The title of Lydia Millet’s last novel – Dinosaurs – seems to wink at the threat of human extinction, and, yet, its explicit referent in the book is to birds, those sometimes-alien creatures who survived the impact of the asteroid that wiped out most of their kind. This kind of double meaning, something like a…
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A continuation of my earlier episode in which Trevien Stanger – instructor of environmental studies at St. Michael’s College in Vermont – and I discuss Abram’s book, which, I think it’s fair to say, has had a profound effect on both of us. This time, we focus on Abram’s argument about the impact of the…
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There’s a funny little corridor tucked away behind a park in the Village of Pleasantville, New York where I live, where bears and bobcats amble through, walking atop the Catskill Aqueduct, the 100-year-old artery that delivers water from the Catskill mountains to New York City. Fellow resident, Michael Inglis, who has been hiking this patch…
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When we think of major innovations in human history, what comes to mind are inert technologies – from the wheel to the computer – but one of the most significant developments occurred as the result of the relationship between humans and another animal, horses. The domestication of horses brought about a major sea-change in human…
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