Friday, September 6, 2019

Henry VIII Essay Example for Free

Henry VIII Essay 1. Did Henry VIII have the right to manage his marriages to his own advantage? In my opinion, I do not think so.   While it is understandable he needed a son to succeed him and to continue the Tudor name, he did not have the right manage his marriages for the sake of political expediency.   It is also revealed in studies made on the history of the Tudors is that Henry VIII was notoriously licentious.   His authority as king did not give him the right to change the rules. At the time, England was Catholic and it turned to Rome for moral guidance and when Henry did not get annulment, he changed policy and subordinated the church of England under him and his successors and this was all because he could not have a son.   Furthermore, he executed two of his wives and ironically, one of them, Anne Boleyn, produced his eventual successor, his daughter who would become Elizabeth I, one of England’s greatest monarchs. 2. Should a royal figure be held to a different moral code than his spouse and subjects? Why or why not? No.   Monarchs, regardless of their title, are still human.   Their title and privileges do not make them infallible.   They are also human and therefore prone to error.   They should not hide behind their authority to justify their wrongdoings as what most of them did in history.   They have to answer to someone and unfortunately, they cannot use God.   This is the reason why the philosophers of the Enlightenment eschewed the Divine Right theory when they saw it being abused. If monarchs believed they were ordained by God, how come their people hate them? If monarchs are considered beyond reproach, one needs to wonder why Louis XI was overthrown during the French Revolution or Charles I of England and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia were executed.   These examples demonstrate that the Divine Right is passà © and the reason why some monarchies cease to exist. Those that do exist are prudent enough to relinquish most of their power when they senses the changing times.

Thursday, September 5, 2019

The Critical Review Of Screening Trauma Film Studies Essay

The Critical Review Of Screening Trauma Film Studies Essay Cinema and its relationship with psychology, history and memory is a wide area which can be shaped by visual media and identification of culture. Susannah Radstone( 2000) analyses the movie of Forrest Gump( Robert Zemeckis, US, 1994) with examinations and expressions that have been accompanied with screening trauma in her study. Also the theoretical and methodological tension over memory and inclusive cultural framework shapes these film analyses with further details, especially in cinepsychoanalysis and memory/ history. This review will highlight the main points as a summary with some critiques of Radstone s perception of critical thinkers and this academic work s relationship with the comprehension of visual culture and memory.As an aim, this study will try to show cinema s effects on shaping the human perception of history also memory s relationship with history in the context of psychology, especially with the movie of Forrest Gump( Robert Zemeckis, US, 1994) . SUMMARY : In the study of Screening Trauma: Forrest Gump, Film and Memory (Radstone, 2000) Radstone starts by emphasising that Forrest Gump ( Robert Zemeckis, US, 1994) , which contains the last three decades of US history as from 1964 nearly, with the associations between memory and history from the protagonist s unconscious perception in the context of manipulations of technology which is fed by contemporary Western culture. After that memory s connection with cinema adresses cinepsychoanalysis paradoxically due to the fact that memory s visual usage recalls traumatic events childhood seduction or abuse ( Freud and Breuer [ 1893- 5] 1974, cited in Radstone 2000: 82) Freud later and famously abandoned this seduction theory for an understanding of hysteria that connected its symptoms, rather, to unacknowledgeable fantasies of a sexual nature ( Freud [ 1905] 1977, cited in Radstone 2000: 82) . Radstone tries to emphasise the interweaving of trauma, fantasy and memory in the psychoanalytic u nderstanding of the letter in order to answer this question: What is the relation between memories of traumatic events and physical predispositions which entails dominant fantasy scenarios in the context of the movie of Forrest Gump ? Other disciplines offer different accessions to memory research within cultural studies and history which are not untouched by psychoanalytic ideas ( Kuhn 1995; King 1997; Vidali 1997, cited in Radstone 2000: 85) . For example; in the work of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies( 1982, cited in Radstone 2000: 84) , analyses of autobiographical memories revealed both how public history shaped identity and, conversely, how marginal memories could overturn established histories. At this point of the Radstones study, these disciplines like history and cultural studies are combined with the psychoanalytic understanding of memory because Radstone says that if psychoanalytic points of view contribute memory s understanding, its insights will be more understandable or assimilable within history and cultural studies. In this manner, Radstone points out that the concept of Afterwardsness ( Laplanche, 1992, cited in Radstone 2000: 85) refers to a process of deferred revision, where experiences, impressions and memory- traces may be revised at a later date to fit in with fresh experiences or with the attainment of a new stage of development ( Laplanche and Pontalis 1988: 111, cited in Radstone 2000: 85). Radstone tries to search for the truth of an occurrence and the experiences of its results in the context of Afterwardness which suggests that determinations of memory s tropes can not reach the truth of the past but it can be only a revision of the past as reporte d by Radstone. Under these influences, she tries to argue the history s trustworthiness in the context of changeable memory, which can be shaped by past especially repressed effects of experiences, in Forrest Gump( Robert Zemeckis, US, 1994) . Moreover, after these reviews of Forrest Gump, Radstone emphasizes that Burgoyne s Prosthetic Memory/ Prosthetic Nation forms part of a collection addressing the construction of nation in selected US contemporary history films. In the context of Forrest Gump, Burgoyne emphasizes throughout both the dissociation between Gump s memories and that history of violence which is in effect noted but bracketed in the film ( ibid: 112, cited in Radstone 2000: 96) , and Forrest s incapacity to understand that same history which he is, unbeknownst to himself, shaping: Only Gump s ignorance protects him from the scarifications of history and the resulting distortions of character that plague most of the other figures who populate the film ( ibid: 109, cited in Radstone 2000: 96) . Radstone argues that the film s effect was linked only to Forrest s ignorance, and that the film was therefore trading in a historical common sense, or Gump that might be likened to false memory . She tries to inte rrogate the movie of Forrest Gump not also with the complex inner world of human being but also with the complexities of historical agency and responsibility. CRITIQUE : If Radstone s essay is analysed in a general way before the analysis of Forrest Gump; my critique will start with this question: How might the relationship between memory, history and cinema can be understood in a simple way with the association of the other areas like psychoanalysis and humanities? Because Radstone s explanations are so impetuous and compound. This situation creates the concept of transdisciplinarity which carries risk in order to analyse the movie. Transdisciplinarity produces travelling concept ( Bal , 2002,cited in Radstone 2008: 35) concepts that may be attached very quickly to various occurrences including reviews, forms and cultures. Concepts such as trauma and memory start to be a bridge between the various disciplines in a complex way. In addition, she elaborates the thinkers points of view exceedingly. Does she try to analyse the movie of Forrest Gump in the context of these disciplines or does she want to explain these disciplines deep points to reader ? After the general critique of the study of Radstone, in order to understand the role of Forrest Gump in US history my review will compare the thoughts of Vivian Sobchack and Robert Burgoyne in the context of Susannah Radstone s study. Radstone uses the study of Prosthetic Memory / National Memory: Forrest Gump ( Burgoyne , 1997) in order to analyse the usage of memory in movies and the effects of this usage on real history, especially with the protagonist s ignorance as Gump. The emergence of mass cultural technologies of memory, moreover, provides vivid experiences of the past that can shape and inform subjectivity. ( Burgoyne, 1997: 105) Burgoyne argues that what might be the media s effects on representing history through the cinema. He believes that cinema might shape the history and it might affect people memory like forming false memory ,especially with Gumps ignorance. In this manner Radstone tries to make comparisons between the study of History Happens which was written by Vivian Sobchack ( 1996) and the study of Prosthetic Memory / National Memory : Forrest Gump ( Burgoyne, 1997) . Sobchack believes that one of the media s parts which is cinema might create the consciousness about the history through the movies like Forrest Gump with new technologies. Sobchack figures out a sense in which we believe we can go right out and be in history ( Sobchack, 1996 : 5) . After these points of view, Radstone analyses history s usage in cinema might be likened to false memory or it might remind history to society. So that there is a paradox which comes from different interpretations. I suppose that the history s us age in cinema can be understood as media s atrocious effect or , at the same time, its a freeway to be in history even if it is represented from innocent protagonist s perception as Sobchack supports. In order to analyse the movie of Forrest Gump ( Robert Zemeckis, US, 1994) in the context of Afterwardsness, phantasy- memory psychologically; firstly Radstone starts by emphasising Afterwardness, which is stated as the cause of memorys representations of the past by Radstone , is the summary interpretation which reduces the psychoanalytic view of the subject s history to a linear determinism envisaging nothing bot the action of the past upon the present ( Laplanche and Pontalis 1988: 111- 12, cited in Radstone 2000: 86 ) . In this manner, i support Laplanche and Pontalis ideas that Afterwardsness s relationship with temporality, which contains repressed experiences of the event, creates the issue of losing real history. Secondly, Radstone indicates For Freud, at least, the physical reality revealed in memories was understood to be more closely associated with primal fantasies than with historical reality. ( Radstone, 2000). So that with the theory of primal fantasies, which suggests that inner reality is shaped by fantasies generally, Laplanche and Pontalis points out it is only as a memory that the first scene becomes pathogenic by deferred action ( Laplanche and Pontalis 1988: 467- 8, cited in Radstone 2000: 87) . Under the influences of the comments of Laplanche and Pontalis about Freud; i support Radstone s analyse which, shows lived experience and subjectivity differentiate from historys earlier relationship with objectivity, tries to analyse Forrest Gump in the context of temporality,memory and history. CONCLUSION : Visual culture and memory is a comprehensive area which memory s situation can be researched into visual media in the context of cinepsychoanalysis. This study tries to focus how media, which is the part of visual culture, can affect societies perceptions of history objectively and memory subjectively on psychology framework. Societies are able to understand the US history and they can constitute their memory positively or negatively from the movie. In this manner, visual culture and memory are associated that cinema can shape societies perceptions about history which can be understood by the help of this study.

