Safari: A Chronicle of Adventure

Book Description

In this magnificent book, Bartle Bull charts the history of the African safari from the first great expedition of 1836, when Cornwallis Harris crossed the Transvaal with an ox-wagon, to the guides of today, carrying on the tradition in the swamps of Tanzania and the forests of Ethiopia. Capturing the timeless beauty of the African bush, Bull tells of the men and women who made this land their home from Frederick Courtenay to Beryl Markham, the legendary expeditioners who brought fame to the safari; from Teddy Roosevelt to the Prince of Whales, and the native Africans who made the adventures possible.

An active environmentalist, Bull examines the ethics of hunting and the apparent dilemma of the hunter-conservationist. Against a rich background of tribal and colonial history, he documents developments in weapons and transport, in literature and film, in game control and conservation, and conveys the attraction that has never changed—the magical freedom of the African bush.

Customer Reviews:

History at its Best.......2007-01-09

Excellent book steeped in history and written with great style. One can almost feel Africa and how Safaris changed people as well as a country.

Amazing Stories.......2007-01-06

This book, Safari, is one of the best books I have ever read. The
chapters can be read individually yet read perfectly as a whole.
I bought a number of the books as gifts. They were VERY well received.
Thank you for this excellent product.

Details the history of the African safari from its first expedition of 1836 to modern times.......2006-07-05

Safari: A Chronicle Of Adventure details the history of the African safari from its first expedition of 1836 to modern times. Bull is an environmentalist, so his survey Safari isn't your typical gun-hunter's celebration of good old days, but a survey of conflicts between hunting and conservation, weapons and transport, game control and more. From economics and financers of the safari to mishaps, adventures, and famous personalities involved in safaris, vintage black and white photos pair with wide-ranging personal and political stories for maximum effect.

Safari: A Chronicle of Adventure by Bartle Bull.......2003-10-02

A wonderful book covering the beginnings of the African Safari to the present. Many current authors use this book as reference for their own books such as Peter Beard, Bibi Jordan, Kuki Gallman, and Mirella Ricciardi. If all of these authors use this book as a reference and quote it throughout their own books it has just got be good. I recommend it highly for any African Safari book collection!

Safari - A journey through African history.......2002-07-25

This well written book documents the evolution of Safaris from the early Boer settlers through the modern camera hunters.

White Hunters:The Golden Age of African Safaris

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A Non - Hunter Review
Loaded with action and interesting characters
An Interesting History of the Great White Hunters
It reads like a text book
Despite negatives, the real deal.

White Hunters:The Golden Age of African Safaris
Brian Herne
Manufacturer: Owl Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Africa | History | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa: Being a Narrative of Nine Years Spent Amongst the Game of the Far Interior of South Africa (Resnick Library of African Adventure, No. 6.)
Robert Ruark's Africa
Hunter
African Game Trails: An Account of the African Wanderings of an American Hunter-Naturalist (Capstick Adventure Library)
Tales of the African Frontier

ASIN: 0805067361

Amazon.com

A little over 100 years ago, East Africa was terra incognita to most whites: a land largely unmapped, sparsely settled by Europeans, and teeming with wildlife--from elephants to wildebeest, bongos to rhinos, and all manner of scarifying beasts in between. It was the hunter-adventurer's paradise, and by the early 20th century, a small, lionhearted clan of explorers and big-game hunters began leading safaris there for money. They became the legendary White Hunters of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, men who led manifold adventurers--including royalty, film stars, writers, and millionaires--in pursuit of the world's biggest, most dangerous, and most sought-after game.

White Hunters is a nostalgic and densely-packed history of these men and their adventures, from the turn of the century until the 1970s when politics, a growing population, civil strife, and concern about species destruction intervened. Brian Herne has written a virtual and anecdotal Who's Who of White Hunters, crammed with the details of hundreds of hunts and the dozens of men who led them.

This is no book for the faint-hearted or the politically correct. Despite Herne's insistence that his heroes were the first true conservationists, White Hunters is all about the testosterone-enhanced glory of killing big, beautiful things: "Clary fired, dropping his quarry with a side brain shot. The record-class tusks weighed 159 and 143 pounds each, a gigantic elephant...." On the other hand, a staggering number of hunters died in pursuit of their quarry--mauled, eviscerated, or impaled on the tusks of furious, vengeful beasts.

