Monoculture

Monoculture

Author: F. S. Michaels

Publisher: Red Clover Press

Published: 2011-04-25

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 098685381X

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Winner of the George Orwell Award. One of The Atlantic's best books of the year. As human beings, we've always told stories: stories about who we are, where we come from, and where we're going. Now imagine that one of those stories is taking over the others, narrowing our diversity and creating a monoculture. Because of the rise of the economic story, six areas of your world - your work, your relationships with others and the environment, your community, your physical and spiritual health, your education, and your creativity - are changing, or have already changed, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. And because how you think shapes how you act, the monoculture isn't just changing your mind - it's changing your life. In Monoculture, F.S. Michaels draws on extensive research and makes surprising connections among disciplines to take a big-picture look at how one story is changing everything. Her research and writing have been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Killam Trusts, and regional and municipal arts councils. Michaels has an MBA, and completed five years of PhD studies in Organizational Analysis. She lives in British Columbia, Canada. "A single lucid narrative that's bound to first make you somewhat uncomfortable and insecure, then give you the kind of pause from which you can step back and move forward with more autonomy, authenticity and mindfulness than ever." - The Atlantic "A thin, enrapturing gem. It's accessible, sensible--exactly the sort of book that should have (and still could + should!) take off and create a tiny little dent in books." - Kenyon Review "A smart and realistic guide to first recognizing the monoculture and the challenges of transcending its limitations." - Maria Popova, BrainPickings.org "I found myself reading non-stop, underlining like crazy...an astute explanation about what I've been feeling recently, something I couldn't put my finger on...[Michaels] writes in clear, energetic prose that's thoughtful, engaging and unforced. She defines and analyzes without judgment or insistence...a breath of fresh air." - NPR "...a singularly brilliant and accessible analysis of some of the fundamental assumptions and driving principles of our time." - Comment Magazine "5 stars: The cause and effect of our world is more surprising than you'd think. With intriguing notions about the driving ideas of stories in every shape of our life, "Monoculture" is an incredibly fascinating way about how the mind works and today's consumer culture." - Midwest Book Review "If you just read one book this year, read this one." - BuriedInPrint.com


Book Synopsis Monoculture by : F. S. Michaels

Download or read book Monoculture written by F. S. Michaels and published by Red Clover Press. This book was released on 2011-04-25 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the George Orwell Award. One of The Atlantic's best books of the year. As human beings, we've always told stories: stories about who we are, where we come from, and where we're going. Now imagine that one of those stories is taking over the others, narrowing our diversity and creating a monoculture. Because of the rise of the economic story, six areas of your world - your work, your relationships with others and the environment, your community, your physical and spiritual health, your education, and your creativity - are changing, or have already changed, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. And because how you think shapes how you act, the monoculture isn't just changing your mind - it's changing your life. In Monoculture, F.S. Michaels draws on extensive research and makes surprising connections among disciplines to take a big-picture look at how one story is changing everything. Her research and writing have been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Killam Trusts, and regional and municipal arts councils. Michaels has an MBA, and completed five years of PhD studies in Organizational Analysis. She lives in British Columbia, Canada. "A single lucid narrative that's bound to first make you somewhat uncomfortable and insecure, then give you the kind of pause from which you can step back and move forward with more autonomy, authenticity and mindfulness than ever." - The Atlantic "A thin, enrapturing gem. It's accessible, sensible--exactly the sort of book that should have (and still could + should!) take off and create a tiny little dent in books." - Kenyon Review "A smart and realistic guide to first recognizing the monoculture and the challenges of transcending its limitations." - Maria Popova, BrainPickings.org "I found myself reading non-stop, underlining like crazy...an astute explanation about what I've been feeling recently, something I couldn't put my finger on...[Michaels] writes in clear, energetic prose that's thoughtful, engaging and unforced. She defines and analyzes without judgment or insistence...a breath of fresh air." - NPR "...a singularly brilliant and accessible analysis of some of the fundamental assumptions and driving principles of our time." - Comment Magazine "5 stars: The cause and effect of our world is more surprising than you'd think. With intriguing notions about the driving ideas of stories in every shape of our life, "Monoculture" is an incredibly fascinating way about how the mind works and today's consumer culture." - Midwest Book Review "If you just read one book this year, read this one." - BuriedInPrint.com

