Book Description
We buy more flowers a year than we do Big Macs, spending $6.2 billion annually. We use them to mark our most important events, to express sentiments that might otherwise go unsaid. And we demand perfection. So it’s no surprise that there is a $40 billion global industry devoted to making flowers flawless.
Amy Stewart takes us inside the flower trade—from the hybridizers, who create new varieties in the laboratory, to the growers, who produce flowers by the millions (often in a factory-like setting), to the Dutch auctioneers, who set the bar (and the price), and ultimately to the neighborhood florists orchestrating the mind-boggling demands of Valentine’s and Mother’s Day. There’s the breeder intent on developing the first blue rose; an eccentric horticultural legend who created the world’s most popular lily; a grower of gerberas of every color imaginable; and the equivalent of a Tiffany diamond: the “ Forever Young” rose.
Stewart explores the relevance of flowers in our lives and in our history, and in the process she reveals all that has been gained—and lost—by tinkering with nature.
Customer Reviews:
Wierd title, great book.......2007-10-07
When I saw Amy Stewart's name on a new book I had to have it. I enjoyed her book about earthworms so much that I didn't think she could match it, but I was wrong. This is a wonderful expose of the flower trade around the world. From Holland to South America she tracked down the progress of cut flowers from their hybridizing to the final sale. It all has the ring of truth - that sense that the research was thorough, that nothing was skimped, and aspects of the flower business were presented whole cloth as well as facts being recorded and shared.
Last year I saw roses grown in Ecuador for markets continents away. I read about Dole closing down huge flower-growing greenhouses in poor towns where that was the only source of income. In our hacienda were bouquets of roses enormous beyond belief. Amy Stewart's book places this into perspective for me within the whole world of the flower industry.
In slaking her own curiosity about the natural world, this writer helps us understand our world better. This book is not just about flowers, or even the natural world - it is also about international trade, politics, business affairs and economic and social issues.
An excellent package. I can't wait for her next book.
The dirt DIVA endorses Amy Stewart's book, baby!.......2007-08-28
As an opinionated garden columnist, who preaches organic gardening to anyone who will listen . . . I was thrilled to read a book that finally tells the true story behind the floral industry. The system is ridiculous and needs drastic change. This will only happen when flower consumers are educated enough to see what their purchases are doing to the soil and to the farmers and their families, who work amongst toxic pesticides just so we can have a nice, long-lasting, unscented, superficial flower on our table.
Plus, the book is beautifully written.
AMEN AMY!
Amazing Introduction to Exciting World of Flowers.......2007-08-24
When you go to the supermarket and see groceries, most of us have at least a basic understanding of from where and how the food came to be there, such as the fields where crops grew, ranches where livestock were raised, slaughterhouses, processing facilities, etc. But how many times have most of us thought about flowers? Especially considering just how short a period of time there is between when a flower is picked, when it is displayed in our homes, and when it finally wilts, there are an amazing number of processes and work involved in flowers. Travelling around the world, from the "design" stage (yes, you'll read about how flowers are "engineered") to planting, to selling, to transportation, to marketing, all the way to the florist's shop or the supermarket, Stewart covers it all. You'll even learn a lot about some of the "allied" professions in the flower trade, like logistics, retailing, biotechnology, and more. And best of all, the book is written in a very easy to read style. If you have any interest in flowers and/or you just like learning about how things work, then I wholeheartedly recommend this book to you.
Flower-ific!.......2007-07-04
I brought this book with me on a vacation to Hawaii last week, outwardly hopeful that it would be as great as it sounded, but inwardly nervous that it was not beach-appropriate. But I am delighted (and relieved) to report that it was fantastic, and I could barely put it down. (I went for a wedding, and I would even break it out when I had a spare five minutes.)
I was really impressed with Stewart's ability to take a complicated, international industry and reduce it to enjoyable anecdotes, from a 3rd generation violet grower in California to the early morning Dutch flower auction. Even better, I feel smarter now. (If I hadn't borrowed it from the library, I probably would have broken out my highlighter.) There's just so much information packed in there -- she clearly put a tremendous amount of hours and research into this work.
Having said that, I think you have to like flowers, at least a little bit, to really enjoy Flower Confidential. If you don't, I could see how you'd want to chuck it out the window -- for me, it would be like reading a towering stack of Car & Driver with no end in sight.
[...]
the flip side of all that loveliness.......2007-06-01
As a flower junkie and floral designer, I was vaguely aware of the flower industry's workings, but this book spelled it all out pretty clearly for me. The Big Idea I have taken away from this is that we the flower-buying public need to demand quality, cleanliness and sustainability from the flower industry in the same way we are coming to demand it from those who supply our food. "Fair trade" is a phrase most Americans associate with coffee-- we should expect similar standards with respect to the flowers we purchase as well. All that loveliness should not come at the expense of the health of those producing it or of the integrity of the environment.
