Name: Birds and us: A 12,000-Year History From Cave art to Conservation
Price: 36.96 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Tim Birkhead
ISBN: 9780691239927

portada Birds and us: A 12,000-Year History From Cave art to Conservation

Birds and us: A 12,000-Year History From Cave art to Conservation

Type

Physical Book

Author

Tim Birkhead

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Language

English

Pages

496

Format

Hardcover

Dimensions

23.9 x 16.3 x 4.1 cm

Weight

0.98 kg.

ISBN13

9780691239927

Synopsis "Birds and us: A 12,000-Year History From Cave art to Conservation "

From award-winning author and ornithologist Tim Birkhead, a sweeping history of the long and close relationship between birds and humans Since the dawn of human history, birds have stirred our imagination, inspiring and challenging our ideas about science, faith, art, and philosophy. We have worshipped birds as gods, hunted them for sustenance, adorned ourselves with their feathers, studied their wings to engineer flight, and, more recently, attempted to protect them. In Birds and Us, award-winning writer and ornithologist Tim Birkhead takes us on a dazzling epic journey through our mutual history with birds, from the ibises mummified and deified by Ancient Egyptians to the Renaissance fascination with woodpecker anatomy--and from the Victorian obsession with egg collecting to today's fight to save endangered species and restore their habitats. Spanning continents and millennia, Birds and Us chronicles the beginnings of a written history of birds in ancient Greece and Rome, the obsession with falconry in the Middle Ages, and the development of ornithological science. Moving to the twentieth century, the book tells the story of the emergence of birdwatching and the field study of birds, and how they triggered an extraordinary flowering of knowledge and empathy for birds, eventually leading to today's massive worldwide interest in birds--and the realization of the urgent need to save them. Weaving in stories from Birkhead's life as scientist, including far-flung expeditions to wondrous Neolithic caves in Spain and the bustling guillemot colonies of the Faroe Islands, this rich and fascinating book is an unforgettable account of how birds have shaped us, and how we have shaped them.

Tim Birkhead

(Author)

View Author's Page

Tim Birkhead, British ornithologist, has been a professor at the University of Sheffield since 1976. His research on promiscuity and sperm competition in birds has helped to change the current understanding of their mating systems.

He has taught all kinds of courses on birds, ecology, evolution, animal behavior, and on the history and philosophy of science. He has been president of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology and is currently a member of the management committee of the Darwin Correspondence Project.

He regularly publishes in various recognized media.

See less