Category: History Philosophy On Science Nature

Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots: Exotic Animals in by Louise E. Robbins

By Louise E. Robbins

In 1775, a customer to Laurent Spinacuta's Grande Ménagerie on the annual iciness reasonable in Paris may have visible tigers, numerous forms of monkeys, an armadillo, an ocelot, and a condor—in all, forty-two dwell animals. In Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots, Louise Robbins explains that unique animals from all over the world have been universal in eighteenth-century Paris. within the streets of the town, citizens and viewers may well become aware of acting elephants and a scuffling with polar endure. these trying to find strange pets may buy parrots, flying squirrels, and capuchin monkeys. The royal menagerie at Versailles displayed lions, cranes, an elephant, a rhinoceros, and a zebra, which in 1760 grew to become an incredible courtroom attraction.

For Enlightenment-era Parisians, unique animals either piqued medical interest and conveyed social prestige. Their availability used to be a boon for naturalists like Buffon, writer of the best-selling Histoire naturelle, who saw strange species in numerous destinations round the urban. Louis XVI observed his menagerie as a manifestation of his energy and funded its maintenance for that reason, whereas critics used the caged animals as metaphors of slavery and political oppression amidst the transforming into political turmoil. In her enticing and infrequently miraculous account, Robbins considers approximately each point of France's obsession with unique fauna, from the monstrous literature on unique animals and the interior workings of the oiseleurs' (birdsellers') guild to how the animals have been transported, housed, and cared for. in response to wide-ranging and creative examine, Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots stands as a big contribution to the historical past of human-animal kin, eighteenth-century tradition, and French colonialism.

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Fallout: J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and the by Jim Ottaviani,Janine Johnston,Steve Lieber,Vince

By Jim Ottaviani,Janine Johnston,Steve Lieber,Vince Locke,Bernie Mireault,Jeff Parker,Jeffrey Jones

So, you have constantly desired to how to construct an atomic bomb? you are in good fortune: Jim Ottaviani is not just a comics writer...he additionally has a master's measure in nuclear engineering! yet although it isn't a whole home made guide (assembly required, and plutonium is well no longer included), Fallout will convey you up to the mark at the technology and politics of the 1st nuclear gadgets.

Like its significant other volumes, the point of interest of Fallout is at the scientists themselves -- specifically J. Robert Oppenheimer and Leo Szilard, whose lives supply a cautionary story concerning the uneasy alliance among the army, the govt., and the beginnings of "big science."

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The Environment: Philosophy, Science, and Ethics (Topics in by William P. Kabasenche,Michael O'Rourke,Matthew H. Slater

By William P. Kabasenche,Michael O'Rourke,Matthew H. Slater

Philosophical reflections at the atmosphere started with early philosophers' invocation of a cosmology that combined typical and supernatural phenomena. this present day, the primary philosophical challenge posed through the surroundings comprises now not what it might probably educate us approximately ourselves and our position within the cosmic order yet fairly how we will comprehend its workings with a purpose to make higher judgements approximately our personal behavior concerning it. The ensuing inquiry spans assorted components of latest philosophy, lots of that are represented through the fifteen unique essays during this volume.The individuals first give some thought to conceptual difficulties generated by way of quick advances in biology and ecology, studying such issues as ecological groups, edition, and clinical consensus. The participants then flip to epistemic and axiological concerns, first contemplating philosophical points of environmental choice making after which assessing specific environmental rules (largely in relation to weather change), together with reparations, remediation, and nuclear energy, from a normative perspective.ContributorsKatie McShane, Robert Brandon, Rachel Bryant, Michael Trestman, Brian Steverson, Denis Walsh, Lorraine Code, Jay Odenbaugh, Joseph Cannon, Mariam Thalos, Chrisoula Andreou, Clare Palmer, Ben Hale, Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Andrew Light

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One With the Tiger: Sublime and Violent Encounters Between by Steven Church

By Steven Church

On September 21, 2012, twenty-five 12 months outdated David Villalobos bought a cross for the Bronx Zoo and a price ticket for a journey at the Bengali show Monorail. Biding his time, he waited until eventually the monorail was once simply close to the enclosure of a 400 pound Siberian tiger named Bashuta sooner than jumping into it. They spent ten lengthy mins jointly within the tiger’s cage sooner than nature took its direction, with one exception: The tiger didn't kill him. David’s basically reaction: “It’s a non secular factor. i wished to be at one with the tiger.”