Book Description
In the tradition of G. G. Simpson's classic work, Kenneth D. Rose's The Beginning of the Age of Mammals analyzes the events that occurred directly before and after the mysterious K-T boundary which so quickly thrust mammals from obscurity to planetary dominance.
Rose surveys the evolution of mammals, beginning with their origin from cynodont therapsids in the Mesozoic, contemporary with dinosaurs, through the early Cenozoic, with emphasis on the Paleocene and Eocene adaptive radiations of therian mammals. Focusing on the fossil record, he presents the anatomical evidence used to interpret behavior and phylogenetic relationships. The life's work of one of the most knowledgeable researchers in the field, this richly illustrated, magisterial book combines sound scientific principles and meticulous research and belongs on the shelf of every paleontologist and mammalogist.
Book Description
The ultimate inside story: how bureaucracy, politics, and a disregard of science combined to cripple—perhaps forever—a great American city
As deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, Ivor van Heerden had for years been warning state and local officials about New Orleans's vulnerability to flooding. But like Cassandra's, his predictions were ignored—until Hurricane Katrina hit on August 29, 2005. Suddenly, van Heerden found himself at the center of a media maelstrom. Stepping forward to challenge the official version of events, he revealed the truth about the city's shoddy levee construction.
Now, in The Storm, van Heerden shares up-to-the-minute reporting from his investigations and connects the dots among the Army Corps of Engineers, the bureaucrats, the politicians, and the chain of events—both natural and human—that culminated in catastrophe. An epic of cutting- edge science and systemic bureaucratic failure, The Storm is the first book from a major player in the Katrina disaster and a riveting narrative that brings expertise, passion, and a human viewpoint to America's greatest natural disaster.
Customer Reviews:
The Storm.......2007-05-14
Good description of what happened during Katrina and the causes of it. However, it is a first person narrative with a bit of self-congratulation embedded throughout (which is kind of annoying).
Read This, and worry about your town..........2007-01-09
I am a New Orleanian. I was there, I know the details, and I know this writer has a lot to teach about disasters and personal responsibility to the community. He's a good guy who a lot of politicians tried to gag.
The book does a lot of CYA- people who knew what they were doing during Katrina have taken a lot of bludgeoning from fools. Mostly fools in politics and the Corps of Engineers- who caused the whole damn New Orleans disaster through sheer idiocy.
Rad this book and weep, for us, for yourselves. Where ever you live, there's the same incompetance waiting to fail you.
Worth The Time.......2006-11-15
Let me first start by explaining that Ivor Van Heerden is my step father, and Mike Bryan is my good friend. During the months in which this book was written, my family was not only dealing with the aftermath of Katrina, but the effects of someone with such huge ideas and opinions trying to fit them into a few hundred pages. The amount of time and dedication that went into this book alone was enough to encourage me to read it, but once i did i realized that it's positively genius. The detailes he goes into just to make sure the readers can understand what he is about to discuss definitly sets him apart from other katrina authors. And Mike Bryan's years of writing experience really bring eveything together in this book. All in all I have to say that this book is definitly worth your time, if you want to understand the big picture behind katrina, as well as the things not many people knew at the time.
Eye-Opening .......2006-08-04
Get your dictionary out for acronyms... very confusing at times. Great storytelling in the first half of the book, but much finger pointing at the end. Van Heerden is very passionate about his work and point of view. Story matches reality I guess in relation to this catastrophic, horrible event. Very eye-opening, as our government continues down the same road, levee's ...FEMA... wars..... cover-up after cover-up.... Etc...
The Sad Truth.......2006-07-14
As a former emergency management planner, I found this book to be an excellent analysis of what really went wrong in New Orleans. It is a treatise for government officials to learn what not to do and an outline of what we as citizens should demand from our government leaders. It presents very technical information and scientific analysis in a manner that even an elected official can understand. But, beyond presenting the scientific basis of why New Orleans flooded, it presents an outline of solutions that should and must be considered. It is an great testament to the fact that some issues should be above everyday politics and that some important decisions that a government may be asked to make should be based upon science and not political considerations. This is a must read for every citizen and should be a mandatory read for every elected official.
