Bradley B. Walters is associate professor of geography & environment at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. Bonnie J. McCay is Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in the Department of Human Ecology. Paige West is assistant professor of anthropology at Barnard College, New York. Susan Lees is professor emerita of anthropology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Against the Grain provides an admirable survey of Vayda's career, shows some interesting extensions and applications of his ideas, and provides an elaborated critique of contrasting views in human ecology and ecological anthropology. I recommend this book to all who explore human environment relationships and those economic botanists who wish to explore why questions in their study of plant use.

• Chapter 1 IntroductionPart 2 Part I. Introductory EssaysChapter 3 Chapter 1. An Intellectual History of Ecological AnthropologyChapter 4 Chapter 2. Maori Warfare: Prefiguring Contemporary Directions in Ecological SciencePart 5 Part II. Events Causes and ExplanationsChapter 6 Chapter 3. Explaining Causes in Evolving Contexts: From Nepali Hill Farmers to Business Managers in ThailandChapter 7 Chapter 4. Events, Politics, and Environmental ChangeChapter 8 Chapter 5. Orthodoxy and Revision in West African Guinea Savanna EcologyChapter 9 Chapter 6. Looking for Cause with All the Small Changes: Using Event Ecology to Find Human Causes of Biological InvasionsChapter 10 Chapter 7. Shell Games on the Water Bottoms of Louisiana: Investigative Journalism and Anthropological InquiryChapter 11 Chapter 8. Process in an Eventful EnvironmentChapter 12 Chapter 9. A New Guinea Culture-Bound Syndrome Revisited: Humility and Monological Authority in AnthropologyChapter 13 Chapter 10. Deductive-nomological vs. Causal-mechanistic Explanation: Relative Strengths and Weaknesses in Anthropological ExplanationChapter 14 Chapter 11. Vayda Blues: Explanation in Darwinian Ecological AnthropologyPart 15 Part III. Research on Environment and DevelopmentChapter 16 Chapter 12. What Kind of Anthropology for Successful Conservation Management and Development?Chapter 17 Chapter 13. Environmental Conservation and Social Life in Papua New GuineaChapter 18 Chapter 14. The Concept of Human Agency in Contemporary Conservation and Development DiscourseChapter 19 Chapter 15. Using Progressive Contextualization to Understand a Rural Development Success Story in Indonesian BorneoChapter 20 Chapter 16. From Understanding to Action: Building on Anthropological Approaches to Influence PolicymakingChapter 21 Chapter 17. The Relevant Context: Environmental Consequences of Images of the FutureChapter 22 Chapter 18. Indigenous Knowledge and In Situ Crop Germplasm ConservationPart 23 Part IV. Concluding EssayChapter 24 Chapter 19. Causal Explanation as a Research Goal: A Pragmatic View