Not so long ago lions wandered the streets of Nairobi. The politics of big-game hunting aside, the White Hunters' East Africa--wild, mysterious, unspoiled--is vanishing, and Herne has painstakingly documented an era that most readers will likely never know. --Svenja Soldovieri

Book Description

East Africa affects our imagination like few other places: The sight of a charging rhino goes directly to the heart; the limitless landscape of bony highlands, desert, and mountain is, as Isak Dinesen wrote, of "unequalled nobility." White Hunters is the story of seventy years of African adventure, danger, and romance. It re-creates the legary big-game safaris led by Selous and Bell and the daring ventures of early hunters into unexplored territories, and brings to life such romantic figures as Cape-to-Cairo Grogan, who walked 4,000 miles for the love of a woman, and Dinesen's dashing lover, Denys Finch. Witnesses to the richest wildlife spectacle on the earth, these hunters were the first conservationists. Hard-drinking, infatuated with risk, and careless in love, they inspired Hemingway's stories and movies with Clark Gable and Gregory Peck.

Customer Reviews:

A Non - Hunter Review.......2006-10-07

I loved this book and I've never even hunted in my life. It is a fascinating picture of a time which is now gone forever. It's not just a list of hunters and how many animals they killed, although that is a big part of it. There is also a lot of interesting background on the society of the East African colonies at that time. Ironically, after initial excessive hunting, it was the White Hunters who did most to protect the wildlife of East Africa. After independence, rapacious governments made short work of what had been carefully nurtured wildlife populations. If you liked this book I'd also recommend "A Certain Curve of Horn: The Hundred Year Quest for the Giant Sable Antelope of Angola" and Martin Meredith's "The Fate of Africa".
My only complaints about this book are the paucity of photographs; I would have liked to see a lot more photographs. Secondly, this is a book almost specifically about East Africa, especially Kenya and Tanzania. Finally the photo of Biran Herne on the dust jacket must be about 30 years old!!!

Loaded with action and interesting characters.......2006-09-04

White Hunters is an engaging and interesting read for anyone interested in the history of the safari trade. From cover to cover Brian Herne has assembled tales that enlighten the reader on subjects ranging from the colorful characters of a bygone era to wildlife lore and insights into the life of the African tribesmen.

With original photos and stories of such notable characters as Bror and Karen Blixen and Denys Finch Hatton who's lives were portrayed in the Hollywood film 'Out of Africa'. To Carr Hartley who was dubbed by the American press as "The Toughest Man in the World" and whose career influenced the production of the Hollywood movie 'Hatari' starring John Wayne and Red Buttons. This book is jam-packed with true-life action and adventure.

Along with many other resources I used White Hunters as a research tool while writing Ivory Hunter. It was this book that prompted me to use Nandi tribesmen as trackers in the story in preference to the much more well known Masai.

Although many of the stories and descriptions are a bit brief, White Hunters is an entertaining and informative read for anyone interested in Africa and particularly in African hunting.

An Interesting History of the Great White Hunters.......2005-04-15

I found this book to be a fun read. Lots of details about the African White Hunters of the past and some exciting stories of things that happended during their hunts and careers. Some parts that recounted some hunting events with clients were pretty comical! Laid out in a chronologocal manner. Some sections seemed too long. I would recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn more about the characters and some insight on how they went about their hunting business in Africa.

It reads like a text book.......2003-04-04

This is a much too abbreviated list of the hunters and trackers of East Africa and their wonderful lives. If you are expecting the adventure packed prose of Capstick, look to Capstick not here.
I did not find the book difficult to read or understand, but it was more a historical text instead of an interesting adventure.
This book would serve as a good primer for reading other works like Roosevelt's African Game Trails so the reader would understand who the characters were in that book better.

Considering the absolute wealth of characters and high drama Mr. Herne had to work with this book comes off rather dry and shallow.
For living the most exciting of lives, Mr. Herne does not seem all that excited about any of the people in it. So regrettably 3 stars.

