The Face of the Earth Natural Landscapes, Science, and Culture [Hardcover]

This lively book sweeps across dramatic and varied terrainsvolcanoes and glaciers, billabongs and canyons, prairies and rain foreststo explore how humans have made sense of our planets marvelous landscapes. In a rich weave of scientific, cultural, and personal stories,The Face of the Earthexamines mirages and satellite images, swamp-dwelling heroes and Tibetan nomads, cave paintings and popular movies, investigating how we live with the great shaping forces of naturefrom fire to changing climates and the intricacies of adaptation. The book illuminates subjects as diverse as the literary life of hollow Earth theories, the links between the Little Ice Age and Frankensteins monster, and the spiritual allure of deserts and their scarce waters. Including vivid, on-the-spot accounts by scientists and writers in Saudi Arabia, Australia, Alaska, England, the Rocky Mountains, Antarctica, and elsewhere,The Face of the Earthcharts the depth and complexity of our interdependence with the natural world.

SueEllen Campbellis Professor in the Department of English at Colorado State University. She is the author ofEven Mountains Vanish: Searching for Solace in An Age of ExtinctionandBringing the Mountain Home,among other books.

To comprehend climate change via arts and humanities as well as science and engineering demands either a Leonardo da Vinci or the gentle audacity and magisterial breadth of SueEllen Campbell. Richard C. J. Somerville, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

A masterful combination of the precision and power of the sciences with the lyricism and insight of the humanities. Campbell and her colleagues have succeeded by braiding clear, accurate scientific explanation with forays into mythological and literary expressions of the human relationship to Earth. Michael P. Branch, editor ofJohn Muir's Last Journey

The authors of this astonishingly original project explore natlc3