Dr. Barksdale
Average customer rating:
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Conflict Over the World's Resources: Background, Trends, Case Studies, and Considerations for the Future (Contributions in Political Science)
Robert Mandel
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
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ASIN: 0313261296 |
Book Description
As resource scarcity threatens and the economic gap between affluent and poorer nations continues to widen, conflict over natural resources is assuming critical dimensions. Mandel analyzes the causes and consequences of present tensions and offers case studies of five recent or ongoing resource conflicts illustrating major areas of confrontation and identifying the range of policy issues we need to confront. Synthesizing his findings, Mandel demonstrates the need for rethinking current policy and suggests alternative approaches that may help to reduce international conflict. The author first describes worldwide scarcity trends and trends in resource conflict and their relation to international conflict as a whole. He looks at the dynamics of resource competition, assessing the impact of scarcity, declining economic development, environmental awareness, resource interdependence, and other factors. The first case study, centering on the protection of an endangered species, examines the whaling confrontation that began in 1972. The oil crisis and the continuing conflict over fossil fuels is considered next. Other case studies focus on political coercion in the conflict over food; the scarcity of strategic minerals and competition to control them; and the conflict arising from nuclear pollution in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. The concluding chapter, dealing with policy implications, explains why prevailing attitudes toward resources are counterproductive, and suggests ways of working more effectively to minimize international resource conflict. Combining solid empirical analysis with a thorough understanding of environmental theory and comparative resource issues, Mandel's study will be important reading for students and specialists concerned with resource policy, development, international relations, and conflict resolution.
Book Description
When Jim Stiles moved west from Kentucky in the 1970s to make Moab, Utah, his home, that corner of the rural West had already endured decades of obscurity, a uranium boom and then a bust, and was facing an identity crisis. What kind of economy would prevent Moab from becoming yet another ghost town? For more than two decades, environmentalists in southeast Utah have had a simple answer to this question: replace extractive industries-mining, timber, and cattle-with an economy catering to "green" tourists with hotels, restaurants, and bars. They feel that if these lands can be spared further degradation by huge industries, the West could begin to thrive on something cleaner and more lucrative. But Stiles sees a downside to this seemingly idyllic vision. Bringing insight based on decades of residence in Moab, he makes a provocative and compelling argument that the economy most environmentalists hail as the solution to the woes of the rural West is in fact creating an unprecedented impact of its own. In recent years, Moab and other rural towns across the West have seen a massive influx of urbanites fleeing crowded cities in search of a simpler life. Yet Stiles also observes that these transplants are often unwilling to accept the isolation and lack of services that characterize genuine rural life. Believing themselves to be liberal, sensitive, enlightened environmentalists, they nevertheless bring with them exactly the type of lifestyle and ecological impact that they sought to leave behind and, in the process, create a community that no longer serves the native inhabitants. With a blend of travelogue, local color, and geography, Stiles engages readers with folksy humor while defending the lifestyle.
Customer Reviews:
Ed Abbey Lives - thanks Jim!.......2007-04-30
I met Jim Stiles years ago, when he was still rangering at Arches. I was one of those Abbey-seekers who had made a pilgrimage to Moab and Arches after reading Desert Solitaire ( this was September 1980, just before Reagan was elected and Everything changed ). I had found the site of Abbey's trailer, and his rusted septic tank and drainfield pipe. I had taken off my clothes and stood atop a rock to salute, as I recall, the spirit of everything Ed had written about. Ranger Jim came across this scene and said, understandably, "What the hell are you doing?". Well he was very civil and decent about it all. He confirmed I had found the sacred trailer site - heck, he even gave me a t-shirt with his infamous "Glen Canyon Damn" picture ( I still have it!).
Over the years I have enjoyed Jim's writings, and it is great to finally see him put it all in a book. Stiles definitely has the burr under his saddle that Abbey had, and it powers his prose better than most other "nature" writers in the 18 years we've been without Ed. I wish he'd write a novel, because I think he could bring the Monkey Wrench Gang into the 21st century, something we badly need.
I was in Moab, like I said, in 1980, and then again in 2003. Both times I ventured there in a VW Squareback ( Tradition!). I will admit that Moab was a LOT different 23 years later, though my teenage son and I still had a great visit. Christ it was hot! ( It was July, after all, with daytime temperatures as high as 116 degrees.) We explored Arches in the early-morning hours, swam and rafted in the hot afternoon ( and if that wasn't Pure Bliss I don't know what is ) and enjoyed good food and drink and an air-conditioned motel room in the evening. Moab is still a great place to visit, even if you are a low-impact non-biking non-jeeping old Abbey fan like me. Even on this second visit in 2003 I visited Ed's trailer site and easily found the septic tank and rusted pipe again, pretty much exactly as I had found it 23 years earlier. This time, however, I didn't take off my clothes, but instead read aloud the first chapter from Desert Solitaire to the land, to the place that inspired Ed to write his great book so long ago. No one was there ( in body at least ) but me. The timeless beauty and power of that place was - and, thankfully, still is - a real presence in the absolute quiet of that early morning.
