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Locust: The Devastating Rise And Mysterious Disappearance Of The Insect That Shaped The American Frontier - Couverture rigide

Lockwood, Jeffrey A.

 
9780738208947: Locust: The Devastating Rise And Mysterious Disappearance Of The Insect That Shaped The American Frontier
Couverture rigide
ISBN 10 : 0738208949 ISBN 13 : 9780738208947
Editeur : Basic Books, 2004

Synopsis

Throughout the nineteenth century, swarms of locusts regularly swept across the continent, turning noon into dusk, demolishing farm communities, and bringing trains to a halt as the crushed bodies of insects greased the rails. In 1876, the U.S. Congress declared the locust "the single greatest impediment to the settlement of the country." From the Dakotas to Texas, from California to Iowa, the swarms pushed thousands of settlers to the brink of starvation, prompting the federal government to enlist some of the greatest scientific minds of the day and thereby jumpstarting the fledgling science of entomology. Over the next few decades, the Rocky Mountain locust suddenly--and mysteriously--vanished.A century later, Jeffrey Lockwood set out to discover why. Unconvinced by the reigning theories, he searched for new evidence in musty books, crumbling maps, and crevassed glaciers, eventually piecing together the elusive answer: A group of early settlers unwittingly destroyed the locust's sanctuaries just as the insect was experiencing a natural population crash. Drawing on historical accounts and modern science, Locust brings to life the cultural, economic, and political forces at work in America in the late-nineteenth century, even as it solves one of the greatest ecological mysteries of our time.

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À propos de l'auteur

Jeffrey A. Lockwood is Professor of Natural Sciences and Humanities at the University of Wyoming. The author of Grasshopper Dreaming , he has been awarded a Pushcart Prize as well as the 2003 John Burroughs Award.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
Basic Books
Date d'édition
2004
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
0738208949
ISBN 13 
9780738208947
Reliure
Relié
Nombre de pages
320
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible