Swimming Lessons: Keeping Afloat in the Age of Technology - Tapa dura

"With wit, humor, a calm voice, and great authority, Swimming lessons gives a clear view of what our world has become ... a delight to read. ... David Ehrenfeld fills the chapters of Swimming lessons with remarkable and often moving stories from his own life and the lives of his wife and children, colleagues, and students."--Ethology, Ecology and Evolution "Ehrenfeld, who eschews corporate funding, is independent-minded. He writes about big ideas - vanishing species, globalization, genetic engineering and a diminishing "sense of place" are among his favorite topics. He is not afraid of complexity. ... Throughout, Ehrenfeld conveys a sense of calm and authority. The text is stunning in its use of visual imagery, pace and varying sentence structure."--The Newark Star-Ledger "With wit, humor, a calm voice, and great authority, Swimming lessons gives a clear view of what our world has become ... a delight to read. ... David Ehrenfeld fills the chapters of Swimming lessons with remarkable and often moving stories from his own life and the lives of his wife and children, colleagues, and students."--Ethology, Ecology and Evolution "Ehrenfeld, who eschews corporate funding, is independent-minded. He writes about big ideas - vanishing species, globalization, genetic engineering and a diminishing "sense of place" are among his favorite topics. He is not afraid of complexity. ... Throughout, Ehrenfeld conveys a sense of calm and authority. The text is stunning in its use of visual imagery, pace and varying sentence structure."--The Newark Star-Ledger "With wit, humor, a calm voice, and great authority, Swimming lessons gives a clear view of what our world has become ... a delight to read. ... David Ehrenfeld fills the chapters of Swimming lessons with remarkable and often moving stories from his own life and the lives of his wife and children, colleagues, and students."--Ethology, Ecology and Evolution "Ehrenfeld, who eschews corporate funding, is independent-minded. He writes about big ideas - vanishing species, globalization, genetic engineering and a diminishing "sense of place" are among his favorite topics. He is not afraid of complexity. ... Throughout, Ehrenfeld conveys a sense of calm and authority. The text is stunning in its use of visual imagery, pace and varying sentence structure."--The Newark Star-Ledger "With wit, humor, a calm voice, and great authority, Swimming lessons gives a clear view of what our world has become ... a delight to read. ... David Ehrenfeld fills the chapters of Swimming lessons with remarkable and often moving stories from his own life and the lives of his wife and children, colleagues, and students."--Ethology, Ecology and Evolution "Ehrenfeld, who eschews corporate funding, is independent-minded. He writes about big ideas - vanishing species, globalization, genetic engineering and a diminishing "sense of place" are among his favorite topics. He is not afraid of complexity. ... Throughout, Ehrenfeld conveys a sense of calm and authority. The text is stunning in its use of visual imagery, pace and varying sentence structure."--The Newark Star-Ledger "With wit, humor, a calm voice, and great authority, Swimming lessons gives a clear view of what our world has become ... a delight to read. ... David Ehrenfeld fills the chapters of Swimming lessons with remarkable and often moving stories from his own life and the lives of his wife and children, colleagues, and students."--Ethology, Ecology and Evolution "Ehrenfeld, who eschews corporate funding, is independent-minded. He writes about big ideas - vanishing species, globalization, genetic engineering and a diminishing "sense of place" are among his favorite topics. He is not afraid of complexity. ... Throughout, Ehrenfeld conveys a sense of calm and authority. The text is stunning in its use of visual imagery, pace and varying sentence structure."--The Newark Star-Ledger

David Ehrenfeld is a highly esteemed writer on ecology and conservation biology. The founding editor of The Journal of Conservation Biology and author of The Arrogance of Humanism and Beginning Again, his new book is an elegant study of the cost to human dignity and potential, of the shrinking wilderness and the ongoing degredation of the environment. He ruminates on the impacts of short-sighted governmental and economic policies, and of new technologies on human values and communities, tracing the human impacts upon the urban, agricultural and wilderness environments. Ehrenfeld has a unique, unmistakable voice as a major spokesperson for the conservation ethic and the human values implicit in environmentalism and conservation biology. This book should appeal strongly to readers of Ehrenfeld's earlier books and essays, and reach and satisfy a broad constituency on the green end of the political spectrum.