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

National Parks By Visitor Management Tourism Essay

National Parks By Visitor Management Tourism Essay The recreationists who visit and enjoy the planets protected natural areas cause serious ecological damage to the very lands they enjoy. To maintain ecosystem integrity, park managers must increasingly focus on recreation management as a vital part of their jobs. Managers agree on the importance of pursuing objectives using the least cost mix of tools. To make this choice wisely, the efficacy of various tools in influencing recreationists behavior must be assessed. Natural resource managers often confront the dual objectives of encouraging recreation while simultaneously preserving the ecosystems they manage. Unfortunately, human behavior often degrades natural processes. To maintain ecosystem integrity, park managers must increasingly focus on recreation management as a vital part of their jobs. The choice of recreation management strategy requires that objectives be delineated and that the efficacy of the many tools at their disposal be evaluated. Visitor management in parks, wilderness and other protected areas requires information about visitor environment interactions and, particularly, the distribution and flow of visitors in space and time. Such information is usually sketchy and based largely on the verbal reports of visitors. Many of the worlds natural parks, wilderness areas and other protected areas are established for the dual purposes of ecological preservation and recreational use. Managers of such places must balance visitor use and environmental protection. Regardless of the balance selected, policy development and implementation requires fundamental information about visitors, their needs and wants, the impacts of their visits, and their distribution and flow in space and time. While well-established protected areas in developed countries often receive large numbers of visitors, newly established ones can struggle to attract them. This is especially so in some developing countries, where protected areas often depend on tourism income, and the number of visitors may be too low to provide even a small portion of the necessary income to run the park. Therefore strategies to manage the problems of large numbers of visitors in some protected areas often need to be complemented by other strategies designed to attract them to other areas. Managers have at their disposal a wide array of strategies to manage the impacts of park tourism. Their choice will be determined by any restrictions that legislation or agency policy places upon them, by the efficiency and appropriateness of the management strategy, and the resource implications. The main features of these strategies to control, influence and mitigate visitor impacts are described below. There are four strategic approaches which can be used to reduce the negative impacts of visitors on protected areas: 1. Managing the supply of tourism or visitor opportunities, e.g. by increasing the space available or the time available to accommodate more use. 2. Managing the demand for visitation, e.g. through restrictions of length of stay, the total numbers, or type of use. 3. Managing the resource capabilities to handle use, e.g. through hardening the site or specific locations, or developing facilities. 4. Managing the impact of use, e.g. reducing the negative impact of use by modifying the type of use, or dispersing or concentrating use. Literature review: The requirement of Environment Canada, Parks mandate to protect heritage resources and to facilitate visitor use of those resources has not been met in park management plans or operations. Care of the physical, biological, and cultural heritage resources led Parks Canada to develop objective data about natural resources within park boundaries but minimal data about the dimensions and nature of human use. Park planning reflected a protection bias with the result that issues related to the mix of opportunities, activities, services and facilities were not well analyzed or taken seriously. In practical terms, management action in national parks suffered. Facilities were badly located and sometimes too large or too small. Managing the tension between the resource and the visitor requires that park visitors and their activities be treated seriously. This requirement has led to the development of the Visitor Activity Management Process (VAMP). The advent of VAMP represents a fundamental change in orientation in Parks from a product or supply basis to an outward-looking market-sensitive one. Traditionally, park agencies have utilized a product orientation to visitor activity planning and management. Park planners and managers, believed their primary task to be providing facilities, services and programs which they consider to be most appropriate, as efficiently as they are able. This approach involves deciding what the public wants and how the park agency can best provide for visitor and local wants. The resulting facilities, services and programs are offered to the public with the hope that they will be utilized. Ensuing management then becomes operation-orientated, focusing on the facility or resource being offered rather than on the recreation experiences or benefits provided. Natural resource information is collected through the Natural Resources Management Process and is assessed to identify resource opportunities and constraints. The inclusion of such information in VAMP is important because it helps achieve integration between visitor use and resource protection. From the recently revised US National Park Service (NPS) Management Policies, provides a strong mandate to guide recreation management decisions in protecting park resources and values at some 375 parks. This policy guidance recognizes the legitimacy of providing opportunities for public enjoyment of parks. However, the Management Policies also acknowledge that some degree of resource impact is an inevitable consequence of use and direct managers to `ensure that any adverse impacts are the minimum necessary, unavoidable, cannot be further mitigated, and do not constitute impairment or derogation of park resources and values (NPS, 2001). Most protected areas internationally operate under similar mandates. Success in achieving an appropriate balance between recreation provision and resource protection mandates requires professional management of park natural resources and visitor use. Managers must have the ability to assess and find out visitor impacts and determine what their acceptability with respect to park management objectives is. Objective of the research: National Park Service lands are administered under dual legal mandates requiring managers to achieve an acceptable balance between resource protection and recreation provision objectives. While some degree of environmental degradation is inevitable, managers are challenged to develop recreation resource management policies that can preserve environmental conditions and processes, while sustaining high quality recreational experiences. Recreation ecology knowledge can assist managers in this challenging task by providing procedures to monitor resource conditions and evaluate the effectiveness of management actions. Provisions of (physical) facilities in recreational areas often have a double purpose. They offer service to the visitors, but their primary purpose might equally be as management actions with the purpose of limiting impacts on the natural environment. Research in the outdoor recreation field shows that land managers usually are more sensitive to ecological impacts from recreation than are the visitors. 1. How do the two groups judge the need for facilities? 2. Which management actions are regarded as good or acceptable tools in order to repair or minimize impacts? 3. How we can apply visitors management tools to integrate protection and use of national parks and facilities at the same time? Methodology: This project will utilize both quantitative and qualitative data collection tools, but is rooted in a qualitative method. It means combination of quantitative and qualitative method but rely on qualitative one. Data collection will consist of primary data and secondary data. In secondary data collection, using of magazines, books, articles, journals, internet, websites and conferences papers are common ways and primary data can be gathered by: communication methods and observation methods such as interview and questionnaire. Expected benefits to the society: Protected areas provide opportunities for visitors to develop a sense of perspective, to begin to appreciate that the past played an important role in shaping the present, and to understand that what we now hold dear came because others before us made sacrifices, were worried about the future or were simply far-sighted. Parks are thus highly valued for their opportunities for these experiences. The potential pressures that tourism may place on cultural resources are significant, yet such tourism is highly dependent on maintaining the integrity of the site. National parks and protected areas provide important reserves for biological habitats, ecological processes, pure air, clean water and individual species. These functions serve the important role of providing the security that cultures need for maintenance of natural processes important to the survival of human life. National parks and protected areas provide critical habitats for humans to enjoy, appreciate and learn about natural processes.