Despite negatives, the real deal........2003-02-25

First the negatives: basically, the list of white hunters comes at the reader in a blur of names and brief incidents, so that sometimes the reading takes on a repetitious feel. I found myself a bit overwhelmed at the onslaught of names and personalities, sometimes given no more than a few paragraphs of space. The information is arranged chronologically, beginning with the earliest white hunters like Cornwallis Harris and R.J. Cunninghame, and proceeds at a blistering pace through the 1970's, when Kenya outlawed all safari hunting. Brian Herne, the author, is a good writer, without being particularly inspired. If you are looking for the Peter Capstick (Death in the Long Grass) style of safari writing, you will not find it here. Herne is not the talented storyteller that Capstick is; yet Mr. Herne does have his own particular strengths. His style is very journalistic, in that he relays facts in blunt, swift manner. Take for Instance his concise description of White Hunter, Eric Rundgren's encounter with a charging buffalo: "During one pursuit a wounded buffalo charged, slammed hard in Rundgren, and tossed him over a riverbank. He landed in the gravel stream, but held on to his .450 double rifle. Above him on the bank was the buffalo looking down at him. Lying in the shallow river Rundgren shot the buff in the throat and it collapsed." End of incident. In a Capstick book, this mad charge by a buffalo would have taken a page or two, and by the end of it the reader himself would have felt covered in fear and sweat. Yet, despite the above, I heartily recommend this book for its many strengths: for one, Brian Herne has incredible credentials as a hunter, and one senses in his writing that they are being given the true deal. Maybe not as colorfully expressed as a Capstick, but frankly, more real. Also, there are many nuggets of breathtaking adventure that come jumping at the reader right through the factual prose of Mr. Herne. Nearly every hunter of any note is here, and the reader is given potraits of all the greats: Alan Black, Karamoja Bell, Bror Blizen, Charles Cottar, Bill Judd, and many, many others. Herne certainly can't be faulted for his completeness of the topic. What becomes clear when reading Mr. Herne's book is two facts. First, that big game hunting is an incredibly dangerous profession. It seems that nearly all the hunters were at some point gored or horribly mauled by big game, or suffered malaria, black-water fever, or one of the many diseases that float in the air in Africa. A fair number where killed outright, and these stories make the most gripping in the book, Two, conservation of big game was also an important role of these big game hunters. It was not the white hunters that decimated the rhino and elephant, but rather the various corrupt African governments themselves that allowed, and benefited greatly, from poaching. Herne makes a case for this in statistics that are irrefutable. By eliminating the safari hunters, the only group of individuals that had both the means and incentive to protect the region's wildlife for both personal and financial reasons, the corrupt government officials and poachers were free to roam, now hunting with AK-47 assault rifles and poisons. International prices for rhino horn and Ivory jumped up, as did the death toll for elephant and rhino. In short, this book is a great resource for the true story of white hunters. It includes a fabulous bibliography as well, for further reading.

Arts, Sciences and Economics: A Historical Safari

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Arts, Sciences and Economics: A Historical Safari
Tonu Puu
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 3540344233

An American Safari: Adventures on the North American Prairie

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An American Safari: Adventures on the North American Prairie
Jim Brandenburg
Manufacturer: Walker Books for Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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History of Technology | Technology | Science | Subjects | Books
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Chased By The Light
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ASIN: 0802775020

Book Description

Over the years the beauty and power of Brandenburg's prairie images have been appreciated by millions. Now, in An American Safari, he offers the story of how the prairie has influenced his life, including several dramatic wildlife encounters, along with his rallying cry to save an endangered ecological treasure.

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History Safari

Manufacturer: Educational Insights
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 1567671160

Product Description

COMPUQUIZZER sold separately; works with all "Book Safari" titles.

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-------------

Safari: The Romance and the Reality
Molly Buchanan , Dave Varty , and Shan Varty
Manufacturer: National Geographic
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Hunting | Hunting & Fishing | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

General | Conservation | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

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Look Inside Outdoors & Nature Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

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ASIN: 0792227654
Release Date: 2005-09-13

Customer Reviews:

-------------.......2005-01-04

"Africa is a paradox: a savage land, a sensitive land, a fragile land. The continent is where our journey began, where humans developed a brain-to-body ratio out of all proportion to that of any other creature in this living world. Yet it is a place where time stood still for hundreds and thousands of years."

So begins Molly Buchanan's ode to --- and chastisement of --- a continent. Or, more precisely, the wildlife conservation efforts of a continent.

Many of us like to indulge in a sort of collective fantasy, one where Africa reigns as the final bastion of diverse animal and plant life. To some degree, this was true until the late nineteenth century. Then, over the next fifty years, a complex combination of land mismanagement, human encroachment, civil strife, and indiscriminate hunting permanently destroyed many species while bringing others to the threshold of extinction.

In an effort to halt this negative eco-publicity, countries like Uganda and Kenya outlawed professional hunting in the 1970s. The results were unexpected and appalling. According to Richard Bonham, owner of the Ol Donyo Wuas Lodge near spectacular Mount Kilimanjaro, "When the hunters moved out, the poachers moved in. Nearly 90 percent of Kenya's elephants were slaughtered in the following decade."