Monoculture Farming

Monoculture Farming

Author: Tapan Kumar Nath

Publisher: Nova Publishers

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9781634852128

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Monoculture farming is nowadays a widespread practice throughout the world. In order to meet the food demand of rapidly increasing populations, the diverse agroecosystems have been converted mostly into single cropping sectors. Even though food productivity with high input has been boosted to some extent, it is at the cost of local biodiversity loss. This book, drawing examples from several tropical and sub-tropical countries, documents some of the most prevailing monoculture practices and their socio-economic and environmental influences. It describes widespread commercial monoculture of rubber and oil palm, as well as the invasion of exotic mono-plantations in the forestry sector. Both rubber and oil palm are highly lucrative businesses, and these industries have brought positive impacts on rural development, regional economies, including lifting small farmers out of poverty. The rapid expansion of oil palm and rubber in the last few decades has resulted in widespread deforestation, biodiversity loss, and carbon emissions in the tropics, and has also negatively affected the livelihoods of many local communities. Similar effects have also been observed in the case of the conversion of heterogenous forests into monocuture plantations. An integrated land use planning approach is suggested in order to minimize the negative impacts and maximize the positive benefits of monoculture farming. Further, enhancing plant-soil microbial interactions through innoculation of arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi for soil fertility management is also suggested. With up-to-date information on this subject matter, this book will benefit researchers, academics, students, policymakers and practitioners.


Book Synopsis Monoculture Farming by : Tapan Kumar Nath

Download or read book Monoculture Farming written by Tapan Kumar Nath and published by Nova Publishers. This book was released on 2016 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monoculture farming is nowadays a widespread practice throughout the world. In order to meet the food demand of rapidly increasing populations, the diverse agroecosystems have been converted mostly into single cropping sectors. Even though food productivity with high input has been boosted to some extent, it is at the cost of local biodiversity loss. This book, drawing examples from several tropical and sub-tropical countries, documents some of the most prevailing monoculture practices and their socio-economic and environmental influences. It describes widespread commercial monoculture of rubber and oil palm, as well as the invasion of exotic mono-plantations in the forestry sector. Both rubber and oil palm are highly lucrative businesses, and these industries have brought positive impacts on rural development, regional economies, including lifting small farmers out of poverty. The rapid expansion of oil palm and rubber in the last few decades has resulted in widespread deforestation, biodiversity loss, and carbon emissions in the tropics, and has also negatively affected the livelihoods of many local communities. Similar effects have also been observed in the case of the conversion of heterogenous forests into monocuture plantations. An integrated land use planning approach is suggested in order to minimize the negative impacts and maximize the positive benefits of monoculture farming. Further, enhancing plant-soil microbial interactions through innoculation of arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi for soil fertility management is also suggested. With up-to-date information on this subject matter, this book will benefit researchers, academics, students, policymakers and practitioners.

Monocultures of the Mind

Monocultures of the Mind

Author: Vandana Shiva

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 1993-02

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 9781856492188

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Vandana Shiva has established herself as a leading independent thinker and voice for the South in that critically important nexus where questions of development strategy, the environment and the posititon of women in society coincide. In this new volume, she brings together her thinking on the protection of biodiversity, the implications of biotechnology, and the consequences for agriculture of the global pre-eminence of Western-style scientific knowledge. In lucid and accessible fashion, she examines the current threats to the planet's biodiversity and the environmental and human consequences of its erosion and replacement by monocultural production. She shows how the new Biodiversity Convention has been gravely undermined by a mixture of diplomatic dilution during the process of negotiation and Northern hi-tech interests making money out of the new biotechnologies. She explains what these technologies involve and gives examples of their impact in practice. She questions their claims to improving natural species for the good of all and highlights the ethical and environmental problems posed. Underlying her arguments is the view that the North's particular approach to scientific understanding has led to a system of monoculture in agriculture - a model that is not being foisted on the South, displacing its societies' ecologically sounder, indigenous and age-old experiences of truly sustainable food cultivation, forest management and animal husbandry. This rapidly accelerating process of technology and system transfer is impoverishing huge numbers of people, disrupting the social systems that provide them with security and dignity, and will ultimately result in a sterile planet in both North and South, In a policy intervention of potentially great significance, she calls instead for a halt, at international as well as local level, to the aid and market incentives to both large-scale destruction of habitats where biodiversity thrives and the introduction of centralised, homogenous systems of cultivation.


