Much of human experience can be distilled to saltwater: tears, sweat, and an enduring connection to the sea. In Vast Expanses, Helen M. Rozwadowski weaves a cultural, environmental, and geopolitical history of that relationship, a journey of tides and titanic forces reaching around the globe and across geological and evolutionary time. Our ancient connections with the sea have developed and multiplied through industrialization and globalization, a trajectory that runs counter to Western depictions of the ocean as a place remote from and immune to human influence. Rozwadowski argues that knowledge about the oceans—created through work and play, scientific investigation, and also through human ambitions for profiting from the sea—has played a central role in defining our relationship with this vast, trackless, and opaque place. It has helped us to exploit marine resources, control ocean space, extend imperial or national power, and attempt to refashion the sea into a more tractable arena for human activity. But while deepening knowledge of the ocean has animated and strengthened connections between people and the world’s seas, to understand this history we must address questions of how, by whom, and why knowledge of the ocean was created and used—and how we create and use this knowledge today. Only then can we can forge a healthier relationship with our future sea.

A beautiful, evocative, and eminently useful array of texts sharing the foundational practices from Jigme Lingpa's Heart Essence transmission. These foundational practices have for over three centuries been one of the most widely practiced and beloved gateways to Dzogchen in Tibet. Like most Tibetan practices, these are chanted in solitary practice or in groups, their words supporting the vision, emotion, and understanding being cultivated. This compilation of texts includes the story, history, music, and commentaries to help practitioners more fully understand the elements of the practice. A link to downloadable audio of the chants in English is included, so that practitioners can absorb the meaning while also following along with the chants written in English and Tibetan.

Vast Expanses is a cultural, environmental and geopolitical history that examines the relationship between humans and oceans, reaching back across geological and evolutionary time and exploring different cultures around the globe.

This engaging and curiosity-rousing book blends scientific fact with a timely conservation message and anecdotes of a family's encounters with nature. It is an invitingly readable guided tour of the flora, fauna, and landscape of the distinctive Georgia coast.

In this comprehensive study, first published in 1950, Professor Fisher examines all the principal elements – physical and human – that influence environment, development and ways of life in the Middle East. An analysis of the physical basis of the region is followed by detailed treatment of the complex human and social aspects; a concluding section brings together, on a regional basis, the elements discussed in the first two parts. With first-hand experience within the Middle East, Fisher presents a detailed and fascinating study, based on surveys and investigations he personally carried out. Including wide-ranging geographical, historical, sociological and political perspectives, this title provides essential background to anyone with an interest in Middle Eastern affairs.

The graptolites constitute one of the geologically most useful taxonomic groups of fossils for dating rock successions, understanding paleobiogeography and reconstructing plate tectonic configurations in the Lower Palaeozoic. Graptolites were largely planktic, marine organisms, and as one of the first groups that explored the expanses of the world’s oceans are vital for understanding Palaeozoic ecology. They are the best and often the only fossil group for dating Lower Palaeozoic rock successions precisely. Thousands of taxa have been described from all over the planet and are used for a wide variety of geological and palaeontological (biological) research topics. The recent recognition of the modern pterobranch Rhabdopleura as a living benthic graptolite enables a much better understanding and interpretation of the fossil Graptolithina. In the decades since the latest edition of the Graptolite Treatise, the enormous increase of knowledge on this group of organisms has never been synthesised in a compelling and coherent way, and information is scattered in scientific publications and difficult to sort through. This volume provides an up-to-date insight into research on graptolites. Such research has advanced considerably with the use of new methods of investigation and documentation. SEM investigation and research on ultrastructure of the tubaria has made it possible to compare extant and extinct taxa in much more detail. Cladistic interpretation of graptolite taxonomy and evolution has advanced the understanding of this group of organisms considerably in the last two decades, and has highlighted their importance in our understanding of evolutionary processes. This book will show graptolites, including their modern, living relatives, in a quite new and fascinating light, and will demonstrate the impact that the group has had on the evolution of the modern marine ecosystem. This book is aimed not only at earth scientists but also at biologists, ecologists and oceanographers. It is a readable and comprehensible volume for students at the MSc level, while remaining accessible to undergraduates and non-specialists seeking up-to-date information about this fascinating topic in palaeobiology.