The clash, as always, involves human economics vs. animal need. Fifty-three African nations are, like much of the world, trying to buy into The Great Dream symbolized by our Western lifestyle standards. The Masai farmer/ cattle rancher wants greater wealth for his children. Accordingly, he is willing to set out poison for the lions that prey upon his livestock.

One method of bridging the gap between the needs of man and nature is ecotourism. Preservation of wildlife is necessary to bring in tourist dollars. Where once the wealthy few went on safari (with the express purpose of killing) today's travelers are from a broad cross-section of middle and upper class households. Thankfully, the emphasis has shifted to image capture, the deathless commitment of picture to film or digital memory.

But things are rarely that simple, are they? Even with the assistance of notables such as Nelson Mandela, Dave Varty, Richard Leakey, Valli Moosa, Ian Player, Colin Bell and many others, the issue retains its barbed intricacies. There is a section on the excesses of ecotourism. Buchanan offers an example of how even good intentions can be overwhelmed by the "too muches." As thousands of people climb Kilimanjaro each year, pathways are being worn into the mountainside. During frequent rainstorms, the paths become funnels carrying topsoil into the Pangani River whose source is on Kilimanjaro. "It has recently been discovered that the coral reefs on the stretch of coastline where the Pangani . . . reaches the sea are dying because they are covered in silt."

Despite the brevity of this book, Buchanan manages to state succinctly the myriad problems facing attempts to preserve this continent's uniqueness. Mentioning the superlative photography seems nearly unnecessary since stunning pictures are synonymous with the words "National Geographic." Even if all one does is thumb through the photos and read the occasional paragraph (you will be doing yourself and the book a disservice if you choose this shorter course) it is still well worth the time.

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Kilgo's Finale

Colors of Africa
James Kilgo
Manufacturer: University of Georgia Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Mozambique | Africa | History | Subjects | Books

Zambia | Africa | History | Subjects | Books

Travel | Writing | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Africa | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books
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Deep Enough for Ivorybills (Brown Thrasher Books)
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ASIN: 0820325007

Amazon.com

When James Kilgo is invited on an African safari, he leaps at the opportunity--even though the only shooting he is slated for is with a camera. As the group's photographer and "intoxicated by sensation," Kilgo not only documents the hunt, but also relays every sight, sound, and scent of the long trek through Zambia's Luangwa River valley.

The expedition is made all the more significant because Kilgo has cancer, and his lifelong dream is to travel to the great continent with "the sound of life." A retired University of Georgia English professor and former hunter, Kilgo's expectations of the trip are heavily influenced by the literary tradition of big-game adventurers Ernest Hemingway, Isak Dinesen, David Livingstone, and Theodore Roosevelt. Kilgo's sometimes-religious account echoes Livingstone's: "The mere animal pleasure of traveling in a wild unexplored country is very great," he writes.

Kilgo, an avid bird watcher, offers exhaustive descriptions of the many avian species he and the hunting party encounter. He sets aside his status as observer, however, when given the chance to shoot kudu, a type of woodland antelope that Hemingway also pursued and depicted in Green Hills of Africa. Kilgo soon realizes that while the experience of hunting in Africa is much the same as it was in Hemingway's day, Africa has changed greatly. Outside of the bush country where the party hunts, there is "poverty, AIDS, and genocide." But for Kilgo it is the beauty of Africa that resonates, as it is a place where the sky changes moment to moment, and the leaves and the flowers fade and fall: "Only the colors of the earth remain constant--black and white, sienna, ochre, and umber." --C.J. Carrillo

Book Description

This extraordinary, candid account of James Kilgo's African sojourn conveys the untamed beauty of the bush country with the attention of a seasoned naturalist and the wonder of a first-time visitor. With startling immediacy Kilgo recalls what Zambia's Luangwa River valley revealed to him: its voices, scents, textures, and, most meaningfully, colors. Hues like sienna, ochre, and umber forged a visceral link between the people, animals, and landscapes Kilgo encountered and the muted palette of ancient rock paintings in caves and overhangs across southern Africa.

