Book Description
Divided into three sections, Hope, Human and Wild profiles the efforts of three caring communities to preserve wilderness and reverse environmental devastation. They include the reforestation of McKibben’s home territory, New York’s Adirondack Mountains; solving traffic and pollution problems in the densely populated Curitiba, Brazil; and how the citizens of Kerala, India have demonstrated that quality of life doesn’t depend on overconsumption of resources. This edition features a new introduction that revisits these places and explores how they’ve changed over the years.
Customer Reviews:
This book changed my life.......2007-09-29
In it, there are stories about how entire communities have been positively transformed by the action of a few determined individuals. This book will have you contemplating how you can affect change in your own community, and will give you the courage to enact it.
At Last I Get It.......2006-02-01
This book is an exploration into what's right and what's wrong with the planet and our relationship with it. It was written as a sequel to an earlier book by McKibben, "The End of Nature." In this book, McKibben starts by identifying some areas where there is hope for improvement in the environment in the future. The book is arranged in four parts. In the first part, McKibben considers examples of environmental recovery in his own region. He then turns to two parts of the world with very different local solutions to global problems. The first of these is Curataiba, Brazil, a city made famously livable by some very forward-thinking city planners. He then turns to Kerala, India, noting that a relatively high quality of life can be achieved with extremely limited resources, provided one addresses the key structural problems of society first. In the last section of the book, he reflects on his observations from the three regions.
McKibben hardly needed to look any further than his own backyard for proof that the environment can indeed bounce back to some extent from extreme abuse. His backyard in the Adirondacks is now full of trees, a condition that is now common throughout the Eastern United States. Much more common, in fact, than it was just fifty years ago. A little over a hundred years ago, most landscapes in the Northeast were treeless. The trees had been cut down to clear fields, to use for ship building and house construction, and most notably, to use for fuel. With the invention of a plow that could at last turn the thick prairie soil, many of the New England farmers pushed westward, glad to leave their cold, stony fields to grow up into forest again. But changes in fuel usage played an even larger role in the recovery of the trees. A hundred years ago, we got 90% of our energy from wood, necessitating the cutting down of millions of acres of forest per year just to keep the economy going. With the switch to petroleum-based fuels, we now rely on wood for just 10% of our energy, and as a result, the forests in the East are now thicker than they have been for over four hundred years. In tandem with the return of the trees, the wildlife are also coming back, and wild turkeys and bear sightings are now more common in this region than they have ever been since the arrival of Europeans on the continent. As petroleum fuels become more difficult and expensive to come by, we can only hope that we will stumble on a new fuel to replace oil, just as oil replaced wood.
McKibben's discussion of Curataiba is quite stimulating. He describes how ingenious local leaders made the city into a model of a livable, workable metropolis. They did this not by copying technology of developed countries, but by creating original solutions based on locally available materials and culture. Kerala also was faced with seemingly insurmountable problems of poverty, race, and class. Individual leaders in Kerala were successful in getting the community to rally around local solutions to these problems. Thus, McKibben's theme seems to be, in a world of ever-increasing globalization, where all problems are global, the solutions need to be local.
I've been wrestling with trying to understand globalization ever since the protests in Seattle. Despite reading heavily on the topic and talking to others, I just couldn't understand why the protesters made such a fuss. I even completed a discussion course on globalization offered by the Northwest Institute, and I still didn't get it. But as I read this book, the problems of an economy controlled by transnational corporations finally began to sink in. McKibben describes the shocking extent of deforestation in Maine. It just so happens that a South African company is now one of the largest owners of timber rights in the state. With a home office some 10,000 miles distant, they don't have a personal stake in what happens to the Maine environment. So millions of acres of forest in the state are being clear cut, but visitors and locals don't notice the missing trees because the companies leave 50 yard wide swathes of undisturbed forest along the roads, trails, and waterways. Along with the clear cuts comes erosion, silting of streams, and massive loss of habitat for the wildlife. After reading about Maine, I thought about a plot of land up the road that is currently being logged. Fortunately, the land up the road is owned not by a transnational corporation, but by a neighbor, who has a vital interest in seeing that the forest remains healthy throughout his logging operations; indeed, he is truly managing the forest, rather than simply cutting down trees. I now see calls for supporting the local economy rather than going with the flow of globalization in a new light-in purchasing items made in a global economy, we may unwittingly be contributing to environmental destruction on a massive scale, destruction that is magnified by the fact that the decision makers in the production process have no personal interest in the environment that they are damaging. And the ones who do have a personal interest in that environment are powerless to fight the big companies. If, on the other hand, we support local producers and local economies, we can directly influence how the producers treat the land. At the same time, the local producers have a very personal interest in not causing damage to their own homes and livelihood. Indeed, there is plenty of food for thought in this book.
