The Human Age – The World Shaped By Us - Hardcover

Ackerman, Diane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393240746 ISBN 13: 9780393240740

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014

Synopsis

Ackerman is justly celebrated for her unique insight into the natural world and our place in it. In this landmark book, she confronts the unprecedented reality that one prodigiously intelligent and meddlesome creature, Homo sapiens, is now the dominant force shaping the future of planet Earth. Humans have "subdued 75 percent of the land surface, concocted a wizardry of industrial and medical marvels, strung lights all across the darkness." We tinker with nature at every opportunity; we garden the planet with our preferred species of plants and animals, many of them invasive; and we have even altered the climate, threatening our own extinction. Yet we reckon with our own destructive capabilities in extraordinary acts of hope-filled creativity: we collect the DNA of vanishing species in a "frozen ark," equip orangutans with iPads, and create wearable technologies and synthetic species that might one day outsmart us. With her distinctive gift for making scientific discovery intelligible to the layperson, Ackerman takes us on an exhilarating journey through our new reality, introducing us to many of the people and ideas now creating perhaps saving our future and that of our fellow creatures. A beguiling, optimistic engagement with the changes affecting every part of our lives, The Human Age is a wise and beautiful book that will astound, delight, and inform intelligent life for a long time to come."

About this title

Review

In this amazingly illuminating book, Diane Ackerman explains our future with her typically intoxicating blend of scholarship, wisdom, grace and humor.--Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies

Ackerman is a gorgeous writer and perceptive observer. Here she writes with great empathy about the human plight.--Kate Tuttle

Exquisite and startling.--Tim Flannery

With this stirringly vivid, darkbright manifesto, Diane Ackerman summons us to the wager of sheer possibility: life against death, delight still (if only just barely) trouncing despair.--Lawrence Weschler, author of Everything that Rises, Pulitzer Prize finalist

An ode to the planet we've created for ourselves... Rarely grim, and the overwhelming spirit is one of relentless optimism.--Nathanial Rich

[Ackerman] raises the bar for her peers...her penetrating insight is a joy to behold.

A hard look at the impact that humans have had on Earth... thought provoking.--Kyle Anderson

[A] thought-provoking analysis of our connection to the earth... A lens that magnifies and clarifies the fascinating, far-reaching effects humans have had on our planet and ourselves.--Lee E. Cart

A book to dip around in--skimming some parts and perusing others with care--as your interest guides you, enjoying Ackerman's profound sense of mind play as you go.--Ben Dickinson

A humdinger of a book... Ackerman is optimistic, even exhilarated, and frequently giddy about the future of humanity.--Jon Christensen

Book Description

A beautifully-written, insightful and urgent enquiry into man's relationship with nature and our impact on the planet.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0393240746
• ISBN 13: 9780393240740
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352