Kilgo barely knew the man who invited him to Africa. A further complication: the trip was a big-game safari, which conjured troubling images of privilege and excess. Yet he went, as an observer, for Africa had enthralled him since boyhood. Kilgo's recollections of his fellow travelers and the safari staff--their forays into the bush, visits to nearby villages, and long evening talks about nature, family, and faith--are all informed by a growing awareness of Africa's complexities and contradictions. As he reflects on the swirl of customs and beliefs all around him, as he and his traveling companions draw closer together, Kilgo measures what he has learned firsthand about Africa against his readings of those who had come before him, including explorer and missionary David Livingstone, writers Ernest Hemingway and Isak Dinesen, and environmentalists Mark and Delia Owens.

Kilgo thinks often about hunting: about the days-long initiatory rites of local native hunters; the motivations, beyond money, that can drive a poacher; the carnage the animals visit on each other nightly just outside the walls of the idyllic safari compound. Near the end of his stay, he is offered the chance to hunt a kudu, the great antelope of storied elusiveness. Pondering this unexpected opportunity, Kilgo wonders: Has he connected sufficiently with this remarkable place to justify his participation in the hunt? Is he ready and, above all, is he worthy?

Customer Reviews:

Kilgo's Finale.......2003-06-12

Colors of Africa was Jim Kilgo's last book, he died from his cancer before publication. It is, perhaps, his best book and is truly a good and authoritative book. It is written in his inimitative style and soulds just as through he was talking to you. A great epitaph to a great writer.
R.L. Humphries

The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari

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Snapshots of probability topics by science journalist
Popular Mathematics
Plagerized hogwash
Infinitely Entertaining....
A Crowd Pleaser!

The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari
Ivars Peterson
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Mathematics | Science | Subjects | Books

Mathematical Analysis | Mathematics | Science | Subjects | Books

Luck: The Brilliant Randomness Of Everyday Life
Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities
Fragments of Infinity: A Kaleidoscope of Math and Art
Taking Chances: Winning with Probability
The Heart of Mathematics: An invitation to effective thinking

ASIN: 0471295876

Amazon.com

We use the word random as though we understood what it meant, but, of course, its superficial meaning only betrays our deep ignorance of what is really going on. Random is mostly used to label anything we can't predict, from the roll of a die to our spouse's next major purchase, but what's actually happening to cause the unanticipated results? Ivars Peterson makes this complexity simple in The Jungles of Randomness.

As the mathematics and physics editor of Science News, Peterson knows his topic thoroughly and writes with a flair that stimulates the imagination. Whether telling about snowflake-shaped drums; brilliant, eccentric Paul Erdös's geometrical fantasies; or unbreakable and nearly unbreakable codes, he knows just when and where to open a topic a bit further to provoke greater insights. The eight gorgeous color plates and dozens of illustrations are well chosen and complement the text without overwhelming it.

Inevitably, The Jungles of Randomness touches on subjects as diverse as molecular biology, engineering, and entomology, but it stays rooted in the field from which our understanding of complexity first arose: mathematics. A fascinating and underreported field, math is finally getting the mainstream attention it has always deserved, and it's not hard to understand why with exciting books like this pointing the way. Where this will lead us is anyone's guess, but the die is cast. --Rob Lightner

Book Description

Praise for The Jungles of Randomness

"Ivars Peterson is, in short, the math teacher everyone wishes they had in high school." âPublishers Weekly

"When many people think about mathematicians, they imagine solitary scholars whiling away the hours . . . Ivars Peterson delightfully debunks that stereotype. Peterson shows that mathematicians are, increasingly, a gregarious bunch and that the problems they work on are vitally important to us. . . . Best of all, Peterson makes it fun." âWashington Post

"Peterson has honed his explanatory skills finely. He is a readable guide through the tangles of probability and random chance. The Jungles of Randomness will give some insight into one of the most fruitful areas where math meets practical living." âChristian Science Monitor

"Peterson finds a fascinating collection of circumstances where chance intervenes in our lives and in the world around us. Every reader, regardless of background, is bound to find something new and interesting in this book." âRobert Osserman Author of Poetry of the Universe

IVARS PETERSON is one of today's most popular math authors. He is the mathematics and physics editor of Science News, and the author of four previous books, including the bestselling The Mathematical Tourist and Islands of Truth: A Mathematical Mystery Cruise. Mr. Peterson received the award for "exceptional skill in communicating mathematics to the general audience" in 1991 from the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics.

Customer Reviews:

Snapshots of probability topics by science journalist.......2007-05-28

Consists of 2-3 page sections on topics (e.g. Chutes and Ladders as a Markov chain; Ramsey theory; coupled oscillators; error-correcting codes; Brownian motion and Levy flights) in probability and related areas of mathematics. The individual sections are clearly and interestingly explained by science journalist author who understands the mathematics. But compiling such magazine articles into a book gives it an overall choppy feel, jumping from topic to topic without sustained logical thread.

