Download or read book Consuming Ivory written by Alexandra Celia Kelly and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The economic prosperity of two nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century New England towns rested on factories that manufactured piano keys, billiard balls, combs, and other items made of ivory imported from East Africa. Yet while towns like Ivoryton and Deep River, Connecticut, thrived, the African ivory trade left in its wake massive human exploitation and ecological devastation. At the same time, dynamic East African engagement with capitalism and imperialism took place within these trade histories. Drawing from extensive archival and field research in New England, Great Britain, and Tanzania, Alexandra Kelly investigates the complex global legacies of the historical ivory trade. She not only explains the complexities of this trade but also analyzes Anglo-American narratives about Africa, questioning why elephants and ivory feature so centrally in those representations. From elephant conservation efforts to the cultural heritage industries in New England and East Africa, her study reveals the ongoing global repercussions of the ivory craze and will be of interest to anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, and conservationists.
Download or read book Contemporary Approaches to Stopping the Illegal Ivory Trade written by Meagan Elizabeth Lum and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elephants and their ivory have a rich and long history in Thailand. However, the demand for ivory in Thailand is dramatically affecting elephant populations, particularly African elephants. While the consumption of ivory is banned in most countries, Thailand still allows for domestic consumption, resulting in the mixing of legal and illegal ivory. Understanding the cultural traditions that gives rise to contemporary values and beliefs about the consumption of ivory can provide significant and critical insight into why people consume it. This study argues that greater contextual understanding of cultural beliefs can make awareness campaigns more effective at reducing the consumption of ivory. To understand cultural motivations more deeply, this study uses a sociological perspective, primarily that of Pierre Bourdieu. This provides a more contextual engagement with Thai consumers, reconnects them with cultural values about elephants and their importance in Thai society, and works towards a shift in attitudes about consuming ivory.
Download or read book Consuming Religion written by Kathryn Lofton and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Takes us through the Kardashians, cubicle design, and Goldman Sachs, among other phenomena, to reveal the relationship of religion and popular culture.” —Reading Religion What are you drawn to like, to watch, or even to binge? What are you free to consume, and what do you become through consumption? These questions of desire and value, Kathryn Lofton argues, are questions for the study of religion. In eleven essays exploring soap and office cubicles, Britney Spears and the Kardashians, corporate culture and Goldman Sachs, Lofton shows the conceptual levers of religion in thinking about social modes of encounter, use, and longing. Wherever we see people articulate their dreams of and for the world, wherever we see those dreams organized into protocols, images, manuals, and contracts, we glimpse what the word “religion” allows us to describe and understand. With great style and analytical acumen, Lofton offers the ultimate guide to religion and consumption in our capitalizing times. “Consuming Religion is a timely exploration of a world in which reality is branded. Unexpected connections and juxtapositions reveal religion in unexpected places and practices. To follow Kathryn Lofton’s romp through today’s mediascape is to discover the superficiality of pop culture to be surprisingly profound.” —Mark C. Taylor, Columbia University “An elegant, critical, wide-ranging and thought-provoking account of religion and spirituality in America today.” —Times Higher Education
Download or read book Geographic Notes written by and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Geographic and Global Issues Quarterly written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Escalating International Wildlife Trafficking Crisis written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations. Subcommittee on African Affairs and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Everyday Chemicals written by Gerald A. LeBlanc and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2023-02-21 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the likelihood that common chemicals such as bisphenol-A, which is found in plastic water bottles, are harming us? Should shoppers be concerned about pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables in the supermarket produce aisle? Are we risking adverse health effects when we use insect repellent that contains DEET or slather on sunscreen? Modern life requires us to navigate an endless sea of chemicals. How do we know whether we need to worry about them? This book is a layperson’s guide to understanding chemical risk. The toxicologist Gerald A. LeBlanc offers a nontechnical overview of the key factors in evaluating whether exposure to chemicals in our daily lives could be harmful. He leads readers through the basic concepts of risk assessment using real-world examples. LeBlanc emphasizes that chemical hazard depends on the level of exposure and provides practical strategies for sensible decision making. The book features a series of accessible case studies describing how we all can reach rational conclusions about the danger of typical chemical exposures we experience every day. Giving nonexpert readers the tools to understand chemical risks, this book shows how critical thinking and science literacy can help us live with less fear and anxiety and make reasonable choices when confronted with potential hazards.