Book Synopsis Monocultures of the Mind by : Vandana Shiva

Download or read book Monocultures of the Mind written by Vandana Shiva and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 1993-02 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vandana Shiva has established herself as a leading independent thinker and voice for the South in that critically important nexus where questions of development strategy, the environment and the posititon of women in society coincide. In this new volume, she brings together her thinking on the protection of biodiversity, the implications of biotechnology, and the consequences for agriculture of the global pre-eminence of Western-style scientific knowledge. In lucid and accessible fashion, she examines the current threats to the planet's biodiversity and the environmental and human consequences of its erosion and replacement by monocultural production. She shows how the new Biodiversity Convention has been gravely undermined by a mixture of diplomatic dilution during the process of negotiation and Northern hi-tech interests making money out of the new biotechnologies. She explains what these technologies involve and gives examples of their impact in practice. She questions their claims to improving natural species for the good of all and highlights the ethical and environmental problems posed. Underlying her arguments is the view that the North's particular approach to scientific understanding has led to a system of monoculture in agriculture - a model that is not being foisted on the South, displacing its societies' ecologically sounder, indigenous and age-old experiences of truly sustainable food cultivation, forest management and animal husbandry. This rapidly accelerating process of technology and system transfer is impoverishing huge numbers of people, disrupting the social systems that provide them with security and dignity, and will ultimately result in a sterile planet in both North and South, In a policy intervention of potentially great significance, she calls instead for a halt, at international as well as local level, to the aid and market incentives to both large-scale destruction of habitats where biodiversity thrives and the introduction of centralised, homogenous systems of cultivation.

Monoculture in Agriculture

Monoculture in Agriculture

Author: United States. Department of Agriculture

Publisher:

Published: 1973

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13:

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Book Synopsis Monoculture in Agriculture by : United States. Department of Agriculture

Download or read book Monoculture in Agriculture written by United States. Department of Agriculture and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Emerging Monoculture

The Emerging Monoculture

Author: Eric Kramer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2003-02-28

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0313059535

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Kramer brings together experts from a variety of minority backgrounds and from around the world to give their perspectives on the most pervasive ideology today, globalism. The basic premise is that a developed country is different from a developed community. They need not be mutually exclusive, but neither is it assumed that they are necessarily consonant. The various essays offer answers to such vital questions as What does it mean to become a 'global citizen'? and What does it mean to be a 'model minority' in a global economy? The process of becoming a mainstream person involves being first marginalized with the implication that something is inadequate about one's self. The process of assimilationism is manifested as various forms of enforced and/or rewarded acculturation. With the vast human migration currently underway, the notion of assimilation has become a global phenomenon. What is occurring, Kramer and his colleagues demonstrate, is a worldwide shift from the village milieu to the city lifestyle. This migration is seen as a polycentric and global phenomenon whereby the promised land is nowhere in particular, but, instead, a way of life and mindset, an urban lifestyle. This process is far more than a simple change in geography. Moving from the village to the cityscape involves a mutation in worldview and self-identity. Additional questions asked throughout the collection are What set of persuasive assumptions are leading the world in this direction? and What might be lost in the process? A provocative collection for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with development studies, multiculturalism, and urbanization.


Book Synopsis The Emerging Monoculture by : Eric Kramer

Download or read book The Emerging Monoculture written by Eric Kramer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2003-02-28 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kramer brings together experts from a variety of minority backgrounds and from around the world to give their perspectives on the most pervasive ideology today, globalism. The basic premise is that a developed country is different from a developed community. They need not be mutually exclusive, but neither is it assumed that they are necessarily consonant. The various essays offer answers to such vital questions as What does it mean to become a 'global citizen'? and What does it mean to be a 'model minority' in a global economy? The process of becoming a mainstream person involves being first marginalized with the implication that something is inadequate about one's self. The process of assimilationism is manifested as various forms of enforced and/or rewarded acculturation. With the vast human migration currently underway, the notion of assimilation has become a global phenomenon. What is occurring, Kramer and his colleagues demonstrate, is a worldwide shift from the village milieu to the city lifestyle. This migration is seen as a polycentric and global phenomenon whereby the promised land is nowhere in particular, but, instead, a way of life and mindset, an urban lifestyle. This process is far more than a simple change in geography. Moving from the village to the cityscape involves a mutation in worldview and self-identity. Additional questions asked throughout the collection are What set of persuasive assumptions are leading the world in this direction? and What might be lost in the process? A provocative collection for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with development studies, multiculturalism, and urbanization.

