The human age : the world shaped by us / Diane Ackerman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ackerman, Diane, 1948-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human ecology.

Civilization--History.

Civilization.

History.

Human beings--History.

Human beings.

Nature--Effect of human beings on.

Nature.

Physical Description:

viii, 344 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, [2014]

Summary:

"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 ... Ackerman [explores] our new reality, introducing us to many of the people and ideas now creating--perhaps saving--our future and that of our fellow creatures"--Amazon.com.

Contents:

Welcome to the Anthropocene. Apps for apes ; Wild heart, anthropocene mind ; Black marble ; Handmade landscapes ; A dialect of stone ; Monkeying with the weather ; Gaia in a temper ; Brainstorming from equator to ice ; Blue revolution

In the house of stone and light. Asphalt jungles ; A green man in a green shade ; House plants? How passé ; Opportunity warms

Is nature "natural" anymore? Is nature "natural" anymore? ; The slow-motion invaders ;"They had no choice" ; Paddling in the gene pool ; For love of a snail

Nature, pixilated. An (un)natural future of the senses ; Weighing in the nanoscale ; Nature, pixilated ; The interspecies Internet ; Your passion flower is sexting you ; When robots weep, who will comfort them? ; Robots on a date ; Printing a rocking horse on Mars

Our bodies, our nature. the (3D-printed) ear he lends me ; Cyborgs and chimeras ; DNA's secret doormen ; Meet my maker, the mad molecule ; Wild heart, anthropocene mind (revisited).

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 319-329) and index.

ISBN:

9780393240740

0393240746

OCLC:

887450822