Do Glaciers Listen?

Julie Cruikshank is professor emerita in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of British Columbia. She is the author of Life Lived Like a Story (winner of the 1992 MacDonald Prize); Reading Voices; and The Social Life of Stories. In 2012 she was awarded a Clio Lifetime Achievement Award for The North by the Canadian Historical Association

Perhaps the crucial word in the title is "Listen." The reader must listen carefully to the words as spoken by others in this beautifully crafted book. Do Glaciers Listen? is a fascinating read. Cruikshank's discussion of how encounters shape and create perceptions of the world, and how layers of meaning are forced onto landscapes by peoples is thoroughly thought provoking. This book is highly recommended for scientitst, anthropologists, historians, and everyone with an interest in the social construction of landscapes. - Susan Rowley, Canadian Polar Commission (Meridian, Fall/Winter 2005) Cruikshank's book is sophisticated, rigorous, and exciting. Its pages brim with nuanced takes on epistemology, sensitive descriptions of ice, and rigorous analyses of cultural interactions. This is indeed a tour de force in interdisciplinary studies. - Eric G. Wilson,Wake Forest University (American Historical Review)

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Stubborn Particularities of VoicePart 1: Matters of Locality1 Memories of the Little Ice Age2 Constructing Life Stories: Glaciers as Social Spaces3 Listening for Different StoriesPart 2: Practices of Exploration4 Two Centuries of Stories from Lituya Bay: Nature, Culture, and La Pérouse5 Bringing Icy Regions Home: John Muir in Alaska6 Edward James Glave, the Alsek, and the CongoPart 3: Scientific Research in Sentient Places7 Mapping Boundaries: From Stories to Borders8 Melting Glaciers and Emerging HistoriesNotesBibliographyIndex