Thanks for the great book, Jim. I hope it does well. Write on, brother. Write on.
The Future Of The West Is At Stake.......2007-04-20
Anyone who lives in a small, rural Western town, or anyone contemplating moving to, or, worse yet, just buying property in a small, rural Western town, definitely needs to read this book.
Stiles paints an unflinchingly accurate picture of how the tiny town of Moab became a crowded tourist town filled with fast-food joints and chain hotels. Longtime small business owners were forced out by the giant chain stores and T-shirt shops catering to out-of-town mountain bikers, Jeepers and ATVers. Alfalfa fields and orchards were sold to developers, who slapped up condos and luxury homes for mostly absentee owners, and conservative locals swamped by lycra-clad city dwellers. It's a sad and harsh reality, but Stiles manages quite a few laugh-out-loud moments: comedy is usually funny because it is so true.
The reason the book is important is that this phenomenon is repeating itself throughout the Western United States. Often local residents who may only make about $20,000 a year can no longer afford to live in the towns occupied by their families for generations. City dwellers take the equity from their city properties and invest it in rural land, driving prices out of sight, then bring their sharply different lifestyles to rural towns.
Most environmental groups have been completely silent on these issues, even as millions of new hikers trample the scenery into oblivion. Why? Perhaps because those same hikers and even some developers contribute hefty dollars to enviro groups. So while oil and gas companies contribute to the Bush administration, which then allows drilling on sensitive lands, environmental groups are running afoul of the same money trap--an ironic twist.
Of course the agent driving these ever-growing problems is our ever-expanding population, and Stiles is one of the few to tackle this problem publicly. Why can't our leaders even talk about this?
If you live in a small Western town, read this book, discuss it with your neighbors, and work with your local government to try and prevent this from happening to you.
If you are a city dweller contemplating a relocation or second-home purchase in a rural town, read this book and rethink your move. If you must move there, then stay there, work there, live there, don't build a giant mansion, be sensitive to the locals, try to get to know them. If you want their way of life, then LIVE IT, don't push your lifestyle onto them.
The West Under Seige.......2007-03-23
This is a GREAT book.
Tracing the growth of Moab, Jim Stiles has the huevos to take a long, cold look at what is happening in the Great American West. He has watched Moab (and, by extension, many other small Western towns) sucumb to carpet baggers, dirt pimps, speculators and, the cruelest irony of all, hoardes of nature-loving tourists encouraged by the "amenities economy".
Stiles takes on his friends as well as his enemies, and accuses enviromental groups of rolling over and playing dead while thousands of mountain bikers ride over their limp, unprotesting bodies on the way to Adventure Paradise. Stiles is neither a whiner nor a lamenter, and he shakes his fist at what he calls "enviropreneurs" out to make big bucks off public land. Commercialized nature theme parks are the future of the West, Stiles claims, reminding us of the debt we owe Edward Abbey when he coined the phrase "industrial tourism". Abbey was Stiles' mentor and friend.
Jim Stiles is a lively, accomplished writer, so this bitter pill is not too hard to swallow. Just be careful you don't choke while laughing out loud. Stiles is a very funny man and that's a good thing in these circumstances.
Amazon.com
Cronon's history of 19th-century Chicago is in fact the history of the widespread effects of a single city on millions of square miles of ecological, cultural, and economic frontier. Cronon combines archival accuracy, ecological evaluation, and a sweeping understanding of the impact of railroads, stockyards, catalog companies, and patterns of property on the design of development of the entire inland United States to this date. Although focused on Chicago and the U.S., the general lessons it teaches are of global significance, and a rich source of metaphors for the ways in which colonization of physical space operates differently from, and similarly to, colonization of cyberspace. This is a compelling, wise, thorough--and thoroughly accessible--masterpiece of history writ large. Very Highest Recommendation.
Customer Reviews:
A review from an armchair historian........2006-08-13
There are going to be other reviewers who can provide more erudite reviews-- reviews better grounded in the study of cities or economic history. I am nothing more than an average reader who enjoys non-fiction.
First of all, potential readers should be aware that this is an econonomic history. It follows flows of goods and capital rather than following the lives and careers of the men and women of Chicago. I knew what to expect, but for people looking for a more standard history of Chicago this may make Nature's Metropolis difficult to engage.
I really enjoyed reading the book. It stretched my understanding of the economic growth of cities and raised issues that I had not considered about the role of the city *in* nature (not as opposed to nature). The examination of elements that made Chicago into both a city and The City was fascinating. The chapters tracing grain, lumber and meat as goods were clearly written and underscored the central theses.
I guess it goes without saying that Nature's Metropolis is far from a light read, but that does not make it less rewarding. As someone who does not have a background in history, I only longingly wished that the bibliography had been annotated to help support further reading.