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Language Games, Writing Games - Wittgenstein and Derrida: A Comparative Study :: Philosophy Philosophical Papers

Language Games, Writing Games - Wittgenstein and Derrida: A Comparative Study ABSTRACT: The concept of deconstruction was first used by Derrida in transforming Heideggerian "destruction." The deconstruction of Derrida is a textintern, intertextual, in-textual activity. He plays a double game inside of philosophy, emphasizing that our thinking is embedded in metaphysics, while at the same moment he questions metaphysics. Wittgenstein's deconstruction, however, involves a new kind of reading, a Zerzettelung of the traditionally argumentative and linear thinking modes. The game plays an important role in both philosophers' texts. I would like to investigate this role and function under the two following viewpoints. First, I think that the game has a strategic role. Second, both philosophers stress that their game is not a founded game but is bounded to knowledge and forms of knowledge. Wittgenstein and Derrida are two spurs, Ã ©perons of philosophical thinking, who changed the milieu of philosophical discourses. They practice new arts of thinking and writing, which lead to a change of paradigm and of style in philosophy. In the case of late Wittgenstein the change manifests in a critical attitude toward modern logical discourses. The annonced silence (Stille) of the Tractatus transfigures itself through textual dispersions into the styles (Stile) of the late Wittgenstein. By Derrida we can discover this paradigm change in his critique of philosophical "logo-phono-ethnocentrism" and even more in his way of writing, wich through its disseminating force overpasses the bar between philosophy and literature. Alluding to the historical perspectives of these relationships Rorty remarked (Rorty 1984, 5) that as Derrida treats the philosophy of Heidegger, in the similar way treated Heidegger the philosophy of Nietzsche. Derrida is in the same position to Heidegger and Heidegger to Nietzsche as Wittgenstein is to Russell and Russell to Mill. It would be interesting to analyze paralelly the Mill-Russell-Wittgenstein line to the Nietzsche-Heidegger-Derrida line or to investigate the Mill-Nietzsche, Russell-Heidegger and Wittgenstein-Derrida couples. I would like to focus in my paper on three aspects of the Wittgenstein-Derrida relationship: the philosophical attitudes, the writing and reading activity and the language games and writing games. 1. Philosophy as deconstructive activity The concept of deconstruction would be used the first time by Derrida, transforming Heideggerian "destruction", but we can suppose, that the activity meant by deconstruction would be "practiced" also by others, by earlier philosophers. Derrida himself notes that there are at least three proto-deconstructors - Nietzsche, Freud and Heidegger, but the deconstructive activity is as old as the philosophy.

Egyptian Tombs :: World History Essays

Egyptian Tombs Egyptologists had lost interest in the site of tomb 5, which had been explored and looted decades ago. Therefore, they wanted to give way to a parking lot. However, no one would have ever known the treasure that lay only 200 ft. from King Tut's resting place which was beyond a few rubble strewn rooms that previous excavators had used to hold their debris. Dr. Kent Weeks, an Egyptologist with the American University in Cairo, wanted to be sure the new parking facility wouldn't destroy anything important. Thus, Dr. weeks embarked in 1988 on one final exploration of the old dumping ground. Eventually he was able to pry open a door blocked for thousands of years, and announced the discovery of a life time. "We found ourselves in a corridor," he remembers. "On each side were 10 doors and at end there was a statue of Osiris, the god of the afterlife." The tomb is mostly unexcavated and the chambers are choked with debris, Weeks is convinced that there are more rooms on a lower level, bringing the total number to more than 100. That would make tomb 5 the biggest and most complex tomb ever found in Egypt, and quite conceivable the resting place of up to 50 sons of Ramesses II, perhaps the best known of all the pharaohs, the ruler believed to have been Moses' nemesis in the book of Exodus. The Valley of the Kings, in which Tomb 5 is located, is just across the Nile River from Luxor, Egypt. It is never exactly been off the beaten track. Tourism has been brisk in the valley for millenniums: graffiti scrawled on tomb walls proves that Greek and Roman travelers stopped here to gaze at the wall paintings and hieroglyphics that were already old long before the birth of Christ. Archaeologists have been coming for centuries too. Napoleon brought his own team of excavators when he invaded in 1798, and a series of expeditions in 19th and early 20th centuries uncovered one tomb after another. A total of 61 burial spots had been found by the time the British explorer Howard Carter opened the treasure-laden tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922. Britain's James Burton had burrowed into the site of Tomb 5 in 1820, and decided that there was nothing inside. A dismissive Carter used its entryway as a place to dump the debris he was hauling out of Tut's tomb. In the late 1980s, came the proposed parking area and Weeks' concern. His 1988 foray made it clear that the tomb wasn't dull as Burton said. Elaborate carvings covered walls and referred to Ramesses II, whose

