Peter Matthiessen – författare

One of the greatest pieces of travel and nature writing ever written, this is the true story of a journey to the high Himalayas in search of the snow leopard. In 1973 Matthiessen made the 250-mile trek to the dazzling Tibetan plateau of Dolpo, as part of an expedition to study wild blue sheep. It was an arduous, sometimes dangerous, physical endeavour: exertion, blisters, blizzards, endless negotiations with sherpas, quaking cold. But it was also a 'journey of the heart'. Amongst the beauty and indifference of the mountains Matthiessen was searching for solace. He was also searching for a glimpse of a snow leopard, a creature so rarely spotted as to be almost mythical.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY RICHARD MABEY'A beautiful book, and worthy of the mountains he is among' Paul Theroux

Inspired by a near-mythic event of the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the twentieth century, Shadow Country reimagines the legend of the inspired Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson, who drives himself to his own violent end at the hands of his neighbours. His son Lucius investigates the killing which has come to obsess him. In this bold new rendering of the Watson trilogy Matthiessen has deepened the insights and motivations of his characters, consolidating his fictional masterwork into a poetic, compelling novel of a monumental scope and ambition, with breathtaking accomplishment.

From 1831 to 1837, George Catlin traveled extensively among the native peoples of North America-from the Muskogee and Miccosukee Creeks of the Southeast to the Lakota, Mandan, and Pawnee of the West, and from the Winnebagos and Menominees of the North to the Comanches of eastern Texas. Studying their habits, customs, and modes of life, he made copious notes and numerous sketches of ceremonies, buffalo hunts, symbols, and totems. Catlin's unprecedented fieldwork culminated in more than five hundred oil paintings and his now-legendary journals, which, as Peter Matthiessen writes in his introduction, 'taken together...constitute the first, last, and only 'complete' record of the Plains Indians ever made at the height of their splendid culture, so soon destroyed by traders' liquor and disease, rapine and bayonets.'

A balanced, comprehensive overview of Environmental Quality Standards (EQS), Derivation and Use of Environmental Quality and Human Health Standards for Chemical Substances in Water and Soil addresses the selection and prioritization of substances for standard derivation. With integrated content and up-to-date information on assessment of regulations that affect the derivation and use of EQS, it examines the derivation of these standards and their implementation to protect human health and the environment. The book is based on contributions from thirty-five scientists, regulators, and policy makers from eleven countries with individual expertise across disciplines such as risk assessment, environmental, health, economic, and social sciences. These scientists summarize current knowledge on aquatic and terrestrial environmental quality standards, placing these standards in a wider socioeconomic and regulatory context. The book explains how to derive environmental standards that are defensible from a scientific and socioeconomic perspective. Using multidisciplinary techniques applicable to water, sediments, and soils; the text demonstrates how to select the best form and derivation method relative to individual environmental standards. The book presents an in-depth examination of when, where, and how to implement environmental standards based on the social and economic context. It includes detailed coverage of technical approaches that shed light on the derivation and implementation of EQSs. It also identifies future research that will help to underpin the science of environmental and human health standards.

Enables researchers to assess the effects of endocrine disrupters as well as comply with new environmental regulationsEndocrine disrupters are chemicals—both man-made and natural—that interfere with the body's endocrine system, potentially resulting in adverse developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune effects. In recent years, a number of regulatory authorities around the world have drafted or enacted legislation that requires the detection and assessment of the effects of endocrine disrupters on both humans and wildlife. In response, this book provides comprehensive, up-to-date information on the latest tested and proven methods used to detect and assess the environmental hazards posed by endocrine-disrupting chemicals.Endocrine Disrupters is divided into chapters covering each major taxon as well as chapters dedicated to hazard assessment and regulation. The book covers testing methods for all the vertebrate groups and several invertebrate phyla, including: Crustaceans and mollusksInsectsFishAmphibians and reptilesBirds and mammalsMoreover, the book emphasizes practical, ethical testing methods that combine sensitivity, efficiency, statistical power, and reasonable cost.Each chapter is written by one or more international experts in ecotoxicology, offering readers step-by-step guidance for implementing each method based on the latest research and the authors' firsthand laboratory experience. Furthermore, all the chapters have been subjected to a rigorous peer review and edited in light of the reviewers' comments. References at the end of each chapter guide readers to the literature in the field.Endocrine Disrupters is recommended for scientists who need to test chemicals for possible endocrine-disrupting properties. It is also recommended for regulatory authorities who need to decide whether particular chemicals can be safely marketed.

