A beautiful and fascinating portrait of the world’s most extreme wildlife, from the sexiest beast to the smelliest plant.

Significant, and usually unwelcome, surprises, such as floods, financial crisis, epileptic seizures, or material rupture, are the topics of Extreme Events in Nature and Society. The book, authored by foremost experts in these fields, reveals unifying and distinguishing features of extreme events, including problems of understanding and modelling their origin, spatial and temporal extension, and potential impact. The chapters converge towards the difficult problem of anticipation: forecasting the event and proposing measures to moderate or prevent it. Extreme Events in Nature and Society will interest not only specialists, but also the general reader eager to learn how the multifaceted field of extreme events can be viewed as a coherent whole.

Offers facts about lightning, the planets, volcanoes, tornadoes, and sharks.

Lovers of marine life and connoisseurs of photography will delight in this beautifully produced book dedicated to the surprising elements of the "unseen." In Extreme Nature, National Geographic photographer Bill Curtsinger takes us to locations around the globe, from the North to the South Poles, where he reveals in amazing detail the lives of elusive water creatures-some never before photographed-and those that are ubiquitous but rarely observed close up. These images represent some of the best of his thirty-year career, and here he reflects on the subtle elements that make his art so powerful.The splendid photography in Extreme Nature is the result of a profound sensitivity to the aquatic environment. "I worship the single-minded effort that still photography embodies," Curtsinger says, "the challenge, the solitary immersion in an animal's world and the rewards that are often found in such an adventure." The reader accompanies him on these adventures, plumbing the depths around icebergs and volcanoes, meeting sharks, sea turtles, seals, narwhals, whales, and many others along the way. As he shares his wondrous visions, the author also explains his approach to the photographic artistry. "My goal," he says, "is to immerse myself in an animal's world so that I can extract from those moments a new image, or a new insight into behavior heretofore unseen. I become the creature I pursue, in theory anyway . . ." This elegant book becomes a journey not only into aquatic wildlife but also into the art of photography itself.

In response to the rise of various forms of the extreme in economies, organizations and societies (such as disruptive innovation, climate emergency, financial crisis, high-risk sport, etc.), an ambitious 21st century program sets the agenda of management sciences around the unknown, disruption, uncertainty and risk. Management of Extreme Situations presents the research results from the conference organized at the Cerisy-la-Salle International Cultural Center, France, in 2016. It testifies to the existence of an international community that brings together, around management sciences, various disciplines studying the management concept of extreme situations. Through the analysis of varied contexts (polar and mountain expeditions, fire rescue services, exploration projects in the military field, creative industries, etc.), this book offers an initial grammar of the extreme. It presents a heuristic for the management of these situations – particularly in terms of sensemaking, ambidexterity and knowledge expansion.

The material culture of persecution : collecting for the Holocaust exhibition at the Imperial War Museum / Suzanne BardgettLyricism and offence in Egyptian archaeology collections / Stephen QuirkeContested human remains / Jack LohmanExtreme or commonplace : the collecting of unprovenanced antiquities / Kathy Walker TubbUnfit for society? : the case of the Galton Collection at UCL / Natasha McEnroeKnowing the new / Susan PearceThe global scope of extreme collecting : Japanese woodblock prints on the Internet / Richard WilkAwkward objects : collecting, deploying and debating relics / Jan GeisbuschGreat expectations and modest transactions : art, commodity and collecting / Henrietta LidchiExtremes of collecting at the Imperial War Museum, 1917-2009 : struggles with the large and the ephemeral / Paul CornishPlasticswhy not? : a perspective from the Museum of Design in Plastics / Susan LambertTime capsules as extreme collecting / Brian DurransCanning cans, or, What you can do with tins : an interview with Robert Opie / J.C.H. King.