Popular Mathematics.......2004-06-29

In this work of popular mathematics, Ivars Peterson explains the phenomena and regularity underlying seemingly random occurrences in our lives. Dry wit and keen understanding of mundane episodes provide an impressing dissection of how even the most chance events are in fact due to phenomena that, though easily understood, interact in such complex ways as to be beyond our comprehension--producing the supposedly "random" results we perceive.

As with many attempts to popularize science, this book is very light on theory and equations, instead explaining the practical significance of its subject. However, it does provide many names and enough theory to serve as a jumping point for further investigation into such areas as chaos, fractal geometry, information theory, and more.

Plagerized hogwash.......2001-06-21

Popular science books seem to be in vogue-- great for any legitimate scientists that sincerely want to get something across to "lay" people. But hacks gathering together a bunch of stuff to amaze us is worse than Ripley.

I wouldn't pass this book on to to a 4th grader.

Since you are interested in only raves, I am sure that this missile will quietly disappear

Infinitely Entertaining...........2001-03-27

....not evvybody shares my love of mathematics, statistics, games and chance. People say folks like me are a strange lot, hence, I have been relunctant to put many mathematical and game related book reviews in my repertoire. This, however, is an exception to the rule..."math book = dry reading". It shows how probability and stats and random number generating can apply to evvyday living.

Before I go on, I have the urge to type these:

"Ah, but to all the other monkeys in the world, maybe the ape sitting at the keyboard DID recreate the Gutenberg Bible."

"When travelling in Europe, be wary of non-bottled potable water and, apparently, buy one get three free cheeseburgers."

There, I've gotten those off my chest. What do they have to do with this review? Well, Peterson here deals with odds--Odds and their contexts, like in coin flips and dice outcomes and hot hands for pro basketball players and random number generators on slot machines and such. The Chapters on Brownian Motion entitled "Trails of the Wanderer" and "Lifetimes of Chance" are great because he talks about the lottery and winning the lottery, how stocks in the stock market have some type of Brownian motion, magnets, dominoes, roulette wheels at casinos--you know all the interesting things a man ought to be attracted to, described in a punchy, easy to digest manner...

Each chapter is forwarded with a quote or poetry verse gleaned from classic literature, for example, the Chapter "Complete Chaos" has a part of a canto from Milton's "Paradise Lost".

Also the Color Plates show some awesome sights like the one depicting vibrations on the membrane shaped like a fractal snowflake and the visual representation of the output from a high speed random-number generator.

A few lay types may be put off by his mentioning of some musty mathematician or statistician here and there but, to his credit Peterson does not try to lay some indecipherable equation on the reader when he describes what said math or stat person is to his basic text. Or, in other words, no need for math anxiety unless you're generally anxious about a lot anyways...this ain't rocket science, people!

Well, actually, yes it could be, but you would not know it from the way Peterson has presented it in this fabulous read....

A Crowd Pleaser!.......1999-12-17

I can't believe I'm the first to reviw this book! I have found the information and references in this book to be very good. In most cases Ivars Peterson is one of the best new science and mathematics writers that I know of! I'm interested in chaos and fractals, but mathematics also is in this book. There seems to be a little of everything. There is even work by Mandelbrot that I hadn't read about. I can only fault that he didn't put in enough of the equations and code to produce the examples. Also a glossary of terms would be helpful. But it is a very good buy in paperback!

British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation

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British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation
Leon Hunt Chq
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 041515183X

Book Description

Flares, lava lamps, safari suits and a national cinema dominated by smutty comedy and cheap softcore have all made 1970s British popular culture appear too gruesome to recycle as nostalgia and too offensive for academic study. But the generic artifacts of the 1970s have become important reference points in contemporary popular culture.

British Low Culture revisits the 1970s through some of its least respectable films and television programs, from Benny Hill to Confessions of a Windowcleaner. Identifying the trickle down of permissiveness into mass consumption as a key feature of the 1970s, Leon Hunt considers the values of an ostensibly "bad" decade and analyzes its implications for issues of taste and cultural capital. Offering insights into the complexities of popular culture and popular memory, British Low Culture fills an important gap in the study of British cultural history.

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An Artist's Safari
Ralph Thompson
Manufacturer: The Harvill Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Drawing | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0002110334

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