In the summer of 1968 Peter Matthiessen met Cesar Chavez for the first time. They were the same age: forty-one. Matthiessen lived in New York City, while Chavez lived in the Central Valley farm town of Delano, where the grape strike was unfolding. This book is Matthiessen's panoramic yet finely detailed account of the three years he spent working and traveling with Chavez, including to Sal Si Puedes, the San Jose barrio where Chavez began his organizing. Matthiessen provides a candid look into the many sides of this enigmatic and charismatic leader who lived by the laws of nonviolence. Sal Si Puedes is less reportage than living history. In its pages a whole era comes alive: the Chicano, Black Power, and antiwar movements; the browning of the labor movement; Chavez's fasts; the nationwide boycott of California grapes. When Chavez died in 1993, tens of thousands gathered at his funeral. It was a clear sign of how beloved he was and how important his life had been. A new foreword by Marc Grossman considers the significance of Chavez's legacy for our time.As well as serving as an indispensable guide to the 1960s, this book rejuvenates the extraordinary vitality of Chavez's life and spirit, giving his message a renewed and much-needed urgency.

Freshwater field tests are an integral part of the process of hazard assessment of pesticides and other chemicals in the environment. This book brings together international experts on microcosms and mesocosms for a critical appraisal of theory and practice on the subject of freshwater field tests for hazard assessment. It is an authoritative and comprehensive summary of knowledge about freshwater field tests, with particular emphasis on their optimization for scientific and regulatory purposes. This valuable reference covers both lotic and lentic outdoor systems and addresses the choice of endpoints and test methodology. Instructive case histories show how to extrapolate test results to the real world.

A balanced, comprehensive overview of Environmental Quality Standards (EQS), Derivation and Use of Environmental Quality and Human Health Standards for Chemical Substances in Water and Soil addresses the selection and prioritization of substances for standard derivation. With integrated content and up-to-date information on assessment of regulations that affect the derivation and use of EQS, it examines the derivation of these standards and their implementation to protect human health and the environment. The book is based on contributions from thirty-five scientists, regulators, and policy makers from eleven countries with individual expertise across disciplines such as risk assessment, environmental, health, economic, and social sciences. These scientists summarize current knowledge on aquatic and terrestrial environmental quality standards, placing these standards in a wider socioeconomic and regulatory context. The book explains how to derive environmental standards that are defensible from a scientific and socioeconomic perspective. Using multidisciplinary techniques applicable to water, sediments, and soils; the text demonstrates how to select the best form and derivation method relative to individual environmental standards. The book presents an in-depth examination of when, where, and how to implement environmental standards based on the social and economic context. It includes detailed coverage of technical approaches that shed light on the derivation and implementation of EQSs. It also identifies future research that will help to underpin the science of environmental and human health standards.

CURIOUS ANIMAL BEST FICTION BOOKS OF 2014 PICKIn Paradise tells the story of a group of men and women who come together for a weeklong meditation retreat at the site of a World War II concentration camp, and the grief, rage and upsetting revelations that surface during their time together. Even as it probes the suffering, conflicts, and longings of these diverse characters, In Paradise raises provocative and unanswerable metaphysical questions: what responsibility comes with bearing witness to such cruelty and tragedy; and what insights into the nature of good and evil may be lost in the next decade or two, as the last survivors of – and witnesses to – the death camps pass away. Having participated in three Zen retreats at Auschwitz beginning in the 1990s, Matthiessen had long wished to comment on the ongoing fallout of last century's global catastrophe, but ‘as a non-Jewish American journalist, I felt unqualified to do so, I felt I had no right. But approaching it as fiction – as a novelist, an artist – I eventually decided that I did. Only fiction would allow me to probe from a variety of viewpoints the great strangeness of what I had felt.’

This volume includes the full Health Technology Assessment (HTA) report on effectiveness, appropriateness, safety and costs of homoeopathy in health care. The report was commissioned by the Swiss health authorities to inform decision-making on the further inclusion of homoeopathy in the list of services covered by statutory health insurance. Other studies carried out as part of the Swiss Complementary Medicine Evaluation Programme (PEK) caused a massive stir due to their schematic and exclusively quantitative (negative-)outcomes for homoeopathy. The present report, in contrast, offers a differentiated evaluation of the practice of homoeopathy in health care. It confirms homoeopathy as a valuable addition to the conventional medical landscape – a status it has been holding for a long time in practical health care.