Download or read book Alimentary Performances written by Kristin Hunt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pea soda. An apple balloon. A cotton candy picnic. A magical mole. These are just a handful of examples of mimetic cuisine, a diverse set of culinary practices in which chefs and artists treat food as a means of representation. As theatricalised fine dining and the use of food in theatrical situations both grow in popularity, Alimentary Performances traces the origins and implications of food as a mimetic medium, used to imitate, represent, and assume a role in both theatrical and broader performance situations. Kristin Hunt's rich and wide-ranging account of food's growing representational stakes asks: What culinary approaches to mimesis can tell us about enduring philosophical debates around knowledge and authenticity How the dramaturgy of food within theatres connects with the developing role of theatrical cuisine in restaurant settings Ways in which these turns toward culinary mimeticism engender new histories, advance new epistemologies, and enable new modes of multisensory spectatorship and participation. This is an essential study for anyone interested in the intersections between food, theatre, and performance, from fine dining to fan culture and celebrity chefs to the drama of the cookbook.
Download or read book Ocean of Trade written by Pedro Machado and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ocean of Trade offers an innovative study of trade, production and consumption across the Indian Ocean between the years 1750 and 1850. Focusing on the Vāniyā merchants of Diu and Daman, Pedro Machado explores the region's entangled histories of exchange, including the African demand for large-scale textile production among weavers in Gujarat, the distribution of ivory to consumers in Western India, and the African slave trade in the Mozambique channel that took captives to the French islands of the Mascarenes, Brazil and the Rio de la Plata, and the Arabian peninsula and India. In highlighting the critical role of particular South Asian merchant networks, the book reveals how local African and Indian consumption was central to the development of commerce across the Indian Ocean, giving rise to a wealth of regional and global exchange in a period commonly perceived to be increasingly dominated by European company and private capital.
Download or read book Consuming Habits written by Jordan Goodman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-07-26 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pioneering collection of original essays explores the rich analytical category of psycho- active substances from challenging historical and anthropological perspectives. Psychoactive substances have been central to the formation of civilizations and the growth of the world economy. Consuming Habits describes how and why: tea and coffee replaced beer on the breakfast tables of 18th century Europe in Islamic emirates at the turn of the century kola nuts formed part of tax payments, and were given as gifts by so-called `big men' In 1902 opera singers had their doctors prescribe them cocaine to aid singing the original version of `coca-cola' was described as a `brain tonic.' This pioneering collection of original essays explores the rich analytical category of psychoactive substances from challenging historical and anthropological perspectives.
Download or read book Consuming Habits Global and Historical Perspectives on How Cultures Define Drugs written by Jordan Goodman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering a wide range of substances, including opium, cocaine, coffee, tobacco, kola, and betelnut, from prehistory to the present day, this new edition has been extensively updated, with an updated bibliography and two new chapters on cannabis and khat. Consuming Habits is the perfect companion for all those interested in how different cultures have defined drugs across the ages. Psychoactive substances have been central to the formation of civilizations, the definition of cultural identities, and the growth of the world economy. The labelling of these substances as 'legal' or 'illegal' has diverted attention away from understanding their important cultural and historical role. This collection explores the rich analytical category of psychoactive substances from challenging historical and anthropological perspectives.