Monday, September 2, 2019

Montessori Practical Life Essay

In this essay I will be discussing the importance and different aspects of the practical life area in a Montessori classroom. Children are naturally interested in activities they have witnessed, therefore Doctor Maria Montessori began using what she called â€Å"practical life exercises† to allow the child to do activities of daily life and therefore adapt themselves in their society. Doctor Maria Montessori developed her philosophy of education based upon actual observations of children; she observed that children prefer work rather than play. It is through work that children obtain independence, order, concentration and normalization. Practical life exercises are recognized to be the heart of Montessori education. In the first six years a child becomes a full member of his or her particular culture and family group absorbing language, attitudes, manners and values of those in which he or she comes into daily contact with. Children feel comfortable and safe when they find a s ecure and lovable environment, a child develops best if they are in an environment full of affection, love, caring and support. Doctor Maria Montessori in the Absorbent Mind writes â€Å"the hands are instruments of man’s intelligence†. It is only through the practice of movement that a child can learn and develop, for this reason Doctor Maria Montessori decided to incorporate the area of practical life into her classroom as this is where the practice begins (mymontessorimoments). Through the exercises of practical life the child learns to adapt to his or her environment, learns self-control, sees themselves as part of a society and most importantly grow intellectually  through working with his or her hands and master the skills needed for his or her future. â€Å"Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes through his movements† (Montessori, 1995). There are many links between the home and the school in the area of practical life. It is the first area introduced to the child in the classroom. Maria Montessori stated â€Å"Children feel a special interest for those things already rendered to them in the earlier period† (Montessori, 1995). The activities in the classroom are familiar to the child as many of them are done at home. The child can therefore settle in easily and master the skills with confidence while learning co-ordination of movement and relate back to past experiences at home (www.montmet.co.za). In an ideal situation practical life would be located near the entrance to the classroom, as a link between home and school as well as a foundation for the curriculum. The area should be attractive containing flowers, paintings, vases etc to draw the child to the practical life area. The area of practical life assists in the growth and development of the child’s intellect and concentration and will also help the child develop an orderly way of thinking (www.sevencounties.org). Practical life sparks respect and love for any work, helps the child to perform the activities of daily life with joy, skill, and grace through which he or she is aiming for perfection. Exercises in practical life are just that, they are exercises so the child can learn how to do living activities in a purposeful way. The purpose and aim of practical life is to help the child gain control in the coordination of his or her movement, and help the child to gain independence and adapt to his or her surroundings. It is therefore important to â€Å"Teach teaching, not correcting† (quotes/Maria_Montessori) â€Å"No one can be free unless he is independent. Therefore, the first active manifestation of the child’s individual liberty must be so guided that through the activity he may arrive at independence† (quotes/Maria_Montessori). Practical life helps the child gain control of his or her movement particularly the development of the hand`s coordination. The fine muscles coordination is linked to the child`s conceptual development. As Doctor Maria Montessori quoted †The human hand allows the mind to reveal itself (quotes/Maria_Montessori). Practical life activities help the child to gain independence and enable the child to associate his or  her own physical, psychic, and moral needs. The practical life area contains an orderly arrangement of exercises involving familiar objects and the activities of daily life. These will be things that the children have already seen their parents or family members doing that the child wishes to imitate. For example: pouring, spooning, various cleaning exercises and others. The exercises are ordered, with earlier exercises providing a foundation and all the skills needed for the more advanced activities to follow. The organisation of the area helps children feel secure, familiarize themselves in the classroom, and develop the inner order necessary for clear and rational thought. Practical life exercises fall under four basic categories: care of the person, care of the environment, analysis of movement and grace and courtesy. Grace and courtesy provides the child with the absolute basics such as rolling out a mat, sitting on a chair, and how to ask the directress for assistance while busy with another child. This foundation provides the skills in order for the child to participate in classroom life and complete each activity. Analysis of movement promotes a sense of accomplishment and self-esteem through activities that are real, precise, and practical such as spooning or pouring which encourages motor skills. Care of the person includes skills necessary for dressing independently such as zipping, buttoning, and tying. The dressing frames in the classroom provide the child the opportunity to practice these skills, the children are also encouraged to try zip, button or tie their own coats shoes etc. Care of the environment includes teaching responsibility of the world around them. The children scrub chairs, wash dishes, care for plants and help feed the animals if there are any in their environment. â€Å"Therefore, the first active manifestations of the child’s individual liberty must be so guided that through this activity he may arrive at independence† (Montessori, The advanced Montessori Method, 2010).Montessori learning environments are prepared to allow children to be socially and intellectually independent. Montessori learning materials are designed to capture the child’s interest and attention and to encourage independent use. When children work with the Montessori materials, they perfect their movements as well prepare themselves for learning educational knowledge. All exercises reflect the environment in which the child lives, all activities  use real tools and are physically proportioned in order to help the children develop their motor skills and perfect precise movements. All Montessori equipment is attractive as experiencing beauty lays the foundation of self-appreciation. All children want to be independent, as adults we become used to doing everything for them, it is hard to let go of control. But, we need to feed their desire for independence. Children learn important life skills as they handle materials in practical life. Even more important is the confidence that the child gains when he or she achieves a new goal. â€Å"Help me to do it by myself† (Montessori, Secret ofChildhood, 1996). Maria Montessori believed in educating the whole being and not just the intelligence of a child. Before the start of western education and the school system as we know it today, all children actually learnt from birth to adulthood were these same practical life activities, and this was more or less all they needed to function well in their society. The responsibility of the parent is to help the child learn about the environment, community and society they live in so that the child can grow up into a fully functional member of the community (MontessoriStudents). It is therefore important that children learn how to not only dress themselves but also how to keep their surroundings clean, how to cook and how to behave and interact with others around them. So often today you find young parents are too busy to spend adequate time with their children in order to teach them basic life skills, instead you find young parents more concerned on their child’s academic performance. The Montessori curriculum can make up for this shortfall that unfortunately occurs due to our busy lifestyles. Montessori education can ensure that the child is given the right aids to life through the practical life exercises. Bibliography (n.d.). Retrieved May 14, 2014, from www.montmet.co.za: http://www.montmet.co.za/ (n.d.). Retrieved May 14, 2014, from www.sevencounties.org: http://sevencounties.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=7923&cn=28 DevelopmentalStages/Cognitive-Development. (n.d.). Retrieved 03 05, 2014, from www.aboutkidshealth.ca: http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/En/HealthAZ/DevelopmentalStages/SchoolAgeChildren/Pages/Cognitive-Development.aspx DevelopmentalStages/Social-and-Emotional-Development. (n.d.). Retrieved 03 04, 2014, from http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca: http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/En/HealthAZ/DevelopmentalStages/SchoolAgeChildren/Pages/Social-and-Emotional-Development.aspx maria_montessori. (n.d.). Retrieved May 14, 2014, from www.brainyquote.com: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/maria_montessori.html (1995). Montessori. (1995). In M. Montessori. (1995). Absorbent mind. In M. Montessori, Absorbent mind. Henry Holt and company. (1995). The absorbent mind. In M. Montessori, The absorbent mind. Henry Holt and company. (1996). Secret ofChildhood. In M. Montessori, Secret of childhood. New York: Ballantine Books. (2010). The advanced Montessori Method. In M. Montessori, Spontaneous activity in education (p. 118). Amsterdam: Montessori-Pierson publishing company. MontessoriStudents. (n.d.). Retrieved May 14, 2014, from www.static.squarespace.com: http://static.squarespace.com/MontessoriStudents.jpg mymontessorimoments. (n.d.). Retrieved May 14, 2014, from www.mymontessorimoments.files.wordpress.com: http://mymontessorimoments.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/img_7100_2.jpg quotes/Maria_Montessori. (n.d.). Retrieved May 14, 2014, from www.goodreads.com: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/34106.Maria_Montessori

Sunday, September 1, 2019

A Short History of Nearly Everything Essay

A Short History of Nearly Everything is a popular science book by American author Bill Bryson that explains some areas of science, using a style of language which aims to be more accessible to the general public than many other books dedicated to the subject. It was one of the bestselling popular science books of 2005 in the UK, selling over 300,000 copies.[1] instead describing general sciences such as chemistry, paleontology, astronomy, and particle physics. In it, he explores time from the Big Bang to the discovery of quantum mechanics, via evolution and geology. Bryson tells the story of science through the stories of the people who made the discoveries, such as Edwin Hubble, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein. Background Bill Bryson wrote this book because he was dissatisfied with his scientific knowledge — that was, not much at all. He writes that science was a distant, unexplained subject at school. Textbooks and teachers alike did not ignite the passion for knowledge in him, mainly because they never delved in the whys, hows, and whens. â€Å"It was as if [the textbook writer] wanted to keep the good stuff secret by making all of it soberly unfathomable.† —Bryson, on the state of science books used within his school.[2] [edit] Contents Bryson describes graphically and in layperson’s terms the size of the universe, and that of atoms and subatomic particles. He then explores the history of geology and biology, and traces life from its first appearance to today’s modern humans, placing emphasis on the development of the modern Homo sapiens. Furthermore, he discusses the possibility of the Earth’s being struck by a meteor, and reflects on human capabilities of spotting a meteor before it impacts the Earth, and the extensive damage that such an event would cause. He also focuses on some of the most recent destructive disasters of volcanic origin in the history of our planet, including Krakatoa and Yellowstone National Park. A large part of the book is devoted to relating humorous stories about the scientists behind the research and discoveries and their sometimes eccentric behaviours. Bryson also speaks about modern scientific views on human effects on the Earth’s climate and  livelihood of other species, and the magnitude of natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and the mass extinctions caused by some of these events. The book does, however, contain a number of factual errors and inaccuracies.[3] An illustrated edition of the book was released in November 2005.[4] A few editions in Audiobook form are also available, including an abridged version read by the author, and at least three unabridged versions. [edit] Awards and reviews The book received generally favourable reviews, with reviewers citing the book as informative, well written and highly entertaining.[5][6][7] However, some feel that the contents might be uninteresting to an audience with prior knowledge of history or the sciences.[8] In 2004, this book won Bryson the prestigious Aventis Prize for best general science book.[9] Bryson later donated the GBP £10,000 prize to the Great Ormond Street Hospital children’s charity.[10] In 2005, the book won the EU Descartes Prize for science communication.[11] It was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for the same year. Unremitting scientific effort over the past 300 years has yielded an astonishing amount of information about the world we inhabit. By rights we ought to be very impressed and extremely interested. Unfortunately many of us simply aren’t. Far from attracting the best candidates, science is proving a less and less popular subject in schools. And, with a few notable exceptions, popular books on scientific topics are a rare bird in the bestseller lists. Bill Bryson, the travel-writing phenomenon, thinks he knows what has gone wrong. The anaemic, lifeless prose of standard science textbooks, he argues, smothers at birth our innate curiosity about the natural world. Reading them is a chore rather than a voyage of discovery. Even books written by leading scientists, he complains, are too often clogged up with impenetrable jargon. Just like the alchemists of old, scientists have a regrettable tendency to â€Å"vaile their secrets with mistie speech†. Science, John Keats sulked, â€Å"will clip an Angel’s wings, / Conquer all mysteries by rule and line.† Bryson turns this on its head by blaming the messenger rather than the message. Robbing nature of its mystery is what  he thinks most science books do best. But, unlike Keats, he doesn’t believe that this is at all necessary. We may be living in societies less ready to believe in magic, miracles or afterlives, but the sublime remains. Rather as Richard Dawkins has argued, Bryson insists that the results of scientific study can be wondrous and very often are so. The trick is to write about them in a way that makes them comprehensible without crushing nature’s mystique. Bryson provides a lesson in how it should be done. The prose is just as one would expect – energetic, quirky, familiar and humorous. Bryson’s great skill is that of lightly holding the reader’s hand throughout; building up such trust that topics as recondite as atomic weights, relativity and particle physics are shorn of their terrors. The amount of ground covered is truly impressive. From the furthest reaches of cosmology, we range through time and space until we are looking at the smallest particles. We explore our own planet and get to grips with the ideas, first of Newton and then of Einstein, that allow us to understand the laws that govern it. Then biology holds centre-stage, heralding the emergence of big-brained bipeds and Charles Darwin’s singular notion as to how it all came about. Crucially, this hugely varied terrain is not presented as a series of discrete packages. Bryson made his name writing travelogues and that is what this is. A single, coherent journey, woven together by a master craftsman. The book’s underlying strength lies in the fact that Bryson knows what it’s like to find science dull or inscrutable. Unlike scientists who turn their hand to popular writing, he can claim to have spent the vast majority of his life to date knowing very little about how the universe works. Tutored by many of the leading scientists in each of the dozens of fields he covers, he has brought to the book some of the latest insights together with an amusingly gossipy tone. His technique was to keep going back to the experts until each in turn was happy, in effect, to sign off the account of their work he had put together. In short, he’s done the hard work for us. Bryson enlivens his accounts of difficult concepts with entertaining historical vignettes. We learn, for example, of the Victorian naturalist whose scientific endeavours included serving up mole and spider to his guests; and of the Norwegian palaeontologist who miscounted the number of fingers and toes on one of the most important fossil finds of recent history and wouldn’t let anyone else have a look at  it for more than 48 years. Bryson has called his book a history, and he has the modern historian’s taste for telling it how it was. Scientists, like all tribes, have a predilection for foundation myths. But Bryson isn’t afraid to let the cat out of the bag. The nonsense of Darwin’s supposed â€Å"Eureka!† moment in the Galapagos, when he spotted variations in the size of finch beaks on different islands, is swiftly dealt with. As is the fanciful notion of palaeontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott chancing on the fossil-rich Burgess Shales after his horse slipped on a wet track. So much for clarity and local colour. What about romance? For Bryson this clearly lies in nature’s infinitudes. The sheer improbability of life, the incomprehensible vastness of the cosmos, the ineffable smallness of elementary particles, and the imponderable counter-intuitiveness of quantum mechanics. He tells us, for example, that every living cell contains as many working parts as a Boeing 777, and that prehistoric dragonflies, as big as ravens, flew among giant trees whose roots and trunks were covered with mosses 40 metres in height. It sounds very impressive. Not all readers will consider it sublime, but it’s hard to imagine a better rough guide to science.  · John Waller is research fellow at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine and author of Fabulous Science: Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific Discovery (OUP) What has propelled this popular science book to the New York Time’s Best Seller List? The answer is simple. It is superbly written. Author Bill Bryson is not a scientist – far from it. He is a professional writer, and hitherto researching his book was quite ignorant of science by his own admission. â€Å"I didn’t know what a proton was, or a protein, didn’t know a quark from a quasar, didn’t understand how geologists could look at a layer of rock on a canyon wall and tell you how old it was, didn’t know anything really,† he tells us in the Introduction. But Bryson got curious about these and many other things: â€Å"Suddenly, I had a powerful, uncharacteristic urge to  know something about these matters and to understand how people figure them out.† All of us should be lucky to be so curious. Young children are. That’s why they’re called â€Å"little scientists.† New to the world and without inhibitions, they relentlessly ask questions about it. And Bill Bryson’s curiosity led him to some good questions too: â€Å"How does anybody know how much the Earth weighs or how old its rocks are or what really is way down there in the center? How can they [scientists] know how and when the Universe started and what it was like when it did? How do they know what goes on inside an atom?† The Introduction also tells us that the greatest amazements for Bryson are how scientists worked out such things. His book is a direct result of addressing these issues. It is superbly written. Popular science writers should study this book.| A Short History of Nearly Everything serves a great purpose for those who know little about science. The deep questions may not necessarily be explicitly presented but many of the answers are. The reader gets to journey along the paths that led scientists to some amazing discoveries – all this in an extremely simple and enjoyable book. The prose is extraordinarily well written with lively, entertaining thoughts and many clever and witty lines. Consider, for example, Chapter 23 on â€Å"The Richness of Being.† It begins: â€Å"Here and there in the Natural History Museum in London, built into recesses along the underlit corridors or standing between glass cases of minerals and ostrich eggs and a century or so of other productive clutter, are secret doors – at least secret in the sense that there is nothing about them to attract the visitor’s notice.† This opening sentence really captures the atmosphere of a natural history museum. It is full of vivid descriptions and contains the cleverly constructed, paradoxical phrase â€Å"productive clutter.† The next paragraph begins to make the point: â€Å"The Natural History Museum contains some seventy million objects from every realm of life and every corner of the planet, with another hundred thousand or so added to the collection each year, but it is really only behind the scenes that you get a sense of what a treasure house this is. In cupboards and cabinets and long rooms full of close-packed shelves are kept tens of thousands of pickled animals in bottles, millions of insects pinned to squares of card, drawers of shiny mollusks, bones of dinosaurs, skulls of early humans, endless folders of neatly pressed plants. It is a little like wandering through Darwin’s brain.† And later: â€Å"We wandered through a confusion of departments where people sat at large tables doing intent, investigative things with arthropods and palm fronds and boxes of yellowed bones. Everything there was an air of unhurried thoroughness, of people being engaged in a gigantic endeavor that could never be completed and mustn’t be rushed. In 1967, I had read, the museum issued its report on the John Murray Expedition, an Indian Ocean survey, forty-five years after the expedition had concluded. This is a world where things move at their own pace, including the tiny lift Fortey and I shared with a scholarly looking elderly man with whom Fortey chatted genially and familiarly as we proceeded upwards at about the rate that sediments are laid down.† Often Bryson ends a paragraph with an amusing line. You find very few popular science books so well written. With the exception of Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, it is hard to think of even one that is witty. Popular science writers should study this book. â€Å"I [Bryson] didn’t know a quark from a quasar . . . â€Å"| Sometimes even quoting writers rather than scientists and original sources, Bryson draws extensively from other books. For example, most of Chapter 21, whose focus is largely on the Burgess Shale fossils and the Cambrian explosion, is taken from Stephen Jay Gould’s Wonderful Life. And much of the rest of Chapter 21 is based on works by Richard Fortey and Gould’s other books. The author does not hide this. Titles are cited in the text, chapter notes provide quotes from books, and there is a lengthy bibliography. Given that Bryson in not a scientist, it is surprising how few errors there are in A Short History of Nearly Everything. Here are a couple that the staff at Jupiter Scientific uncovered: On what would happen if an asteroid struck Earth, Bryson writes, â€Å"Radiating outward at almost the speed of light would be the initial shock wave, sweeping everything before it.† In reality, the shock wave would travel only at about 10 kilometers per second, which, alt hough very fast, is considerably less than the speed of light of 300,000 kilometers per second. Shortly thereafter, one reads â€Å"Within an hour, a cloud of blackness would cover the planet . . . â€Å" It would take a few weeks for this to occur. The book gives the number of cells in the human body as ten-thousand trillion, but the best estimates are considerably less – about  50 trillion. Here’s how one might determine the number. A typical man and a typical cell in the human body respectively weigh 80 kilograms and 4 Ãâ€"10-9 grams. So there are about (80,000 grams per human)/(4 Ãâ€"10-9 grams per cell) = 2 Ãâ€"1013 cells per human, or twenty-trillion cells. By the way, since the number of microbes in or on the human body has been estimated to be one-hundred trillion, people probably have more foreign living organisms in them then cells! In the Chapter â€Å"The Mighty Atom†, it is written, â€Å"They [atoms] are also fantastically durable. Because they are so long lived, atoms really get around. Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms – up to a billion for each us, it has been suggested – probably once belonged to Shakespeare.† Most of this paragraph is correct, but because atoms are stripped of there electrons in stars, Bryson should have said, â€Å". . . the nuclei of every atom you possess has most likely passed through several stars . . . † One might be shocked that each of the 6 trillion or so humans on Earth have so many of Shakespeare’s atoms in them. However, Jupiter Scientific has done an analysis of this problem and the figure in Bryon’s book is probably low: It is likely that each of us has about 200 billion atoms that were once in Shakespeare’s body. Bryson also exaggerates the portrayals of some scientists: Ernest Rutherford is said to be an overpowering force, Fred Hoyle a complete weirdo, Fritz Zwicky an utterly abrasive astronomer, and Newton a total paranoiac. Surely the descriptions of these and other scientists are distorted. From a scientific point of view, most topics are treated superficially. This renders the book of little interest to a scientist.| Here are some examples of witty lines that finish paragraphs: The concluding remarks on Big Bang Nucleosynthesis go: â€Å"In three minutes, 98 percent of all the matter there is or will ever be has been produced. We have a universe. It is a place of the most wondrous and gratifying possibility, and beautiful, too. And it was all done in about the time it takes to make a sandwich.