Up from poverty.......2005-04-17
Bill McKibben offers a more hopeful set of scenarios in this book, pointing to cities like Curitiba and regions like Kerala as examples of how communities can achieve sustainability and raise standards of living without big money projects. Closer to home, McKibben shows how forests are being regenerated in the Northeast allowing wolves, moose and other wild species to reinhabit this region. But, something seemed to be missing in this volume. It lacked the focus of The End of Nature and didn't seem to go very far beyond surface observations. Nonetheless, I am thankful to McKibben for drawing attention to Curitiba and Kerala, showing that in many ways the so-called Third World has achieved greater sustainability than many parts of the so-called First World, leading him to make the salient observation that maybe we should re-examine our priorities here in the United States.
The End of Nature's Sequel.......2004-10-25
Hope, Human and Wild is a kind of sequel to The End of Nature in which Bill McKibben highlights some positive, hopeful examples of sustainable human activity. He quotes Al Gore as saying, essentially, that our environmental problems now exceed our political ability to solve them. This is a deeply disturbing statement, so McKibben profiles a pair of cities in Brazil and India where sustainability and quality of life movements have taken hold and are actually succeeding. The implications are obvious: if two Third World cities can pull this off despite long odds, both political and environmental, then why can't we?
McKibben's studies of Curitiba, Brazil, and Kerala, India are both informative and uplifting, containing concrete examples of what creative thinking and political courage can achieve. We long, then, for a chapter or so in which these examples are applied to American urban centers; we long for a roadmap of possibilities applied to our culture of greed and consumerism. We long for an idea-or even the hint of an idea-we can use to break our cycle of destructive consumption. Instead, McKibben returns to his beloved Adirondacks and editorializes about the need for community, local economies, and so on. He demonstrates (I believe correctly) that sustainable agrarian communities beget sustainable wild lands and open space as well as a healthier human psyche. Trouble is, though, succeeding on this small scale will not make a dent in the larger problem.
McKibben does not use this book to explore a more global vision. The seeds are there, but once the harvest begins he falls back upon his mountains and the good, community life one is often able to achieve when living on an urban income in a rural area. He begins to proselytize and sound more like a politician: we need to do this, and we should do that-these are obvious goals, but how do we get there? McKibben's Jeffersonian ideals are just that, ideals, and the idealistic will make them work. What we need now is a program of ideas that can build toward a sustainable world while countering the effects of the tragedy of the commons.
Despite this, McKibben's work is vitally important and should be read. His body of work will one day define our era.
Another Thoughtful Book By Bill McKibben.......2002-10-01
In a time when many people finally accept the fact of global warming and of continuing human assault on the environment, Bill McKibben has launched this wonderfully written, inspiring, and informative book, another in his continuing series of important essays on the complex relationship between humankind and the planet we inhabit. McKibben, a former writer for The Atlantic Monthly magazine, transplanted himself and his small family in the Adirondack region of upstate New York in the late 1980s, from whence he has come once more to deliver a healthy dollop of insight, whimsy, and wisdom concerning the way we continue to walk not so lightly on the earth.
Like most environmentalists, McKibben is deeply concerned about the continuing onslaught on the skin of the planet, and about our continuing disregard for the welfare of everything within the natural environment we most depend upon to have a continuing quality of life. Yet he is also propelled by aspects of his own experience with the ecology of his local area to set off on what he terms to be an exploration of hope, in the sense that he was searching for examples of recovery and progress in the natural landscape. One wonderful example he uses is that of the recovery of the amount of land reforested since the signal journey of one Timothy White, who in traveling in the early 1800s found very little land not cut and turned to the plow. Yet some two hundred years later, much of the Northeast forest is once again covering the landscape, and all of this in spite of the vastly increased population over the landmass in question.
