"This book explores the complex processes and features of mountain environments: glaciers, snow and avalanches, landforms, weather and climate, vegetation, soils, and wildlife. A major section analyzes the effects of latitudinal position on these processes and features. There is also an investigation of the origin of mountains, our attitudes towards them, and their manifold implications for us."--Inside front jacket.

The aim of the present volume is to review the effects of human activity on physical environment processes, and this is justified not only as a complement to the approach taken by G. P. Marsh his volume Man and Nature (1864), but also as a sequel to the work produced since 1864, with contributions since the mid-nineteenth century to the study of th

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

This volume is themed around the interdependent relationship between humans and the environment, an important topic in the work of Corrie Bakels. How do environmental constraints and opportunities influence human behaviour and what is the human impact on the ecology and appearance of the landscape? And what can archaeological knowledge contribute to the current discussions about the use, arrangement and depletion of our (local) environment?