How about Self-Made Man by Jonathan Kingdon? I thought it was a great
natural history of the Homo lineage, apparently a bit out of the
mainstream for evolutionary anthropologists, but well-documented and
compelling. I think it would be fine for non-majors. Plus it is
outstanding at describing H. sapiens emerging from the the economy of
nature in a chicken:egg spiral of technological progress and economic
growth, boxing themselves into the corner of carrying capacity in the
process. In fact, it's so good at that that I used it as one of
several books in my ecological economics course before the Daly/Farley
text came out.
Brian Czech, Ph.D., President
Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy
SIGN THE POSITION on economic growth at:
www.steadystate.org/PositiononEG.html .
EMAIL RESPONSE PROBLEMS? Use [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- Jonathan Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Madhu,
I teach an essentially identical course and I have not found any
textbook that is adaquate. I instead ended up writing my own 'textbook'
of course notes which you are welcome to have a copy of, plus selected
readings. The only book I ask my students to read is 'The Third
Chimpanzee' by Diamond, but as inspiration more than as a textbook.
Jonathan
> Hi,
>
> Next fall I am slated to teach an upper division non-majors course
> titled "Human Ecology" here at Fresno State. Its been a few years
> since this course was last taught here, and I will be doing it for
> the first time. Here's the catalog description for the course (as it
> was offered in the past):
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
> BIOL 110. Human Ecology (3 units)
> The study of the relationships between humans and their environment,
> both natural and man-made; emphasis on scientific understanding of
> root causes of current environmental problems.
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
> That's quite broad, and I can think of several ways to approach it in
> (and the recent discussions here on Ecolog-L give plenty to think
> about in this context). I am trying to decide whether to base my
> instruction around readings of papers or a textbook; the latter
> option might work better given that it is a non-majors course, likely
> to draw students from outside the sciences. I would therefore
> appreciate some suggestions from fellow Ecologgers for potential
> textbooks for such a course. And please share any experiences if you
> have taught or otherwise participated in such a course.
>
> thanks,
>
> Madhu
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Madhusudan Katti
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Biology, M/S SB73
> California State University, Fresno
> 2555 E. San Ramon Ave.
> Fresno, CA 93740-8034
>
> 559.278.2460
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~mkatti
> http://reconciliarionecology.blogspot.com/
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the
> humble reasoning of a single individual.
> [Galileo Galilei]
>
