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Natural philosophy, Natural science, Environmentaldeterminism, National Museum of Natural History,Ornithology, Botany, History of geology, Biostratigraphy,Biosphere, Paleontology, Climatology, Gaia hypothesis,Conchology, Modern evolutionary synthesis, Ethology ... Read more

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The concept of ecomuseums, which arose in France in the late 1960s, places museums within the context of community and the environment. Radically different in concept from the traditional museum, the ecomuseum performs its tasks of collecting, preserving and educating within an entirely different framework. It is a dispersed entity consisting of heritage sites, museums, collective memories, and the natural and built environment, with community involvement as the key requisite. The concept has been pursued in some countries, but not in others, and most museum professionals would find it difficult to define what an ecomuseum is. Are ecomuseums something special? Or is the term simply a marketing one? This book, using case studies from a number of countries, looks at the diversity of the ecomuseum and seeks to define its characteristics. ... Read more

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Preventive conservation seeks to minimize needless deterioration, damage, and loss to cultural property. This requires a comprehensive understanding of all hazards that might affect property and all values needing protection from those hazards. The past effects of hazards must be apprehended, the efficacy of current conservation practices must be calculated, and the predictability of future changes must be judged.

Risks may manifest gradually or sporadically. In either case, the time scale over which risks to cultural properties must be considered is measured in centuries. Feedback on the consequences of preventive conservation decisions taken is too slow and too confounded to support meaningful experience-based learning. A risk-based approach to decision-making is necessary. ... Read more

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It was like no other library: not a musty, mute archive but a bustling center of activity and voice of advocacy. It brought together otherwise combative parties--sportsmen, lumbermen, librarians, politicians, even disputing activists--as it helped redefine what environmentalism means in America.

Denver's Conservation Library was established in 1960 as a repository for environmental and conservation documents. In chronicling its history, Andrew Kirk also traces the cultural history of American environmentalism as viewed through the lens of this unique institution. He tells how this library created by an older generation of technophobic men evolved into a cutting-edge laboratory for alternative technology research run by young women, mirroring tumultuous changes in American culture and social movements over the past four decades.

Kirk reveals how the Conservation Library Collection merged with various constituencies vying to shape it for their own purposes, and how it reflected the thinking of influences as diverse as John Muir and Stewart Brand. He introduces key players such as founder Arthur Carhart and administrator Kay Collins, then tells how the CLC was transformed into the Regional Energy/Environment Information Center, suffered cutbacks in the Reagan era that brought on its demise, and lately began a quiet resurgence as the archive it was originally intended to be.

Collecting Nature shows that the CLC was a microcosm for the environmental movement itself, as well as a clear barometer of its gender and generational shifts. Kirk's eloquent narrative reveals much about the ideological bases and promises of environmentalism, while showing how the movement grew from its conservationist and preservationist roots. In the process, Kirk contributes to the debate over the evolution of environmental thinking, with an eye toward resolving the differences among competing perspectives. Through the story of this unique institution, he shows us how we have come to define conservation, wilderness, and even nature itself.

This book is part of the Development of Western Resources series. ... Read more

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This cross-cultural study of the response by human groups to major environmental disruption brings together archaeological experts on Mediterranean Europe, Asia, Eurasia, Peru, Mexico, and the U.S. desert Southwest. Using the school of geographical analysis known as Hazard Research to identify the key attributes of natural disasters and the human social systems that respond to them, researchers consider environmental variables such as the magnitude, speed, and extent of the disaster as well as social variables such as population density, wealth distribution, and political complexity to analyze and assess the damage potential of various types of natural disasters. Such analyses can be useful in generating hypotheses about human response to disaster and in evaluating catastrophic models of sociopolitical collapse.

The research in this book tends to show that social collapse is an unusual outcome of environmental disaster. The authors hope to identify general patterns of human response to such disasters, and the chapters cover major themes such as timing and human agency. ... Read more

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This archaeological study of the Gowen sites of south-central Saskatchewan, dated to 4000 BC, reveals important data about a period of climatic warming in the Northern Plains. Ernest G. Walker examines the artifacts found on the sites to ascertain the physical and biotic environments, comparing this data with that from 113 other sites throughout the Northern Plains. His study makes a useful contribution to the understanding of the region's prehistory, of past climatic warming, and of the implications of similar warming trends in the present. ... Read more

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The papers in this volume explore the issues and techniques of archaeological site seasonality and settlement analysis. Through a series of case studies and theoretical discussions, the papers examine a range of data from Europe (Spain, Bosnia-Herzegovina), Southwest Asia (Israel), East Asia (Japan), North America (Southwest and Southeast United States), and South America (Colombia and Peru). These examples introduce a broad range of specific analytical techniques of seasonality assessment and show variability and similarity in settlement patterns worldwide. In the process, they demonstrate the range of regional traditions of archaeological settlement analysis, and the complementarity of the approaches developed in the different regions.