This deeply informed and clearly written text provides a comprehensive and comprehensible history of China from prehistory to the present. Now updated to include recent political events and scientific research, the book focuses on the interaction of humans and their environment. Tracing changes in the physical and cultural world that is home to a fifth of humankind, Robert B. Marks illuminates the paradoxes inherent in China’s environmental narrative, demonstrating how historically sustainable practices can, in fact, be profoundly ecologically unsound. The author also reevaluates China’s traditional “heroic” storyline, highlighting the marginalization of nature and contacts with other peoples that followed the spread of Chinese civilization while examining the development of a distinctly Chinese way of relating to and altering the environment. Unmatched in his ability to synthesize a complex subject clearly and cogently, Marks has written an accessible yet nuanced history for any student interested in China, past or present, or indeed in the world’s environmental future.

Steppes form one of the largest biomes. Drastic changes in steppe ecology, land use and livelihoods came with the emergence, and again with the collapse, of communist states. Excessive ploughing and vast influx of people into the steppe zone led to a strong decline in nomadic pastoralism in the Soviet Union and China and in severely degraded steppe ecosystems. In Mongolia nomadic pastoralism persisted, but steppes degraded because of strongly increased livestock loads. After the Soviet collapse steppes regenerated on huge tracts of fallow land. Presently, new, restorative steppe land management schemes are applied. On top of all these changes come strong effects of climate change in the northern part of the steppe zone. This book gives an up-to-date overview of changes in ecology, climate and use of the entire Eurasian steppe area and their effects on livelihoods of steppe people. It integrates knowledge that so far was available only in a spectrum of locally used languages.

100 Animals to See Before They Die is inspired by the Zoological Society of London's recently launched conservation project EDGE - Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered. EDGE targets some of the world's most bizarre and unusual creatures, animals which are extremely distinct in the way they look, live and behave. They have few or no close relatives and require immediate action to save them from extinction. If they disappear there will be nothing like them left on the planet. Amazingly, many of these species are ignored by existing conservation plans. 100 Animals fights this ignorance by highlighting the danger these species are in and will encourage greater involvement in the fight to save them. Some EDGE species, such as tigers, elephants and pandas are well known, but 100 Animals features dozens of lesser known and extraordinary animals such as the Yangtze River Dolphin (the world's rarest cetacean), the Bumblebee Bat (the smallest mammal on earth) and the egg-laying Long-beaked Echidna. Organised by world regions (Eurasia, Australasia, Africa, New World, South East Asia, the Oceans) and with a whole section devoted to Madagascar, 100 Animals is inspirational and packed with information about each animal and where to find it. Each animal is illustrated in colour and accompanied by a distribution map and information about its key characteristics and the specific threats it faces, plus details about any conservation work taking place.

The Eurasian beaver was near extinction at the start of the twentieth century, hunted across Europe for its fur, meat and castoreum. But now the beaver is on the brink of a comeback, with wild beaver populations, licensed and unlicensed, emerging all over Britain.

This scientific-popular book gives a detailed information about the terrain of Naliboki Forest, which include the relief forming, climate, geobotanic data, analysis of flora and description of the plant communities, maps and geographical names, invertebrate animal species list and the gained knowledges on population ecology of vertebrate animal species as well as historical outline and ethnographical sketch. It is a second edition of the Naliboki Forest book that was firstly published in 2016. In the new edition of the book some new text and a lot of new photo information about the forest massif have been added as well some improvements of its first edition have been done.