Distinctive and valuable history of urban growth & development.......2006-04-21
This is a very distinctive, well researched and argued book about how Chicago developed. Starting with a standard model of Urban Economics - the von Thunen model of central place theory- the author quickly moves beyond it. The distinctive contribution of his book is Cronon's emphasis on how the roots of Chicago's remarkable development lay in the "soil" of its surrounding hinterlands. He carries this argument further by examining how the transportation and communication revolutions of the 19th century - the railroad and the telegraph - created unique advanatages for Chicago relative to other competitive metropolitan areas (such as St. Louis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee) and finally, how in turn, new metropolitan areas (such as KC, Omaha) arose to steal aways Chicago's dominance.
As other reviewers have noted, the book offers really fascinating, detailed discussions and original research on - for example - the grain and lumber industries as well as capital flows in the midwestern US creatively using court records on corporate failures to track the flow of investments.
This books contains a rich lode of intellectual wealth and it is well worth the effort to mine it.
Solid on Both Facts and Theory.......2004-01-07
Been dying to read this book for at least six months. Finally found it at a used book store for six bucks! Huzzah!
Having now read the book, I probably would have shelled out for it new or used at the 10+ bucks it commands here on Amazon. The 18 reviews below indicates that this is a fairly popular work. That's more then three times the reviews of the other history books I've checked out on Amazon.
Since the other reviews are substantial, I won't comment much, except to say that while several reviewers have commented on the role of "first" and "second" nature in this book, I didn't see anybody mentioning his use of "Central Place Theory", which was apparently developed by German theorists in the 1800's. He also doesn't discuss Lewis Mumford at all, even though he cites to that author in the bibliography.
I thought this book made an interesting contrast with "Imperial San Francisco", another book about the development of a western city. I was hoping Cronon would include more information about the "flow of capital" between Chicago and the FAR west, rather then focusing so intently on Chicago's immediate hinterland.
Cronon chose to focus on a description of the processes which led to the creation of Chicago. It might have been interesting to look at the ways in which the interests of wealthy individuals tracked across various industries and time. A point made in "Industrial San Francisco" was that the oligarch's who made money in mining gradually "cleansed" their money through the purchase of utilities and media firms(newspapers). Did something similar occur in Chicago? I suspect so, but Cronon's treatment of the newspaper/media industry is largely descriptive.
Great for readers interested in history, ecology, economics.......2003-11-21
I remember, many years ago, standing next to an Illinois corn field at the intersection 212th and Cicero and wondering how Chicago's street grid system had worked its way so far into the country side. What in the world did this corn field and the intersection of State and Madison in downtown Chicago have to do with each other? This book explained it to me along the economic history of Chicago -- a history that went a lot farther in explaining the citys size, influence, and even existence than the biographies Marshal Field, Potter Palmer, the Colonel, and the rest.
Great read.
Best 'textbook' ever.......2003-02-09
This was the best book I've ever had assigned in a class. It was part of the assigned readings for a Princeton University course "History of the American West". Perhaps the context of the class helped to make the book, but it is still well written and seems to strike a good balance between a historical view and an economic view of the story it tells.
Book Description
1998 Winner of the International Studies Association's Harold and Margaret Sprout Award
Peter Dauvergne developed the concept of a "shadow ecology" to assess the total environmental impact of one country on resource management in another country or area. Aspects of a shadow ecology include government aid and loans; corporate practices, investment, and technology transfers; and trade factors such as consumption, export and consumer prices, and import tariffs.
In Shadows in the Forest, Dauvergne examines Japan's effect on commercial timber management in Indonesia, East Malaysia, and the Philippines. Japan's shadow ecology has stimulated unsustainable logging, which in turn has triggered widespread deforestation. Although Japanese practices have improved somewhat since the early 1990s, corporate trade structures and purchasing patterns, timber prices, wasteful consumption, import tariffs, and the cumulative environmental effects of past practices continue to undermine sustainable forest management in Southeast Asia.
This book is the first to analyze the environmental impact of Japanese trade, corporations, and aid on timber management in the context of Southeast Asian political economies. It is also one of the first comprehensive studies of why Southeast Asian states are unable to enforce forest policies and regulations. In particular, it highlights links between state officials and business leaders that reduce state funds, distort policies, and protect illegal and unsustainable loggers. More broadly, the book is one of the first to examine the environmental impact of Northeast Asian development on Southeast Asian resource management and to analyze the indirect environmental impact of bilateral state relations on the management of one Southern resource.
