The Tangled Wing Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of The Tangled Wing book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.
First published twenty years ago to great acclaim, The Tangled Wing soon became a must-read for anyone interested in the biological roots of human behavior and emotions. Since then however, revolutions have taken place in the biological sciences--not only in genetics but molecular biology and neuroscience as well. All of these innovations have been brought into account in this vastly expanded edition of a book originally called an "overwhelming achievement" by the Times Literary Supplement.
A vital updating of a seminal work of science First published to great acclaim twenty years ago, The Tangled Wing has become required reading for anyone interested in the biological roots of human behavior. Since then, revolutions have taken place in genetics, molecular biology, and neuroscience. All of these innovations have been brought into account in this greatly expanded edition of a book originally called an "overwhelming achievement" by The Times Literary Supplement. A masterful synthesis of biology, psychology, anthropology, and philosophy, The Tangled Wing reveals human identity and activity to be an intricately woven fabric of innumerable factors. Melvin Konner's sensitive and straightforward discussion ranges across topics such as the roots of aggression, the basis of attachment and desire, the differences between the sexes, and the foundations of mental illness.
A vital updating of a seminal work of science First published to great acclaim twenty years ago, T"he Tangled Wing" has become required reading for anyone interested in the biological roots of human behavior. Since then, revolutions have taken place in genetics, molecular biology, and neuroscience. All of these innovations have been brought into account in this greatly expanded edition of a book originally called an "overwhelming achievement" by "The Times Literary Supplement," A masterful synthesis of biology, psychology, anthropology, and philosophy, "The Tangled Wing" reveals human identity and activity to be an intricately woven fabric of innumerable factors. Melvin Konner's sensitive and straightforward discussion ranges across topics such as the roots of aggression, the basis of attachment and desire, the differences between the sexes, and the foundations of mental illness.
Women After All: Sex, Evolution, and the End of Male Supremacy by Melvin Konner Pdf
“A sparkling, thought-provoking account of sexual differences. Whether you’re a man or a woman, you’ll find his conclusions gripping.”—Jared Diamond There is a human genetic fluke that is surprisingly common, due to a change in a key pair of chromosomes. In the normal condition the two look the same, but in this disorder one is malformed and shrunken beyond recognition. The result is a shortened life span, higher mortality at all ages, an inability to reproduce, premature hair loss, and brain defects variously resulting in attention deficit, hyperactivity, conduct disorder, hypersexuality, and an enormous excess of both outward and self-directed aggression. It is called maleness. Melvin Konner traces the arc of evolution to explain the relationships between women and men. With patience and wit he explores the knotty question of whether men are necessary in the biological destiny of the human race. He draws on multiple, colorful examples from the natural world—such as the mating habits of the octopus, black widow, angler fish, and jacana—and argues that maleness in humans is hardly necessary to the survival of the species. In characteristically humorous and engaging prose, Konner sheds light on our biologically different identities, while noting the poignant exceptions that challenge the male/female divide. We meet hunter-gatherers such as those in Botswana, whose culture gave women a prominent place, invented the working mother, and respected women’s voices around the fire. Recent human history has upset this balance, as a dense world of war fostered extreme male dominance. But our species has been recovering over the past two centuries, and an unstoppable move toward equality is afoot. It will not be the end of men, but it will be the end of male supremacy and a better, wiser world for women and men alike.
In this New York Times bestseller and longlist nominee for the National Book Award, “our greatest living chronicler of the natural world” (The New York Times), David Quammen explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology affect our understanding of evolution and life’s history. In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field—the study of life’s diversity and relatedness at the molecular level—is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important; we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived sideways by viral infection—a type of HGT. In The Tangled Tree, “the grandest tale in biology….David Quammen presents the science—and the scientists involved—with patience, candor, and flair” (Nature). We learn about the major players, such as Carl Woese, the most important little-known biologist of the twentieth century; Lynn Margulis, the notorious maverick whose wild ideas about “mosaic” creatures proved to be true; and Tsutomu Wantanabe, who discovered that the scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a direct result of horizontal gene transfer, bringing the deep study of genome histories to bear on a global crisis in public health. “David Quammen proves to be an immensely well-informed guide to a complex story” (The Wall Street Journal). In The Tangled Tree, he explains how molecular studies of evolution have brought startling recognitions about the tangled tree of life—including where we humans fit upon it. Thanks to new technologies, we now have the ability to alter even our genetic composition—through sideways insertions, as nature has long been doing. “The Tangled Tree is a source of wonder….Quammen has written a deep and daring intellectual adventure” (The Boston Globe).
" This is one of the most important books on quantum mechanics ever written for lay readers, in which an eminent physicist and successful science writer, Heinz Pagels, discusses and explains the core concepts of physics without resorting to complicated mathematics. "Can be read by anyone. I heartily recommend it!" -- New York Times Book Review. 1982 edition"--
Why do we do the things we do? Over a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its genetic inheritance. And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. What goes on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happens? Then he pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell triggers the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones act hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli which trigger the nervous system? By now, he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened. Sapolsky keeps going--next to what features of the environment affected that person's brain, and then back to the childhood of the individual, and then to their genetic makeup. Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than that one individual. How culture has shaped that individual's group, what ecological factors helped shape that culture, and on and on, back to evolutionary factors thousands and even millions of years old. The result is one of the most dazzling tours de horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do...for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right.
