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November 2002
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Book Reviews
Ecology
and Sustainable Development
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Ecology and Sustainable Development
P S Ramakrishnan
National Book Trust, India,
2001 pp. 198, Price: Rs. 70/-
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In his book on Ecology and Sustainable Develo-pment, P S Ramakrishnan, renowned
Indian ecologist, who spent years studying the indigenous agro-ecosystems
of biodiversity-rich north-east India, seeks to harmonize conservation and
development through community participation. This sleek volume of nine chapters
points to the flaws in the popular concept of development as limitless economic
growth, an approach that has marginalised the indigenous people and their
ecological wisdom. |
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Address for Correspondance
M D Subash Chandran,
Department of Botany,
Dr Baliga College of Arts and Science,
Kumta 581 343, India.
 Read full article (48 Kb) |
From Smiling Birds to Dancing Gods:
A View of Evolution
Amitabh Joshi
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| “The vision of one man lends not its wings to
another”, says the prophet in Kahlil Gibran’s eponymous book, and this is,
by and large, true. A few people, however, are gifted with a power of expression
so remarkable that they can give their readers or listeners at least a few
glimpses into their vision. A century and a half ago, the urdu poet Ghalib
claimed that he possessed a unique and beautiful way of putting things (kahtey
hain ke Ghalib ka hai andaaz-e-bayaan aur), and no one has yet disagreed
with this somewhat grandiose but nonetheless accurate self-assessment. Among
the science writers of the last hundred years or so, Stephen Jay Gould was
one for whom a similar Ghalibian claim to uniqueness and beauty in writing
would have been very apt. I first came across Gould’s writings in 1987,
when a collection of his essays, Ever Since Darwin, was prescribed as supplementary
reading for a course on evolutionary biology being taught by John Thompson.
We students were required to write critiques of some of the chapters, in
addition to discussing the book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book,
and since then I have read almost every book Gould wrote. As time went by,
and my own views on evolutionary processes and patterns matured, I began
to find much in Gould’s writings with which I disagreed as an evolutionary
biologist. My appreciation for Gould as a writer and historian of evolutionary
biology, however, remained very high and, if anything, rose higher with
time. |
The Flamingo’s Smile
Stephen Jay Gould
Penguin Books, London
pp.476, Price: £6.99, 1991.
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Address for Correspondance
Amitabh Joshi
Evolutionary Biology Laboratory,
JNCASR, Jakkur PO, Bangalore 560 064, India.
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| Read full article (48 Kb) |
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