Customer Reviews:
A sound framework for understaning environmental degradation.......2001-06-30
There's a lot of information out there about the destruction of the planet, but an understanding of where it comes from is harder to come by. Vulnerable Planet is a very useful starting point. Using historical materialism to trace the roots of environmental degradation, Foster breaks down some of the key debates, showing that it is not over-population, industrial production or humanity in of itself that is the problem. Rather the way that production and distribution are organized under capitalism that consistently puts the drive for profit above environmental sustainability. This book is short, but packed with information, statistics, and crucially a sound political framework from which to understand both the roots and the solution to the problem.
Slender but potent.......2000-07-29
This is a little book, but very informative, although some may be put off by its Marxist point of view. Environmental destruction, as Foster shows, is as old as humankind. Nevertheless destruction of the natural world has increased at an astonishing rate during modern times making ours a very vulnerable planet. Foster links this increase to a specific social system, capitalism, instead of industrialism in general as many other critics do. This is a thought-provoking connection to make, since our media is usually silent on this topic. According to Foster (and Marx), it seems our system, capitalism, has an inborn need to turn everything it can into a saleable commodity in order to make money. Moreover it has to keep expanding commodities into ever new fields in order to return profits on money already invested. Like Topsy, then, the laws of its development tell it to either grow or die. Thus, when venture capitalists look at nature, they don't see what is living there; they see limitless raw material to be processed and sold, and if they don't do it, some competitor will. It is this relentless engine of development and destruction that has made the planet vulnerable. Thus Foster blames the problem on the way our economy operates, and not on technology in general. Critics should examine his arguments.
A couple of other subjects Foster discusses are worthy of review, given how they are usually talked about. On the topic of population and poverty, Malthus, an 18th century clergyman, famously blames poverty on the poor. The poor keep having kids when they shouldn't, he argues, which is why there are more hungry mouths to feed than food to feed them. So, the lesson is don't feed them, they'll just have more kids. Being a parson and a kind of Newt Gingrich of his time, he would leave the wretched to the mercies of God. On the other hand, Foster (and Marx) take an historical perspective on overpopulation. Capital must have the poor, because wage levels depend on having an excessive number of poor people around. Employers need them as so-called replacement workers, should their own employees strike for higher wages. Without that threat, wages would rise and employers would lose money. The poor are not God's creation, they are man's. (Considering how our chief cental banker Alan Greenspan acts by encouraging unemployment, Foster's approach makes sense.) Ecology is another important part of our planet's mounting crisis. In making his case that our economic system is the main cause of the problem, Foster discusses Barry Commoner's four informal laws of capitalist ecology. They are worth mentioning. 1) Only the cash nexus (money) is lasting; 2) Waste can go anywhere as long as it's out of the capitalist loop; 3) The free market knows best: 4) nature is the possession of the private property owner. Together these provisions make up capital's marching orders in its assault on nature. Provision #3 seems particularly destructive since it replaces the complex web of millions of years of natural evolution with profit-driven human decision. Moreover, these provisions pretty much describe how big corporations act in the real world.
Anyway, friends will find ammunition; foes will find points to ponder; and the appropriately curious will be rewarded. Foster's is a suppressed voice that really needs to be heard.
Average customer rating:
- Really Interesting - If you have ties to KBR
- Decent history of the offshore oil&gas industry's beginnings
- Giants of Offshore Oil Platforms
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Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas
Joseph A. Pratt ,
Tyler Priest , and
Christopher J. Castaneda
Manufacturer: Gulf Professional Publishing
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| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
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ASIN: 0884151387 |
Book Description
Fifty years ago, in November 1947, Brown & Root helped Kerr-McGee build the first out-of-sight-land offshore platform that produced oil. The date is widely celebrated as the birth of the modern offshore industry. In the years since this historic occasion, Brown & Root has continued to pioneer in the design and construction of offshore pipelines and platforms. Along with the rest of the offshore industry, the company has helped develop technology capable of finding and producing oil in deepwater and in harsh environments around the world.
This history puts a human face on the process of technological change. Using the words of many of those who took part in Brown & Root's offshore activities, this book recounts their efforts to find practical ways to recover offshore oil. Building on lessons learned in the Gulf of Mexico before and after World War II, the company's personnel adapted offshore technologies to conditions encountered in Venezuela, the Middle East, Alaska, and other regions before becoming one of the first engineering and construction companies to confront the challenge of North Sea development in the 1960's.
Through times of boom and bust in the oil industry, the search for effective technology had continued. The process has not always been smooth, but the results have been impressive. As we enter a new and exciting era in offshore technology, the history of the first fifty years of the industry provides a useful context for understanding current and future events.
Customer Reviews:
Really Interesting - If you have ties to KBR.......2007-09-26
Offshore Pioneers describes how Brown and Root was willing to take on all manner of applied engineering and construction challenges as oil and gas production moved offshore and into harsher and harsher conditions. The authors follow the industry and document how Brown and Root demonstrated a can-do culture that still exists today as the Company responded to solve oil companies' problems with engineering skill and by extending known practices.