† On the Superconducting Supercollider, the huge particle accelerator that was to be built in Texas, Bill Bryson notes, â€Å"In perhaps the finest example in history of pouring money into a hole in the ground, Congress spent $2 billion on the project, then canceled it in 1993  after fourteen miles of tunnel had been dug. So Texas now boasts the most expensive hole in the universe.† Chapter 16 discusses some of the health benefits of certain elements. For example, cobalt is necessary for the production of vitamin B12 and a minute amount of sodium is good for your nerves. Bryson ends one paragraph with â€Å"Zinc – bless it – oxidizes alcohol.† (Zinc plays an important role in allowing alcohol to be digested.) On Earth’s atmosphere, the author notes that the troposphere, that part of the lower atmosphere that contains the air we breathe, is between 6 and 10 miles thick. He concludes, â€Å"There really isn’t much between you and oblivion.† In talking about the possibility of a sizeable asteroid striking Earth, Bryson at one point writes, â€Å"As if to underline just un-novel the idea had become by this time, in 1979, a Hollywood studio actually produced a movie called Meteor (â€Å"It’s five miles wide . . . It’s coming at 30,000 m.p.h. – and there’s no place to hide!) starring Henry Fonda, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, and a very large rock.† From a scientific point of view, most topics are treated superficially. This renders the book of little interest to a scientist, but has certain advantages for the layperson. In some cases, emphasis is not given to the most important issue. Bryson simply lacks the insight and judgement of a trained scientist. Chapter One on the Big Bang is particularly difficult for the author. There is too much discussion on inflation and on the many-universe theory. Inflation, which is the idea that the space underwent a tremendous stretching at a tiny fraction of a second after â€Å"the beginning†, is consistent with astronomical observations, is theoretically attractive but has no confirming evidence yet. The multi-universe theory, which proposes that our universe is only one of many and disconnected from the others, is complete speculation. On the other hand, Bryson neglects events that have been observationally established. Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, in which the nuclei of the three lightest elements were made, is glossed over in one paragraph. Recombination, the process of electrons combining with nuclei to form atoms, is not covered – an unfortunate omission because it is the source of the cosmic microwave background radiation (When nuclei capture electrons, radiation is given off). Bryson simply refers to the cosmic microwave background radiation as something â€Å"left over from the Big Bang†, a description lacking true insight. As another example of misplaced emphasis, much of the chapter entitled  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Welcome to the Solar System,† is on Pluto and its discovery and on how school charts poorly convey the vast distances between planets. Although the Sun is not even treated, Bryson ends the discussion with â€Å"So that’s your solar system.† Here is another example in which Bryson’s lack of scientific training hurts the content of the book. In Chapter 27 entitled â€Å"Ice Time, he discusses as through it happened with certainty the â€Å"Snowball Earth.† It, however, is a very controversial proposal in which the entire planet was engulfed in ice at the end of the Proterozoic Era. The book says, â€Å"Temperatures plunged by as much as 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The entire surface of the planet may have frozen solid, with ocean ice up to a half mile thick at high latitudes and tens of yards thick even in the tropics.† While it is true that this period was the most severe ice age ever to transpire on Earth, it is unlikely that the weather became so cold as to create the conditions described in the above quote. Then the chapter on hominid development does the opposite by presenting the situation as highly unknown and debatable. It is true that the fossil record for the transition from apes to Homo sapiens is quite fragmentary and that anthropologists are dividerd over certain important issues such as how to draw the lines between species to create the family tree, how Homo sapiens spread over the globe and what caused brain size to i ncrease. However, the overall pattern of homonid evolution is understood. The reader gets to journey along the paths that led scientists to some amazing discoveries – all this in an extremely simple and enjoyable book.| Bryson has a nice way of summarizing atoms: â€Å"The way it was explained to me is that protons give an atom its identity, electrons its personality.† The number of protons in the nucleus of an atom, also known as the atomic number, determines the element type. Hydrogen has one proton, helium two, lithium three and so on. The electrons of an atom, or more precisely the outermost or valence electrons, determine how the atom binds to other atoms. The binding properties of an atom determines how it behaves chemically. Every important topic in A Short History of Nearly Everything can be found in Jupiter Scientific’s book The Bible According to Einstein, which presents science in the language and format of the Bible. Jupiter Scientific has made available onlin e many sections of this book. This review, which has been produced by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College, is in the public domain, and may be used by anyone, in whole or in part, without permission and without charge, provided the source is acknowledged–released October 2004. For comments or questions please contact Ian Johnston. A Short History of Nearly Everything The first thing one notices about a new Bill Bryson book in recent years is the disproportionately large size of the author’s name on the cover—bigger  than the title by a few orders of magnitude. That’s appropriate, I suppose, for an author who has emerged as North America’s most popular writer of non-fiction, with legions of fans around the world, perhaps even something of a cult figure, who can sell anything on the strength of his name alone. Bryson’s recently published book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, is certainly a departure from what he has written so far. It’s a bold and ambitious attempt to tell the story of our earth and of everything on it. Initially motivated by the most admirable of scientific feelings, intense curiosity about something he admits he knew virtually nothing about, Bryson spent three years immersing himself in scientific literature, talking to working scientists, and travelling to places where science is carried on, so that he might â€Å"know a little about these matters and . . . understand how people figured them out† and then produce a book which makes it â€Å"possible to understand and appreciate—marvel at, enjoy even—the wonder and accomplishments of science at a level that isn’t too technical or demanding, but isn’t entirely superficial either.