Wonderful splashes of ice water to chill the hearts and dampen the enthusiasm of the most die-hard environmentalists. Budiansky, a senior writer at US News and World Report, takes to task the naive ``greens,'' doctrinaire Sierra Club types, and even such icons as E.O. ``Biodiversity'' Wilson for their reverence for wildness and the wisdom of nature, in contrast to the intrusions of modern man. Never was and never will be a benign rule of a Mother Nature dedicated to harmony and balance, Budiansky avers. In North America alone thousands of years of the Indian practice of burning fields changed the landscape, creating prairies from woodlands. In turn, the interventions of weather, temperature, natural fires, population dynamics, what-have-you, changed prairies into woodlands, caused species to go extinct, and led to the import of hundreds of ``exotics''non-native flora and fauna that have been around for so long, you'd never know they were imports. Much of the book is devoted to delicious iconoclasm, with Budiansky attacking conventional ecological wisdom such as the ``climax'' theory, which speaks to the natural succession of generations of shrubs and saplings that leads to the so-called mature ``climax'' old hardwood forest. Not sofor the various reasons cited above. We even learn that clear-cutting may not be the devil it's made out to bethat varying-aged clear-cut fields can allow for the development of varying shade-resistant and shade-tolerant woodland species and thus preserve some manner of diversity. Budiansky cites numerous examples of better land management that makes use of meticulously collected data to enter into more complex equations with some predictive value. Whether it's a grouse crash in England or the current successful restoration of tallgrass to highway and street verges in Chicagowhere there's a will to understand what happened, there appears to be a rational way. Expect fierce outcries from the Walden crowd.
Pub Date: Sept. 14, 1995
ISBN: 0-02-904915-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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