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A Not-So-New World
- Empire and Environment in French Colonial North America (Early American Studies)
- Narrated by: Adrian Newcastle
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
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Publisher's summary
When Samuel de Champlain founded the colony of Quebec in 1608, he established elaborate gardens where he sowed French seeds he had brought with him and experimented with indigenous plants that he found in nearby fields and forests. Following Champlain's example, fellow colonists nurtured similar gardens through the Saint Lawrence Valley and Great Lakes region. In A Not-So-New World, Christopher Parsons observes how it was that French colonists began to learn about Native environments and claimed a mandate to cultivate vegetation that did not differ all that much from that which they had left behind.
Parsons demonstrates how the French experience of attempting to improve American environments supported not only the acquisition and incorporation of Native American knowledge but also the development of an emerging botanical science that focused on naming new species. Exploring the moment in which settlers, missionaries, merchants, and administrators believed in their ability to shape the environment to better resemble the country they left behind, A Not-So-New World reveals that French colonial ambitions were fueled by a vision of an ecologically sustainable empire.
The book is published by University of Pennsylvania Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
"Sheds new light on the development of environmental knowledge about the colony, understood in an appropriately broad geographical framework." (Colin Coates, York University)
"An important new perspective on the environmental history of European expansion." (Environmental History)
"Will no doubt become standard reading for anyone interested in the exigency of indigenous ecological knowledge..." (Agricultural History Review)
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Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession. Accomplished author Bruce Pascoe provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers that suggests that systems of food production and land management have been understated in modern retellings of Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia's past is required.
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One of the best books ever!!!!
- By Matt Powers on 05-07-18
By: Bruce Pascoe
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Orientalism
- By: Edward Said
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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This landmark book, first published in 1978, remains one of the most influential books in the Social Sciences, particularly Ethnic Studies and Postcolonialism. Said is best known for describing and critiquing "Orientalism", which he perceived as a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the East. In Orientalism Said claimed a "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture."
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We're lucky to have this on audio
- By Delano on 02-27-13
By: Edward Said
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Sumerians: A History from Beginning to End
- By: Henry Freeman
- Narrated by: Christopher Boozell
- Length: 2 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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A legendary civilization vanished under the Fertile Crescent and escaped a fate worse than death until Sumerologists questioned widely accepted truths. The Sumerians reemerged onto the extraordinary timeline of human history. Their tales of kings and gods, including the Epic of Gilgamesh, and their fearless trade in distant lands, during the remarkable Bronze Age, centered in the world’s first city-states that chronicled ancient rivalries and their enduring impact.
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The writing is so poor I could not listen.
- By Erin on 12-04-21
By: Henry Freeman
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Guns, Germs and Steel
- The Fate of Human Societies
- By: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Doug Ordunio
- Length: 16 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology.
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Compelling pre-history and emergent history
- By Doug on 08-25-11
By: Jared Diamond
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Culture and Imperialism
- By: Edward Said
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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A landmark work from the intellectually auspicious author of Orientalism, this book explores the long-overlooked connections between the Western imperial endeavor and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it. This classic study, the direct successor to Said's main work, is read by Peter Ganim ( Orientalism).
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BRAVO, AUDIBLE!! WE NEED MORE SAID!! REAL BOOKS!!
- By AnthonyStevens on 02-27-11
By: Edward Said
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Evolution
- The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory
- By: Edward J. Larson
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Edward J. Larson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and eminent science historian. This marvelously readable, yet sumptuously erudite work traces the development of the scientific theory of evolution. From Darwin's essential trip to the Galápagos, to the most contemporary studies in sociobiology, this work takes listeners both into the field and laboratories of the world's greatest evolutionary scientists, and shows how the theory of evolution has itself evolved.
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An Excellent History!
- By Bradly D. Elder on 08-13-07
By: Edward J. Larson
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Nonzero
- The Logic of Human Destiny
- By: Robert Wright
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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At the beginning of Nonzero, Robert Wright sets out to "define the arrow of the history of life, from the primordial soup to the World Wide Web." Twenty-two chapters later, after a sweeping and vivid narrative of the human past, he has succeeded and has mounted a powerful challenge to the conventional view that evolution and human history are aimless.
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Non-Zero (but pretty close to zero)
- By Douglas on 02-06-14
By: Robert Wright
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Bison and People on the North American Great Plains
- A Deep Environmental History
- By: Geoff Cunfer, Bill Waiser
- Narrated by: Chuck Buell
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook explores the deep past and examines the latest knowledge on bison anatomy and physiology, how bison responded to climate change (especially drought), and early bison hunters and pre-contact trade. It also focuses on the era of European contact, in particular the arrival of the horse, and some of the first known instances of over-hunting. By the 19th century, bison reached a "tipping point" as a result of new tanning practices, an early attempt at protective legislation, and ventures to introducing cattle as a replacement stock.
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Buffalo Gone Baby Gone
- By Jim on 03-24-18
By: Geoff Cunfer, and others
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The Statues That Walked
- Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island
- By: Terry Hunt, Carl Lipo
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island’s barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works?
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The "Mystery of Easter Island" remains raveled
- By Diane on 09-14-12
By: Terry Hunt, and others
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Lost Enlightenment
- Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane
- By: S. Frederick Starr
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Lost Enlightenment recounts how, between the years 800 and 1200, Central Asia led the world in trade and economic development, the size and sophistication of its cities, the refinement of its arts, and, above all, in the advancement of knowledge in many fields. Central Asians achieved signal breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, geology, medicine, chemistry, music, social science, philosophy, and theology, among other subjects.
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Subject worthwhile but repetative narrative
- By F-M on 04-10-14