Download or read book Misreading the Bengal Delta written by Camelia Dewan and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2021-11-01 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unexpected story of climate change initiatives that threaten a complex waterscape Perilously close to sea level and vulnerable to floods, erosion, and cyclones, Bangladesh is one of the top recipients of development aid earmarked for climate change adaptation. Yet, to what extent do adaptation projects address local needs and concerns? Combining environmental history and ethnographic fieldwork with development professionals, rural farmers, and landless women, Misreading the Bengal Delta critiques development narratives of Bangladesh as a “climate change victim.” It examines how development actors repackage colonial-era modernizing projects, which have caused severe environmental effects, as climate-adaptation solutions. Seawalls meant to mitigate against cyclones and rising sea levels instead silt up waterways and induce drainage-related flooding. Other adaptation projects, from saline aquaculture to high-yield agriculture, threaten soil fertility, biodiversity, and livelihoods. Bangladesh’s environmental crisis goes beyond climate change, extending to coastal vulnerabilities that are entwined with underemployment, debt, and the lack of universal healthcare. This timely book analyzes how development actors create flawed causal narratives linking their interventions in the environment and society of the Global South to climate change. Ultimately, such misreadings risk exacerbating climatic threats and structural inequalities.
Download or read book Timber and Forestry in Qing China written by Meng Zhang and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2021-06-30 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Qing period (1644–1912), China's population tripled, and the flurry of new development generated unprecedented demand for timber. Standard environmental histories have often depicted this as an era of reckless deforestation, akin to the resource misuse that devastated European forests at the same time. This comprehensive new study shows that the reality was more complex: as old-growth forests were cut down, new economic arrangements emerged to develop renewable timber resources. Historian Meng Zhang traces the trade routes that connected population centers of the Lower Yangzi Delta to timber supplies on China's southwestern frontier. She documents innovative property rights systems and economic incentives that convinced landowners to invest years in growing trees. Delving into rare archives to reconstruct business histories, she considers both the formal legal mechanisms and the informal interactions that helped balance economic profit with environmental management. Of driving concern were questions of sustainability: How to maintain a reliable source of timber across decades and centuries? And how to sustain a business network across a thousand miles? This carefully constructed study makes a major contribution to Chinese economic and environmental history and to world-historical discourses on resource management, early modern commercialization, and sustainable development.
Download or read book Ordering the Myriad Things written by Nicholas Menzies and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2021-09-29 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China’s vast and ancient body of documented knowledge about plants includes horticultural manuals and monographs, comprehensive encyclopedias, geographies, and specialized anthologies of verse and prose written by keen observers of nature. Until the late nineteenth century, however, standard practice did not include deploying a set of diagnostic tools using a common terminology and methodology to identify and describe new and unknown species or properties. Ordering the Myriad Things relates how traditional knowledge of plants in China gave way to scientific botany between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, when plants came to be understood in a hierarchy of taxonomic relationships to other plants and within a broader ecological context. This shift not only expanded the universe of plants beyond the familiar to encompass unknown species and geographies but fueled a new knowledge of China itself. Nicholas K. Menzies highlights the importance of botanical illustration as a tool for recording nature—contrasting how images of plants were used in the past to the conventions of scientific drawing and investigating the transition of “traditional” systems of organization, classification, observation, and description to “modern” ones.
Download or read book 88 Keys written by Miles Chapin and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2006 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Amadeus). More than 500 people are involved in the creation of just one of the world's greatest pianos, the Steinway. From the selection and aging of wood to the delicate voicing of the finished instrument, this special reissue of 88 Keys The Making of a Steinway Piano relates the story behind the instrument's intricate formation, as told by Miles Chapin, a fifth-generation descendant of Steinway's founder, Henry Engelhard Steinway. Readers will learn about how the piano gets its trademark curve, the "belly men" who fit the metal harp to the wooden frame, the carvers who shape the piano's legs and pedal lyre, and the many other craftspeople who have perfected their specialized contributions to the finished product. They'll also get an insider's look into the company's history against a timeline of major worldwide music events, and into the roles of piano greats, including Anton Rubinstein and Sergei Rachmaninoff, in contributing to its prominence. A glossary of technical terms is included. For music lovers, aspiring musicians, and pianists everywhere.
Download or read book A History of the earth and animated nature v 2 written by Oliver Goldsmith and published by . This book was released on 1852 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A history of the earth and animated nature with an intr view of the animal kingdom tr from the Fr of baron Cuvier notes and a life of the author by W Irving written by Oliver Goldsmith and published by . This book was released on 1847 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