Decent history of the offshore oil&gas industry's beginnings.......2001-07-04
For anyone interested in the beginnings of the marine oil and gas industry, Offshore Pioneers provides a good general history. Since this book was commissioned by Brown & Root, you should expect a certain level of bias. Brown & Root's achievements are obviously highlighted while their defeats are understandably downplayed. This history includes the significant roles of other participants, though mainly in relation to Brown & Root, either as competitor, customer or co-venturer. Beginning with the first baby-steps in offshore exploration (long platforms connecting shore to site), this history lesson progresses to the innovation and ingenuity necessary to explore and exploit hydrocarbons from new environments, such as Lake Maracaibo, the Bay of Campeche, California (short lived program though it was) and the North Sea. As an offshore service analyst, I constantly seek out information on the industry, whether current or historical. Brown and Root did play a large role in the development of the offshore oil and gas industry, from constructing the first platforms out into the Gulf of Mexico, engineering massive North Sea structures, laying pipe in several environments, building construction barges and performing project management. My father had worked for the company for 25 years, and I had already developed an appreciation for their can-do attitude and willingness to work in any environment. If you're looking for a history of the industry's humble beginnings, this is a great book to read. However, Brown & Root ceased being a major force in the offshore energy industry during the 1980's, so don't expect to find any recent history in this work.
Giants of Offshore Oil Platforms.......2001-06-03
This is the history of Brown & Root's Marine Division. Drawing heavily from their knowledge of building warships during World War II, Brown & Root installed the first oil platform out of sight from land off the coast of Louisiana for the Kerr Magee Oil Company in 1947. This was Brown & Root's entry into the offshore construction market. They kept building and installing platforms in increasing depths of the Gulf of Mexico as well as venturing into offshore spots around the world, such as off the coast of Alaska and the most famous offshore location of the North Sea. The book details many of these large well known projects as well as Project Mohole, the cancelled program to drill into the Earth's core from an ocean drill ship. Brown & Root was a participant in this project. An interesting book for anyone who has worked in the offshore oil industry or has an interest in it.
Book Description
This is a history of how physics has drawn some inspiration from economics and how economics has sought to emulate physics, especially with regard to the theory of value. The author traces the development of the energy concept in Western physics and its subsequent effect on the invention and promulgation of neoclassical economics, the modern orthodox theory.
Customer Reviews:
If you want more analysis than "More Heat" had.......2006-04-19
Go read A book he wrote earlier, Against Mechanism. Its sad and time wasting that I have to put up reading through reviews with negative comments based on untrue statements.
Great synthesis, shaky execution.......2006-02-10
This is a work of prodigious scholarship and imaginative synthesis. Mirowski sifted through a tremendous amount of historical material, and approached it with great creativity. He makes an excellent prima facie case that even late 20th Century neoclassical economics is based on an early form of 19th Century thermodynamics -- the way it was before formulation of the Second Law (the one about entropy).
I came at this with more background in physics than in economics (which isn't saying much). I found the history of the principle of the conservation of energy (Ch. 2) fascinating in its own right. For its concise treatment of that topic, this book deserves to be better-known in the "physics-physics" (as distinguished from econophysics) community. As for Prof. McCauley's comment in an earlier Amazon review that Mirowski is confusing potential energy with the action as the appropriate analogue to utility, my impression was that this error isn't unique to Mirowski, but was made by at least some of the economists whose work he is critiquing (e.g. Irving Fisher).
I give this four stars, though, because of some genuine weak points.
First, Mirowski spills much ink faulting economists because they use a physics metaphor that's outdated, but relatively little on the question of empirical justification (or lack thereof) for using any physics metaphor at all. More discussion of this point would have been helpful.
Second, Mirowski's discussion of physics is at times very tentative, like a student who copies stuff into a term paper without understanding it fully, but hoping that he can sort of fake his way through. E.g., he refers to the definition of a curl of a function as a condition (when the condition he means is that the curl = 0), and twice to an exact differential as an "exact differential equation" when no equation is stated; he throws around frequent references to the Lagrangian without ever mentioning its familiar form as the difference between kinetic and potential energy (T-V); and although he includes some equations in his discussion of general relativity, he neither explains his notation nor seems to be sure of what the equations represent.
Finally, his writing style is often pompous and overly ornate. In the early part of the book he seems to have been possessed by the spirits of the 18th and 19th Century writers he's discussing. (I was amazed to learn that he's a Baby Boomer who was still in his 30s when he wrote this book.) He adopts a more entertaining and sarcastic tone when he gets to the neoclassical economists, especially in his take on P. Samuelson near the end of the book. But too often he sounds like a too-clever college student. It makes for an unfortunate contrast to the depth and originality of his argument.
