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Bezig met laden... Monster van God de mensenetende predator door de geschiedenis heendoor David Quammen
   Bezig met laden...
 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. 1   janpietwijn | Sep 14, 2011 | 
 ''In wildness is the preservation of the world,'' Henry David Thoreau famously said, not knowing the half of it. David Quammen's splendid book ''Monster of God'' constitutes an expansion and gloss on Thoreau's prophetic contention, achieved through an artful, focused account of contemporary efforts to secure preservation, in the wild, of some of the most magnificently fearsome creatures on earth -- the large-bodied carnivores, man-eaters (lions, tigers, Carpathian brown bears, giant crocodiles), a group Quammen designates ''alpha predators.'' The stories he presents contain rich detail and vivid anecdotes of adventure, and they provide skillful capsulizations of the politics, economics, cultural history and ecological dynamics bearing on the fate of each of these cornered populations.  As the science writer and naturalist David Quammen observes in his absorbing new book, ''Monster of God,'' alpha predators -- among whom he counts lions and tigers and bears, as well as crocodiles, leopards and the Komodo dragon -- have ''played a crucial role in shaping the way we humans construe our place in the natural world.'' They remind us of our limitations and our place in the great chain of being; they are symbols of our vulnerability, our susceptibility to random death and disaster, our primal awareness, in Mr. Quammen's words, ''of being meat.'' OnderscheidingenErelijsten
Publisher's description: For millennia, lions, tigers, and their man-eating kin have kept our dark, scary forests dark and scary, and their predatory majesty has been the stuff of folklore. But by the year 2150 big predators may only exist on the other side of glass barriers and chain-link fences. Their gradual disappearance is changing the very nature of our existence. We no longer occupy an intermediate position on the food chain; instead we survey it invulnerably from above--so far above that we are in danger of forgetting that we even belong to an ecosystem. Casting his expert eye over the rapidly diminishing areas of wilderness where predators still reign, the award-winning author of The Song of the Dodo examines the fate of lions in India's Gir forest, of saltwater crocodiles in northern Australia, of brown bears in the mountains of Romania, and of Siberian tigers in the Russian Far East. In the poignant and troublesome ferocity of these embattled creatures, we recognize something primeval deep within us, something in danger of vanishing forever. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
Actuele discussiesGeenPopulaire omslagen
 Google Books — Bezig met laden...GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)591.65Natural sciences and mathematics Zoology Specific topics in natural history of animals Categories of animals NoxiousnessLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde: (3.94)
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Hij gaat in op de betekenis van deze roofdieren voor de natuur en voor onze culturen. Dit zijn de dieren die ons ooit de baas waren. Hun geleidelijke verdwijning verandert de grond van ons bestaan. Wij komen ongenaakbaar aan de top te staan, zo hoog dat we bijna vergeten dat ook wij tot een ecosysteem behoren.
De wilde beesten die sinds mensenheugenis de wildernis en onze nachtmerries hebben geregeerd zijn stervende. Wat zal er nu van ons worden?
Minpunten zijn de vreselijk lelijke omslagfoto en de titel van het boek. Hierdoor heeft dit boek jaren onaangeraakt, want onaantrekkelijk in de kast gestaan. Zonde,achteraf. (