AltWeeklies Wire
'Catching Fire' Can Be Boldly Essentialist ... Perhaps Too Boldly Essentialistnew
Since the 1950s, scientists have hypothesized that the key factor bringing our ancestors down from the trees was the decision to eat meat. In this persuasively argued book, Richard Wrangham disagrees. Instead, he writes, it was the decision to cook with fire that literally made us human.
The Texas Observer |
James E. McWilliams |
07-15-2009 |
Nonfiction
'The Gulf Stream' Helps Us Understand Human-Centered Ecologynew
Stan Ulanski has written a multilayered and eminently insightful book about the way the natural world works. His topic is what the founder of modern oceanography, Matthew Fontaine Maury, has called "a river in the ocean" -- the Gulf Stream.
The Texas Observer |
James E. McWilliams |
10-08-2008 |
Nonfiction
Is There a Middle Way in the Globalization Debate?new
As Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine, by Stan Cox, and Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out Of Africa, by Robert Paarlberg collectively demonstrate, the globalization debate seems to demand either a stifling of common sense, or a radical reassessment of assumptions.
The Texas Observer |
James E. McWilliams |
07-02-2008 |
Nonfiction
Michael Pollan Stumbles with His Latest Booknew
Big claims, not too much support, mostly unconvincing. That's my nutshell response to Pollan's most recent answer to "the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy."
The Texas Observer |
James E. McWilliams |
03-26-2008 |
Nonfiction