Ideal versus real is the heart of this book.......2005-12-21
First off, the problem with this book is that people jump to conclusions too quickly. If I say that discrete math is not the same as continuous math, yet I go on to point out that the Z-Transform is analogous to the LaPlace Transform, there is an inherent ambiguity, a diaelectric, that seems contradictory but makes sense: all models are just that, models to reality. And reality cannot be modeled exactly (even the Theory of Relativity has flaws, which physicists are exploring today). In medicine for example, Grey's Anatomy, a medical textbook, has been criticized for showing a 'perfect' anatomy that does not in fact exist in nature. Analogously, the old argument about which classical statute was 'better': classical Greek or Roman? Ideal or 'real'? (and if 'real', whose 'real'; the recent statute in Trafalger square showing a paraplegic pregnant woman comes to mind)?
The point being that classical economics is not perfect, nor is it flawed--it just is. Come up with a better model, and the economic world will beat a path to your doorstep.
BTW, I've not read this book. Please recommend this review if it's been helpful.
Baloney.......2005-09-12
I bought this book with high hopes. I found, to my disappointment, that it is baloney. Poorly written -reminscent of travel literature in which every noun is preceded by at least one adjective - and incompetent. If anything the author claims is true, he has not demonstrated it. It is just a meaningless polemic.
The attacks on P. Samuelson and J.M.Keynes are incorrect.......2005-05-18
Mirowski's(M)book correctly points out that Samuelson's attempt to model economics "as if" it was the physics of Boltzmann and Gibbs fails to incorporate the 20th century physics of Einstein(the special theory of relativity(1904) and the general theory of relativity(1915)).However,if Samuelson had discovered the special nature of neoclassical economics,then he,and not John Maynard Keynes,would have been the greatest economist of the 20th century.Mirowski generally is correct that the economics profession has been too engrossed in the advanced Newtonian physics of the 1870-1900 time period.Of course,it is this type of physics that Samuelson was taught in his engineering physics courses when he was a student in the early 1930's(the same conclusion holds for this reviewer in the early 1970's).Unfortunately,Mirowski,instead of correctly pointing out that,despite Samuelson's great technical skills and ingenuity,such an approach could only yield special conclusions(Samuelson did point out that neoclassical theory is strictly limited to an analysis of points lying on the boundary of the static and dynamic production possibilities curves in his principles textbook),appears to come very close to claiming that Samuelson is a scientific fraud .Mirowski's claims are simply false. The second major problem with this book is in its assessment of Keynes's General Theory(GT;1936).Every statement about Keynes and the General Theory in this book is either an error of omission or an error of commission.Mirowski's knowledge of Keynes's mathematical modeling approach in chapters 20 and 21 of the GT is nonexistent.Mirowski's reliance on the error filled commentaries of the mathematically and economically illiterate,inept,and innumerant accountant,Hugh Townshend,whom Mirowski describes as"...a spectacularly perceptive critic..."(Mirowski,p.411)means that he has absolutely no idea of what Keynes is doing.On pp.261-262 of the GT,Keynes gives,not once but twice,the sufficient macroscopic optimality condition required for there to be no involuntary unemployment.It is that the marginal propensity to spend must equal 1.Unless this condition is met,no amount of wage and price flexibility ,even if instantaneous and simultaneous in all markets,will have any effect.Formally ,the mpc must equal 1.If the capital stock is not at an optimal level,then the mpc+mpi=1=mpc+mps condition is required,where mpc is the marginal propensity to spend on consumption goods,mpi is the marginal propensity to spend on investment goods,and mps is the marginal propensity to save.In chapters 20 and 21,Keynes derives this condition from the ground up,using a microfoundations of firms/industries operating under conditions of pure competition.This condition,which any competent mathematician can derive,is that w/p=mpl/(mpc+mpi),where mpl is the aggregated marginal product of labor.If mpc+mpi
<1,involuntary unemployment will automatically exist.Keynes demonstrated that the capitalist system is ,in fact, a system of multiple,stable equilibria.Due to the ignorance of Mirowski, concerning Keynes's Einsteinian revolution in economics,his explicit unsupported attack on P. Samuelson,and his implicit attack ,again unsupported,on John Maynard Keynes,I can't recommend the purchase of this book unless it undergoes a complete revision,concentrating on the deficiencies of modeling economics on late 19th century Newtonian physics only.Mirowski could have written a 5-star book.Instead,he mixs his correct assessment of the misguided attempts of the economics profession to model economics as if it were physics with a series of unsupported attacks on Samuelson and Keynes.
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