† The result is a big volume recapitulating the greatest story ever told, from the beginnings of the universe, to the physical history of the Earth, to the development and evolution of life here—an attempt to provide, as the title indicates, an all-encompassing and continuous narrative, crammed with information on everything from particle physics to plate tectonics, from cloud formations to bacteria. For all the obvious natural clarity and organization within science, writing well about the subject is not as easy as it may appear. It demands that the writer select an audience and then deliver what he or she has to say in a style appropriate to that readership, in the process risking the loss of other potential readers. Bryson has clearly thought about this point and introduces into writing about science a style very different from, say, the brisk omniscience of Isaac Asimov, the trenchant polemics of Richard Dawson, the engaged contextual scholarship of Stephen Jay Gould, or the leisured and fascinating historical excursions of Simon Winchester (to cite some recent masters of the genre). He brings to bear on science his impressive talents as a folksy, amusing, self-deprecating spinner of yarns, assuming considerable ignorance in his readers and inviting them to share his newly discovered excitement at all the things he has learned, obviously trying with an atmosphere of cozy intimacy and friendship to ease any fears  they may bring to a book about so many unfamiliar things. This feature will almost certainly irritate a great many people who already know a good deal about science (who may feel they are being patronized) and charm many of those who do not. The information is presented here in an often off-beat and amusing and certainly non-intimidating way. Bryson sticks to his resolve not to confront the reader with numbers and equations and much complex terminology. So he relies heavily on familiar analogies to illustrate scientific theories, and these are extremely effective—inventive and illuminating. There is a wealth of interesting and frequently surprising facts about everything from mites to meteorites, conveyed with a continuing sense of wonder and enjoyment. Bryson delivers well on his promise to provide an account of what we know and (equally important to him) of the enormous amount we still do not know. Bryson is not all that interested, however, in the second part of his announced intention, to explore how we know what we know. He pays little to no attention to science as a developing system of knowledge, to its philosophical underpinnings (hence, perhaps, the omission of any treatment of mathematics) or to the way in which certain achievements in science are important not merely for the â€Å"facts† they confirm or reveal but for the way in which they transform our understanding of what science is and how it should be carried out. So for him â€Å"how we know† is simply a matter of accounting for those who came up something that turned out to be of lasting value (no wonder he is somewhat baffled by Darwin’s delay in publishing his theory of natural selection—the notion that Darwin’s theory may have presented some important methodological difficulties of which Darwin was painfully aware does not seem nearly as important as Darwin’s mysterious illness). Bryson is at his very best when he can anchor what he has to say on a particular place and on conversations with particular working scientists there. Here his considerable talents as a travel writer and story teller take over, and the result is an often amusing, surprising, insightful, and always informative glimpse into science as a particular activity carried on by interesting individuals in all sorts of different places. The sections on Yellowstone Park, the Burgess Shale, and the Natural History Museum in London, for example, are exceptionally fine, mainly because we are put in imaginative touch with science in action, we hear directly from the scientists themselves, and our understanding of  science is transformed from the knowledge of facts into a much fuller and more satisfying appreciation for a wonderfully human enterprise taking place all around us. Here Bryson provides us with a refreshingly new style in writing about science. Indeed, these passages are so striking in co mparison with other parts of the book that one suspects that Bryson’s imagination is far more stimulated by scientists at work than by the results their work produces. This impression is reinforced by Bryson’s habit of plundering the history of science for amusing anecdotes about interesting characters, obviously something which he finds imaginatively exciting. He’s prepared to interrupt the flow of his main narrative in order to deliver a good story, and routinely moves into a new section with a narrative hook based on a memorable character, a dramatic clash of personalities, or an unexpected location. Many of these stories and characters will be familiar enough to people who know a bit about science already (e.g., the eccentricities of Henry Cavendish, William Buckland, or Robert FitzRoy, the arguments between Gould and Dawkins, the adventures of Watson and Crick, and so on), but Bryson handles these quick narrative passages so well that the familiar stories are still worth re-reading, and there are enough new nuggets to keep reminding the more knowledgeable readers just how fascinating the history of science can be. Not that Bryson is very much interested in linking developments in science to any continuing attention to historical context. He’s happy enough to refer repeatedly to the context if there’s a good yarn to be had—if not, he’s ready to skim over it or ignore it altogether. This gives his account of developments a distinctly Whiggish flavour, a characteristic which will no doubt upset historians of science. At times, too, this habit of frequent quick raids into the past encourages a tendency to flippant snap judgments for the sake of a jest or some human drama. But given the audience Bryson is writing for and his desire to keep the narrative full of brio, these criticisms are easy enough to overlook. And speaking from my own limited experience in writing about the history of science, I can attest to the fact that once one begins scratching away at the lives of the scientists themselves, the impulse to draw on the wonderful range of the extraordinary characters one discovers is almost irresistible. Bryson’s narrative gets into more serious difficulties, however, when he cannot write from his strengths, that is, when he cannot link what the  subject demands to particular people and places. Here the prose often tends to get bogged down in summaries of what he has been reading lately or inadequate condensations of subjects too complex for his rapid pace. Thus, for example, the parts where his prose has to cope with systems of classifications (for example, of clouds, or bacteria, or early forms of life) the sense of excitement disappears and we are left to wade through a dense array of facts, without much sense of purpose. At such times, Bryson seems to sense the problem and often cranks up the â€Å"golly gee† element in his style in an attempt to inject some energy into his account, but without much success. And not surprisingly, the world of particle physics defeats his best attempts to render it familiar and comfortable to the reader, as Bryson concedes in an unexpectedly limp and apologetic admission: â€Å"Almost certainly this is an area that will see further developments of thought, and almost certainly these thoughts will again be beyond most of us.† It’s very curious that Bryson makes no attempt to assist the reader through such passages with any illustrative material, which would certainly have enabled him to convey organized information in a much clearer, more succinct, and less tedious manner. Early on, he lays some of the blame for his ignorance about science on boring school text books, so perhaps his decision to eschew visual aids has something to do with his desire not to produce anything like a school text (although, as I recall, diagrams, charts, and photographs were often the most exciting things about such books). Or perhaps he’s simply supremely confident that his prose is more than enough to carry the load. Whatever the reason, the cost of that decision is unnecessarily high. I suspect reactions to this book will vary widely. Bryson fans will, no doubt, be delighted to hear the master’s voice again and will forgive the lapses in energy and imaginative excitement here and there in the story. By contrast, many scientists and historians of science will find the tone and the treatment of the past not particularly to their liking. I’ll value the book as a source of useful anecdotes and some excellent writing about scientists at work, but turn to less prolix and better organized accounts to enrich my understanding of our scientific knowledge of the world and its inhabitants. But then again, if my grandchildren in the next few years begin to display some real interest in learning about science, I’ll certainly put this book in front of them.