The Aesthetics of Ambiguity

The Aesthetics of Ambiguity

Author: Nav Haq

Publisher:

Published: 2020-10

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9789492095763

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In today?s globalised world, terms such as multiculturalism and pluralism assume a shared culture with shared values and convictions about openness, democracy, and equality. This in turn can be seen as a monoculture of views and attitudes. Yet being able to deal with differences, paradoxes, and ambiguities results from a learning process and does not just happen on its own. Art has played a pivotal role in this process since the dawn of modernity, and artists in particular have the ability to play with cultural conventions. This book gives a platform to art and artists who dare to challenge the rules of our globalised, monocultural society, and explores their successes and failures.


Book Synopsis The Aesthetics of Ambiguity by : Nav Haq

Download or read book The Aesthetics of Ambiguity written by Nav Haq and published by . This book was released on 2020-10 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In today?s globalised world, terms such as multiculturalism and pluralism assume a shared culture with shared values and convictions about openness, democracy, and equality. This in turn can be seen as a monoculture of views and attitudes. Yet being able to deal with differences, paradoxes, and ambiguities results from a learning process and does not just happen on its own. Art has played a pivotal role in this process since the dawn of modernity, and artists in particular have the ability to play with cultural conventions. This book gives a platform to art and artists who dare to challenge the rules of our globalised, monocultural society, and explores their successes and failures.

Environmental Issues

Environmental Issues

Author: Ron Fridell

Publisher: Marshall Cavendish

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 9780761418856

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Discusses the environment and issues concerning keeping the environment clean, how energy is produced and consumed, what happens to the waste products, how we can change the environment and the future of the Earth's environment.


Book Synopsis Environmental Issues by : Ron Fridell

Download or read book Environmental Issues written by Ron Fridell and published by Marshall Cavendish. This book was released on 2006 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the environment and issues concerning keeping the environment clean, how energy is produced and consumed, what happens to the waste products, how we can change the environment and the future of the Earth's environment.

Extractivisms, Existences and Extinctions

Extractivisms, Existences and Extinctions

Author: Markus Kröger

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-10-27

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 1000473872

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This book explores the existential redistributions that extractivist frontiers create, going beyond existing studies by bringing into the English-language discussion much of the wisdom from Latin American rural and forest communities’ understandings of extractivist phenomena, and the destruction and changes in lives and lived environments they create. The author explores the many different types of extractivism, ranging from agroextractivist monocultures to mineral extraction, and analyzes the differences between them. The existential transformations of Brazil's Amazon and Cerrado regions, previously inhabited by Indigenous people but now being deforested by colonizers who expand soybean plantations, are analyzed in detail. The author also compares extractivisms with the local and broader existential changes through global production networks and their shifts, produced by monoculture plantation-based extractivist operations. Anchored in the author’s own ethnographic data and comparison of lessons across multiple extractivist frontiers, the chapters integrate the many accounts of violence, and onto-epistemic and moral changes in extractivist enclaves, looking at these with the help of political ontology. The book offers details on how to characterize and compare different types and degrees of extractivisms and anti-extractivisms. This transdisciplinary book provides new organizing concepts and theoretical frameworks for starting to analyze the unfolding natural resource politics of the post-coronavirus era, the advancing climate emergency, and the ever more chaotic multi-polar world. It will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of international development, global value chains, political economy, Latin American Studies, political ecology, and international trade, as well as anyone engaged with the practical and political issues related to globalization. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.


