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Bezig met laden... Tortoisedoor Peter Young
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![]() Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Non solo un libro di zoologia, ma una ricostruzione più ampia della storia culturale della tartaruga che, partendo dall'arte e dalla letteratura, arriva ad essere protagonista del celebre paradosso filosofico e protagonista anche negli studi matematici. E che dire di quante volte la sua immagine è stata utilizzata nella pubblicità e nei gadget? geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Tortoise is the first cultural history of these long-lived and intriguing creatures, which have existed for more than 200 million years. The book covers tortoises worldwide, in evolution, myth and reality, ranging across paleontology, natural history, myth, folklore, art forms, literature, veterinary medicine and trade regulations. The tortoise has been seen as an Atlas-like creature supporting the world, as the origin of music and as a philosophical paradox. Peter Young examines the tortoise in all these guises, as well as a military tactical formation, its exploitation by mariners and others for food, as ornament (in tortoiseshell), as a motif in art, and in space research. He looks at the movement away from exploitation to conservation and even the uses of the tortoise in advertising. As well as examples of species, illustrations from around the world include monuments, sculptures, coins, stamps, objets d'art, drawings, cartoons, advertisements and X-rays. The book will appeal not only to tortoise lovers but also to readers of cultural histories around the world. "Peter Young's Tortoise, on the other claw, can be warmly recommended."--Jonathan Bate, The Times Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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![]() GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)597.92Natural sciences and mathematics Zoology Cold-blooded vertebrates, fishes Reptilia ; Reptiles TurtlesLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:![]()
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The author is clearly fascinated by tortoises and has read a fair ould bit about them. His style is unobjectionable and he sometimes has interesting things to say about them. Unfortunately he has a lot of other things to say that are reminiscent of the things a student taking a test for which she's ill-prepared writes frantically in the vain hope that all those tangential facts and all those redundant ones will disguise her failure to revise.
I could give the pointless detailing of literary references over the years to the tale of the tortoise and the hare or describe the 5 pages of veterinary photos as examples of the padding but I think some of the captions to the illustrations are most telling: If a stele depicts amongst other things a tortoise be sure that you'll be told what irrelevant event or person the stele commemorates. A sculpture of a child 'playing with' (trying to strangle, looks to me) a tortoise is, Young tells us, a work from 1831-3 that is now in 'the Louvre, Paris' and won the sculptor the Legion.d'h. and a commission. A caption to a picture of a fountain that Bernini 'probably' had a hand in, one in which six relatively very tiny tortoises seem to be hanging for dear life onto the lip of a bowl, mentions an artist who influenced Bernini, tells us Bernini's (seldom used) forename and the name of the sculptor who made the fountain and gives the year of the fountain's 'restoration'/modification. The body text is along the same lines and interested though I am in tortoises I gave up reading the book halfway through.