The first edition of Toward a Unified Ecology was ahead of its time. For the second edition, the authors present a new synthesis of their core ideas on evaluating communities, organisms, populations, biomes, models, and management. The book now places greater emphasis on post-normal critiques, cognizant of ever-present observer values in the system. The problem it addresses is how to work holistically on complex things that cannot be defined, and this book continues to build an ap...

While environmentalists insist that lower rates of consumption of natural resources are essential for a sustainable future, many economists dismiss the notion that resource limits act to constrain modern, creative societies. The conflict between these views tinges political debate at all levels and hinders our ability to plan for the future.Supply-Side Sustainability offers a fresh approach to this dilemma by integrating ecological and social science approaches in an inter...

About David Johnston’s editionCarefully and faithfully edited by “one of our most astute commentators on Hobbes’s political theory” (Jeremy Waldron), the Norton Library edition of Leviathan features the complete text of the work, with spelling and punctuation thoughtfully modernized and archaic terms helpfully annotated throughout. An introduction by Kinch Hoekstra situates the work in its historical and intellectual context to prepare students fo...

For more than 30 years, John Tillman Lyle (1934-1998) was one of the leading thinkers in the field of ecological design. Design for Human Ecosystems, originally published in 1985, is his classic text that explores methods of designing landscapes that function in the sustainable ways of natural ecosystems. The book provides a framework for thinking about and understanding ecological design, along with a wealth of real-world examples that bring to life Lyle's key ideas.Lyle ...

Like Guns, Germs, and Steel, a work of breathtaking sweep and originality that reinterprets the human story.Although we usually think of technology as something unique to modern times, our ancestors began to create the first technologies millions of years ago in the form of prehistoric tools and weapons. Over time, eight key technologies gradually freed us from the limitations of our animal origins.The fabrication of weapons, the mastery of fire, a...

The Princeton Guide to Ecology is a concise, authoritative one-volume reference to the field's major subjects and key concepts. Edited by eminent ecologist Simon Levin, with contributions from an international team of leading ecologists, the book contains more than ninety clear, accurate, and up-to-date articles on the most important topics within seven major areas: autecology, population ecology, communities and ecosystems, landscapes and the biosphere, conservation biology, ecos...

In his bestselling The Moral Animal, Robert Wright applied the principles of evolutionary biology to the study of the human mind. Now Wright attempts something even more ambitious: explaining the direction of evolution and human history–and discerning where history will lead us next.In Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Wright asserts that, ever since the primordial ooze, life has followed a basic pattern. Organisms and human societies alike have...

Mankind has recently come to the shocking realization that our ancestors survived hundreds of abrupt and severe changes to Earth's climate. In this unique travelogue, William H. Calvin takes us around the globe and back in time, showing us how such cycles of cool, crash, and burn provided the impetus for enormous increases in the intelligence and complexity of human beings and warning us of human activities that could trigger similarly massive shifts in the planet's climate."Calvin ...

A plethora of different theories, models, and concepts make up the field of community ecology. Amid this vast body of work, is it possible to build one general theory of ecological communities? What other scientific areas might serve as a guiding framework? As it turns out, the core focus of community ecology—understanding patterns of diversity and composition of biological variants across space and time—is shared by evolutionary biology and its very coherent conceptual framework, populati...

The world has changed in the seventeen years since the controversial initial publication of Paul Hawken's Ecology of Commerce, a stirring treatise about the perceived antagonism between ecology and business. Yet Hawken's impassioned argument—that business both causes the most egregious abuses of the environment and, crucially, holds the most potential for solving our sustainability problems—is more relevant and resonant than ever.Containing updated and revised material for a new au...

In this book, nine thought-leaders engage with some of the hottest moral issues in science and ethics. Based on talks originally given at the annual "Purdue Lectures in Ethics, Policy, and Science," the chapters explore interconnections between the three areas in an engaging and accessible way. Addressing a mixed public audience, the authors go beyond dry theory to explore some of the difficult moral questions that face scientists and policy-makers every day. The introduction presents a th...