The B.A.M.B.I Syndrome is a mystery/adventure/thriller that tells a story of greed, power, manipulation and corruption within a seemingly innocuous organization. The Admiral, the Godfather of B.A.M.B.I., skillfully dupes his thousands of well-meaning members out of millions of dollars and, when about to be exposed, he engineers a diabolical scheme to save himself, his organization and his already tattered reputation. Innocent people, as well as zealots bent on preserving their twisted beliefs, die in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains before this complex mystery reveals its surprising outcome.

What brought the ape out of the trees, and so the man out of the ape, was a taste for blood. This is how the story went, when a few fossils found in Africa in the 1920s seemed to point to hunting as the first human activity among our simian forebears—the force behind our upright posture, skill with tools, domestic arrangements, and warlike ways. Why, on such slim evidence, did the theory take hold? In this engrossing book Matt Cartmill searches out the origins, and the strange allure, of the myth of Man the Hunter. An exhilarating foray into cultural history, A View to a Death in the Morning shows us how hunting has figured in the western imagination from the myth of Artemis to the tale of Bambi—and how its evolving image has reflected our own view of ourselves. A leading biological anthropologist, Cartmill brings remarkable wit and wisdom to his story. Beginning with the killer-ape theory in its post–World War II version, he takes us back through literature and history to other versions of the hunting hypothesis. Earlier accounts of Man the Hunter, drafted in the Renaissance, reveal a growing uneasiness with humanity’s supposed dominion over nature. By delving further into the history of hunting, from its promotion as a maker of men and builder of character to its image as an aristocratic pastime, charged with ritual and eroticism, Cartmill shows us how the hunter has always stood between the human domain and the wild, his status changing with cultural conceptions of that boundary. Cartmill’s inquiry leads us through classical antiquity and Christian tradition, medieval history, Renaissance thought, and the Romantic movement to the most recent controversies over wilderness management and animal rights. Modern ideas about human dominion find their expression in everything from scientific theories and philosophical assertions to Disney movies and sporting magazines. Cartmill’s survey of these sources offers fascinating insight into the significance of hunting as a mythic metaphor in recent times, particularly after the savagery of the world wars reawakened grievous doubts about man’s place in nature. A masterpiece of humanistic science, A View to a Death in the Morning is also a thoughtful meditation on what it means to be human, to stand uncertainly between the wilderness of beast and prey and the peaceable kingdom. This richly illustrated book will captivate readers on every side of the dilemma, from the most avid hunters to their most vehement opponents to those who simply wonder about the import of hunting in human nature.

Hardly a day goes by without news of the extinction or endangerment of yet another animal species, followed by urgent but largely unheeded calls for action. An eloquent denunciation of the failures of Canada's government and society to protect wildlife from human exploitation, Max Foran's The Subjugation of Canadian Wildlife argues that a root cause of wildlife depletions and habitat loss is the culturally ingrained beliefs that underpin management practices and policies. Tracing the evolution of the highly contestable assumptions that define the human–wildlife relationship, Foran stresses the price wild animals pay for human self-interest. Using several examples of government oversight at the federal, provincial, and territorial levels, from the Species at Risk Act to the Biodiversity Strategy, Protected Areas Network, and provincial management plans, this volume shows that wildlife policies are as much – or more – about human needs, priorities, and profit as they are about preservation. Challenging established concepts including ecological integrity, adaptive management, sport hunting as conservation, and the flawed belief that wildlife is a renewable resource, the author compels us to recognize animals as sentient individuals and as integral components of complex ecological systems. A passionate critique of contemporary wildlife policy, The Subjugation of Canadian Wildlife calls for belief-change as the best hope for an ecologically healthy, wildlife-rich Canada.

Human health and well-being are inextricably linked to nature; our connection to the natural world is part of our biological inheritance. In this engaging book, a pioneer in the field of biophilia—the study of human beings' inherent affinity for nature—sets forth the first full account of nature's powerful influence on the quality of our lives. Stephen Kellert asserts that our capacities to think, feel, communicate, create, and find meaning in life all depend upon our relationship to nature. And yet our increasing disconnection and alienation from the natural world reflect how seriously we have undervalued its important role in our lives. Weaving scientific findings together with personal experiences and perspectives, Kellert explores specific human tendencies—including affection, aversion, intellect, control, aesthetics, exploitation, spirituality, and communication—to discover how they are influenced by our relationship with nature. He observes that a beneficial relationship with the natural world is an instinctual inclination, but must be earned. He discusses how we can restore the balance in our relationship by means of changes in childhood development, education, conservation, building design, ethics, and everyday life. Kellert's moving book provides exactly what is needed now: a fresh understanding of how much our essential humanity relies on being a part of the natural world.

David Whitley's compelling study complicates our understanding of the classic Disney canon by focusing on the way images of the natural world are mediated within popular art for children. He examines a range of Disney's feature animations, from Snow White to Finding Nemo, to show that, even as the films communicate the central ideologies of their times, they also express the ambiguities and tensions that underlie these dominant values.

A collection of essays that explicate Disney ideology through fifty-five years of feature films, including Bambi, Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio, and more. From Mouse to Mermaid, an interdisciplinary collection of original essays, is the first comprehensive, critical treatment of Disney cinema. Addressing children’s classics as well as the Disney affiliates’ more recent attempts to capture adult audiences, the contributors respond to the Disney film legacy from feminist, marxist, poststructuralist, and cultural studies perspectives. The volume contemplates Disney’s duality as an American icon and as an industry of cultural production, created in and through fifty years of filmmaking. The contributors treat a range of topics at issue in contemporary cultural studies: the performance of gender, race, and class; the engendered images of science, nature, technology, family, and business. The compilation of voices in From Mouse to Mermaid creates a persuasive cultural critique of Disney’s ideology. The contributors are Bryan Attebery, Elizabeth Bell, Claudia Card, Chris Cuomo, Ramona Fernandez, Henry A. Giroux, Robert Haas, Lynda Haas, Susan Jeffords, N. Soyini Madison, Susan Miller, Patrick Murphy, David Payne, Greg Rode, Laura Sells, and Jack Zipes. “In this volume of 16 essays about Disney films, several pieces . . . begin the work of filling in a major gap in our understanding of animation.” —Film Quarterly

This collection of essays searches for how history and literature translate into filmic texts that then reflect the time and place of the translation. Major motion pictures as well as television movies and series are the sites of this exploration. The opening essay surveys what films tell us it means to be set in a medieval time, while the second looks at one of the most powerful movie studios since the earliest days of movie-making, Walt Disney Studios. The second section investigates classic Americana by delving specifically into the hegemonic power of Walt Disney Studios, by considering the union between the American pastime of baseball and the great white way of Broadway, and by discovering the constantly morphing relationship of the icons of the Wild West. Section three looks at characters living outside of roles considered socially appropriate in their world: vampire slayers, mobsters, and those with multiple personalities. The fourth section studies how present-day mores of power and beauty control revisions of historically-based stories through issues of vengeance, race, sexuality, and the notion of beauty itself. The final section takes up the question of what it means to historicize the present moment, and analyzes the current period via a very popular and long-running show’s depiction of sexuality as accepted or rejected within a paradigm that appears not merely to tolerate, but actively to promote, deviance. The last essay questions the very concepts of time and history themselves. The articles do not reach one conclusion regarding this topic, but instead provide a variety of perspectives which help to theorize the issue for the discerning reader.