Book Synopsis Extractivisms, Existences and Extinctions by : Markus Kröger

Download or read book Extractivisms, Existences and Extinctions written by Markus Kröger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-10-27 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the existential redistributions that extractivist frontiers create, going beyond existing studies by bringing into the English-language discussion much of the wisdom from Latin American rural and forest communities’ understandings of extractivist phenomena, and the destruction and changes in lives and lived environments they create. The author explores the many different types of extractivism, ranging from agroextractivist monocultures to mineral extraction, and analyzes the differences between them. The existential transformations of Brazil's Amazon and Cerrado regions, previously inhabited by Indigenous people but now being deforested by colonizers who expand soybean plantations, are analyzed in detail. The author also compares extractivisms with the local and broader existential changes through global production networks and their shifts, produced by monoculture plantation-based extractivist operations. Anchored in the author’s own ethnographic data and comparison of lessons across multiple extractivist frontiers, the chapters integrate the many accounts of violence, and onto-epistemic and moral changes in extractivist enclaves, looking at these with the help of political ontology. The book offers details on how to characterize and compare different types and degrees of extractivisms and anti-extractivisms. This transdisciplinary book provides new organizing concepts and theoretical frameworks for starting to analyze the unfolding natural resource politics of the post-coronavirus era, the advancing climate emergency, and the ever more chaotic multi-polar world. It will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of international development, global value chains, political economy, Latin American Studies, political ecology, and international trade, as well as anyone engaged with the practical and political issues related to globalization. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

The Convergent Evolution of Agriculture in Humans and Insects

The Convergent Evolution of Agriculture in Humans and Insects

Author: Ted R Schultz

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2022-02-15

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 0262367564

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Contributors explore common elements in the evolutionary histories of both human and insect agriculture resulting from convergent evolution. During the past 12,000 years, agriculture originated in humans as many as twenty-three times, and during the past 65 million years, agriculture also originated in nonhuman animals at least twenty times and in insects at least fifteen times. It is much more likely that these independent origins represent similar solutions to the challenge of growing food than that they are due purely to chance. This volume seeks to identify common elements in the evolutionary histories of both human and insect agriculture that are the results of convergent evolution. The goal is to create a new, synthetic field that characterizes, quantifies, and empirically documents the evolutionary and ecological mechanisms that drive both human and nonhuman agriculture. The contributors report on the results of quantitative analyses comparing human and nonhuman agriculture; discuss evolutionary conflicts of interest between and among farmers and cultivars and how they interfere with efficiencies of agricultural symbiosis; describe in detail agriculture in termites, ambrosia beetles, and ants; and consider patterns of evolutionary convergence in different aspects of agriculture, comparing fungal parasites of ant agriculture with fungal parasites of human agriculture, analyzing the effects of agriculture on human anatomy, and tracing the similarities and differences between the evolution of agriculture in humans and in a single, relatively well-studied insect group, fungus-farming ants.


Book Synopsis The Convergent Evolution of Agriculture in Humans and Insects by : Ted R Schultz

Download or read book The Convergent Evolution of Agriculture in Humans and Insects written by Ted R Schultz and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributors explore common elements in the evolutionary histories of both human and insect agriculture resulting from convergent evolution. During the past 12,000 years, agriculture originated in humans as many as twenty-three times, and during the past 65 million years, agriculture also originated in nonhuman animals at least twenty times and in insects at least fifteen times. It is much more likely that these independent origins represent similar solutions to the challenge of growing food than that they are due purely to chance. This volume seeks to identify common elements in the evolutionary histories of both human and insect agriculture that are the results of convergent evolution. The goal is to create a new, synthetic field that characterizes, quantifies, and empirically documents the evolutionary and ecological mechanisms that drive both human and nonhuman agriculture. The contributors report on the results of quantitative analyses comparing human and nonhuman agriculture; discuss evolutionary conflicts of interest between and among farmers and cultivars and how they interfere with efficiencies of agricultural symbiosis; describe in detail agriculture in termites, ambrosia beetles, and ants; and consider patterns of evolutionary convergence in different aspects of agriculture, comparing fungal parasites of ant agriculture with fungal parasites of human agriculture, analyzing the effects of agriculture on human anatomy, and tracing the similarities and differences between the evolution of agriculture in humans and in a single, relatively well-studied insect group, fungus-farming ants.

Forest Ecosystems

Forest Ecosystems

Author: David A. Perry

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 678

ISBN-13: 9780801849879

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"Fresh, exciting, and more comprehensive than many other texts. Perry introduces a whole new view of forest ecosystems. This will challenge, stimulate, and redefine current understanding and management." -- Michael Amaranthus, U.S. Forest Service


Book Synopsis Forest Ecosystems by : David A. Perry

Download or read book Forest Ecosystems written by David A. Perry and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fresh, exciting, and more comprehensive than many other texts. Perry introduces a whole new view of forest ecosystems. This will challenge, stimulate, and redefine current understanding and management." -- Michael Amaranthus, U.S. Forest Service