Named one of the best nonfiction books of the year by The Washington Post “Tangled Up in Blue is a wonderfully insightful book that provides a lens to critically analyze urban policing and a road map for how our most dispossessed citizens may better relate to those sworn to protect and serve.” —The Washington Post “Remarkable . . . Brooks has produced an engaging page-turner that also outlines many broadly applicable lessons and sensible policy reforms.” —Foreign Affairs Journalist and law professor Rosa Brooks goes beyond the "blue wall of silence" in this radical inside examination of American policing In her forties, with two children, a spouse, a dog, a mortgage, and a full-time job as a tenured law professor at Georgetown University, Rosa Brooks decided to become a cop. A liberal academic and journalist with an enduring interest in law's troubled relationship with violence, Brooks wanted the kind of insider experience that would help her understand how police officers make sense of their world—and whether that world can be changed. In 2015, against the advice of everyone she knew, she applied to become a sworn, armed reserve police officer with the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department. Then as now, police violence was constantly in the news. The Black Lives Matter movement was gaining momentum, protests wracked America's cities, and each day brought more stories of cruel, corrupt cops, police violence, and the racial disparities that mar our criminal justice system. Lines were being drawn, and people were taking sides. But as Brooks made her way through the police academy and began work as a patrol officer in the poorest, most crime-ridden neighborhoods of the nation's capital, she found a reality far more complex than the headlines suggested. In Tangled Up in Blue, Brooks recounts her experiences inside the usually closed world of policing. From street shootings and domestic violence calls to the behind-the-scenes police work during Donald Trump's 2016 presidential inauguration, Brooks presents a revelatory account of what it's like inside the "blue wall of silence." She issues an urgent call for new laws and institutions, and argues that in a nation increasingly divided by race, class, ethnicity, geography, and ideology, a truly transformative approach to policing requires us to move beyond sound bites, slogans, and stereotypes. An explosive and groundbreaking investigation, Tangled Up in Blue complicates matters rather than simplifies them, and gives pause both to those who think police can do no wrong—and those who think they can do no right.
A comprehensive Darwinian interpretation of human development which examines both the cross-cultural and universal characteristics of our growth from infancy to adolescence.
Gus never imagined himself a parent at thirteen. But in the war-fraught summer of 1942, while living on his grandparents' Vermont farm, he adopts a clutch of orphaned duck eggs. Gus can relate to the foundlings, as he is apart from, and yearns for, his own family. One day Gus finds a young stranger standing over the incubating eggs. Gus doesn't know what to make of her, with her tattered clothing and strange accent, but soon the girl is helping to care for the newly hatched ducklings, and she and Gus become fast friends. Not everyone shares Gus's high opinion of Louise, whose poverty-stricken French-Canadian family is shunned by the townspeople. His attempt to help his friend and her family has some embarrassing consequences and he must make retribution if he is to keep Louise's friendship. Nancy Price Graff's fluid narrative and exceptional eye for detail follow Gus during a time of food rationing, Victory gardens, watching for enemy planes--and keeping his ducks from harm.
A history of the Jewish people from bris to burial, from “muscle Jews” to nose jobs. Melvin Konner, a renowned doctor and anthropologist, takes the measure of the “Jewish body,” considering sex, circumcision, menstruation, and even those most elusive and controversial of microscopic markers–Jewish genes. But this is not only a book that examines the human body through the prism of Jewish culture. Konner looks as well at the views of Jewish physiology held by non-Jews, and the way those views seeped into Jewish thought. He describes in detail the origins of the first nose job, and he writes about the Nazi ideology that categorized Jews as a public health menace on par with rats or germs. A work of grand historical and philosophical sweep, The Jewish Body discusses the subtle relationship between the Jewish conception of the physical body and the Jewish conception of a bodiless God. It is a book about the relationship between a land–Israel–and the bodily sense not merely of individuals but of a people. As Konner describes, a renewed focus on the value of physical strength helped generate the creation of a Jewish homeland, and continued in the wake of it. With deep insight and great originality, Konner gives us nothing less than an anatomical history of the Jewish people. Part of the Jewish Encounter series
When eternal darkness threatens to invade, Shade and Marina must journey to the far southern jungle to save the world in this thrilling sequel to Silverwing. Shade, a young Silverwing bat in search of his father, discovers a mysterious Human building containing a vast forest. Home to thousands of bats, the indoor forest is as warm as a summer night and teeming with insects to eat. And through the glass roof, the bats can finally see the sun, free from the tyranny of the deadly owls. Is this Paradise the fulfillment of Nocturna’s Promise to return the bats to the light of day? Shade and his Brightwing friend Marina aren’t so sure. Shade has seen Humans enter the forest and take away hundreds of sleeping bats for an unknown purpose. And where is Shade's father? It isn’t long before Shade and Marina are swept up on a perilous journey that takes them to the far southern jungle—the homeland of Goth, now king of all the Vampyrum Spectrum: cannibal bats with three-foot wingspans. With the help of an abandoned owl prince and General Cortez’s rat army, Shade must use all his resourcefulness to find his father—and stop Goth from harnessing the dark powers of Cama Zotz to create eternal night. In this continuation of Shade’s saga, Kenneth Oppel recaptures the adventure and poignancy of Silverwing, which Smithsonian magazine called “a tour-de-force fantasy,” and takes it to a new level of excitement.