One with The Tiger: On Savagery and Intimacy makes use of David’s tale, and different moments of violent encounters among people and predators, to discover the road among human and animal. Exposing what the writer defines because the “shared liminal house among peace and violence,” Church posits that the animal is usually encroaching at the civilization —and these looking its wildness are in truth trying to find an ecstatic second which may outline what it skill to be human. utilizing examples from Timothy Treadwell to Mike Tyson, or such tv icons as Grizzly Adams and The wonderful Hulk, Church exhibits how this ecstasy can seep its method into the fewer flora and fauna of pop culture, proving many times that every people could be our personal worst predator.

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Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Canto by John Hedley Brooke

By John Hedley Brooke

John Hedley Brooke bargains an advent and important consultant to at least one of the main attention-grabbing and enduring matters within the improvement of the trendy international: the connection among medical suggestion and non secular trust. it's normal wisdom that during western societies there were sessions of quandary while new technological know-how has threatened verified authority. The trial of Galileo in 1633 and the uproar as a result of Darwin's starting place of Species (1859) are of the main recognized examples. Taking account of modern scholarship within the heritage of technological know-how, Brooke takes a clean examine those and comparable episodes, exhibiting that technology and faith were jointly proper in so wealthy various ways in which no uncomplicated generalizations are possible.

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The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush: Museums and Paleontology by Paul D. Brinkman

By Paul D. Brinkman

The so-called “Bone Wars” of the Eighties, which pitted Edward Drinker Cope opposed to Othniel Charles Marsh in a frenzy of fossil assortment and discovery, could have marked the creation of dinosaurs to the yankee public, however the moment Jurassic dinosaur rush, which came about round the flip of the 20th century, introduced the prehistoric beasts again to lifestyles. those later expeditions—which concerned new rivals hailing from best ordinary background museums in ny, Chicago, and Pittsburgh—yielded specimens that may be reconstructed into the substantial skeletons that thrill viewers this present day in museum halls around the country.

Reconsidering the fossil hypothesis, the museum monitors, and the media frenzy that ushered dinosaurs into the yankee public awareness, Paul Brinkman takes us again to the delivery of dinomania, the trendy obsession with all issues Jurassic. that includes enticing and colourful personalities and motivations either altruistic and ignoble, The moment Jurassic Dinosaur Rush indicates that those later expeditions have been simply as foundational—if no more so—to the institution of paleontology and the budding collections of museums than the extra recognized Cope and Marsh treks. With experience, intrigue, and competition, this can be technology at its so much swashbuckling.

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Plague, Fear, and Politics in San Francisco's Chinatown by Guenter B. Risse

By Guenter B. Risse

When well-being officers in San Francisco found bubonic plague of their city’s Chinatown in 1900, they spoke back with intrusive, controlling, and arbitrary measures that touched off a sociocultural clash nonetheless correct this present day. Guenter B. Risse’s historical past of a deadly disease is the 1st to include the voices of these dwelling in Chinatown on the time, together with the desperately unwell Wong Chut King, believed to be the 1st individual infected.

Lasting till 1904, the plague in San Francisco's Chinatown reignited racial prejudices, renewed efforts to take away the chinese language from their district, and created new tensions between neighborhood, kingdom, and federal public healthiness officers quarreling over the presence of the lethal sickness. Risse's wealthy, nuanced narrative of the development attracts from various assets, together with Chinese-language stories and bills. He addresses the ecology of Chinatown, the methods taken by means of chinese language and Western scientific practitioners, and the results of quarantine plans on Chinatown and its citizens. Risse explains how plague threatened California’s agricultural economic climate and San Francisco’s major advertisement position with Asia, discusses why it triggered a wave of worry mongering that drove perceptions and intervention efforts, and describes how chinese language citizens geared up and effectively adverse govt quarantines and evacuation plans in federal courtroom. through probing public future health interventions within the surroundings of 1 of the main seen ethnic groups in usa heritage, Plague, worry, and Politics in San Francisco’s Chinatown deals perception into the conflict of japanese and Western cultures in a time of clinical emergency.

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