Elaine Morgan - Böcker

This is the first of the two-volume set of the Southeast Asia Cruising Guide to reach a second edition. It is the only guide that covers the entire length and breadth of a region frequently visited by round-the-world sailors, many of whom leave Australia to head west. This edition concentrates on the most frequented routes and includes the most popular stops. There are hundreds of possible anchorages, the most popular of which are usefully summarised in tables. Introductory sections cover planning and the last part of the book deals with more general topics including advice on provisioning and the problems that are often faced by cruisers. Stephen Morgan and Elaine Davies first arrived in the region over 30 years ago. They work in Hong Kong; Stephen Davies as Director of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum and Elaine Morgan as a writer and editor. While this pilot is aimed at yachtsmen and indeed was surveyed from the Davies/Morgan yacht, it is just as relevant to the commercial or military mariner. The part of the world described in this work is one of the most interesting on our planet. Culturally, scenically, climatically and commercially; it has everything. This excellent book ? now in its second edition, describes it all very enticingly. Set to the usual high standard of the Imray pilots that precede it, this one is spiced up by the wit and anecdotes the authors are so good at.

In this lively and controversial book Elaine Morgan presents a challenging interpretation to the question of human evolution. With brilliant logic she argues that our hominid ancestors began to evolve in response to an aquatic environment. Millions of years ago something happened that caused our ancestors to walk on two legs, to lose their fur, to develop larger brains and learn how to speak. Elaine Morgan discovers what this event was by studying the many incongruous flaws in the physiological make-up of humans. The human body is liable to suffer from obesity, lower back pain and acne. In support of her aquatic ape hypothesis she points out the flaws in our physiological make-up: the difficulties of erect bipedalism, our hairlessness and fat-layers, our preference for face to face sex and the way we breathe. Are these flaws a record of the history of the species, the 'scars' of evolution that are clues to earlier stages of evolution? Morgan establishes the origins of the evolutionary path that separated humans from other animals and questions the theories currently accepted by science. Did our ancestors adapt to an aquatic environment that subsequently dried out? Elaine Morgan has made the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis a plausible alternative to conventional theories of evolution and in The Scars of Evolution she brings a real understanding of who humans are and where they came from.

Why do humans differ from other primates? What do those differences tell us about human evolution? Elaine Morgan gives a revolutionary hypothesis that explains our anatomic anomalies: why we walk on two legs, why we are covered in fat, why we can control our rate of breathing? The answers point to one conclusion: millions of years ago our ancestors were trapped in a semi-aquatic environment. In presenting her case Elaine Morgan forces scientists to question accepted theories of human evolution.