Sustainability: A Course in Systems Change
By Laura Musikanski, Rhonda Phillips, James BradburyFrost's meditations: Eudaemonia, the good life: A talk with Martin Seligman. ... 1, 115–135. doi:10.1007/s42413-018-0012-2 Kahneman, D. & Riis, D. (2005).
-
The Texas Landscape Project: Nature and People
By David A. Todd, Jonathan Ogren... section 2, part 2; Texas Water Code, Section 11.085(s)). ... as the “San Antone Hose” and generated a great deal of opposition in the Colorado basin, ...
-
Essential Environment: The Science Behind the Stories
By -. Pearson, Jay H. Withgott, Matthew LaposataThis is the product access code card for MasteringEnvironmentalScience(tm) with Pearson eText and does not include the actual bound book.
-
Birds of Peru: Revised and Updated Edition
By Thomas S. Schulenberg, Douglas F. Stotz, Daniel F. LaneTodd Mark compiled the data on the material at the Muséum National d'Histoire ... Noam Shany provided a great deal of additional information on seabirds.
-
Finding Our Place in the Solar System: The Scientific Story of the Copernican Revolution
By Todd Timberlake, Paul WallaceDetails the science behind the Copernican Revolution, the transition from the Earth-centered cosmos to a modern understanding of planetary orbits.