Of course, as McKibben admits, must of the reforesting took place based on the gradual abandonment of the lands of the Northeast in the so-called western migration as we fulfilled our "Manifest Destiny", and this migration also spelled further deforestation efforts in those area under active migration. Once again, part of the genius of the natural environmental processes can be viewed in such a way, requiring not so much in the way of human intervention as in a kind of purposeful benign neglect (my own hackneyed term, not McKibben's). Left alone long enough, natural processes are underway that are restoring the Northeast forests to their primordial glory. And, like McKibben, I wonder at the good fortune some of us have to live in relatively sparsely developed and populated areas, where we can enjoy nature on amore personal level, where deer and bear and moose and all sorts of birds are free to live and roam. I sit in wonder with my friends the Labradors and watch, enraptured as the geese soar noisily above me this time every year.....
Moreover, one must share his frustration and sadness at the prospect of such massive forces denuding and despoiling the ecosystems even as we read and write. While he offers some reasons for hope, the truth may be that things will have to become much worse for human beings to begin to act more responsibly in following his advice to find many more ways to walk more lightly on the earth. It is imperative for those of us who understand the magnitude of the dangers confronting us act to continue to try to inform others, while also preparing to gradually break our own bonds to this culture of waste and wanton destruction. This book is more fuel for our own sustenance as we begin the long journey back to what Joni Mitchell once called "the garden'. See you there! Enjoy!
Book Description
Internationally recognized wilderness expert Tom Brown, Jr., teaches us that we must undergo a shift in consciousness--a change in spirit--in order to heal our suffering planet.
Customer Reviews:
You MUST read this book.......2003-01-10
If you ever read anything in your life, make it this book. I cannot explain how important it is that you read this book.
You will understand my urgentness once you have read it. Please.
A Great Book.......2000-04-02
Tom Brown's books are all very good including this one. It is about Tom having grown up by an old Apache named Grandfather. Grandfather teaches him many skills of the wilderness - both physical and spiritual. It is a great book and ties in to Tom's whole series of books. I encourage you to read them. They will give you a new awareness on life that you never thought of before.
Book Description
When Carlos brings a mystery rock to school, he hopes Ms. Frizzle will tell him what kind of rock it is. But the Friz doesn't like to tell when she can show....That's how the class ends up on a wild rock hunt in the Wild West, trying to solve a mineral mystery! They take a stagecoach ride, pan for precious gems, and even explore an old mine. Sure, the going gets a little rough at times--but this road trip rocks!
Book Description
Americans have been warned since the late 1970s that the buildup of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere threatens to melt the polar ice sheets and irreversibly change our climate. With little done since then to alter this dangerous path, the world has reached a critical threshold. By the end of the century, it will likely be hotter than at any point in the last two million years, and the sweeping consequences of this change will determine the future of life on earth for generations to come.
Taking listeners from the melting Alaskan permafrost to storm-torn New Orleans, acclaimed journalist Elizabeth Kolbert approaches this monumental problem from every angle. She interviews researchers and environmentalists, explains the science, draws frightening parallels to lost civilizations and presents the moving tales of people who are watching their worlds disappear. Growing out of an award-winning three-part series for the New Yorker, Field Notes from a Catastrophe brings the environment into the consciousness of the American people and asks what, if anything, can be done to save our planet.
Customer Reviews:
Eloquent But Only Notes.......2007-10-09
The title of this book is apt: Field Notes. Whether the word Catastrophe is equally apt, or merely good salesmanship, can be left undecided for the moment. Chapter by chapter, Ms Kolbert has written honestly and earnestly. Chapter 2, for instance, recounts the historical development of the concern over global warming, clearly and fairly, in a mere nine pages. Chapter 3 outlines the recent studies of glaciers, and the possible implications of those studies, with equal brevity and clarity. Chapter 1 sets a passionate tone for the whole book, confronting the fearful sense of global warming at the level of villagers whose lives are already impacted; I have kayaked many times in the Seward Peninsula region, over a span of 25 years, and I've personally felt the real urgency that Ms. Kolbert reports. Each chapter of the book is in fact an essay unto itself. Ms. Kolbert is a front-line journalist, not a climatologist. That is the source of her stylistic clarity, obviously, and of her daring in reporting on the crisis at multiple levels. It also makes her vulnerable to the dogmatic deniers of anthropogenic climate change, as is colorfully exhibited in the several ranting one-star reviews on this page.
This is the University of Washington common book for 2007-8.......2007-10-04
The University of Washington has selected this book as its "Common Book" for the 2007-2008 academic year. That means each of the UW's 10,000+ incoming freshman this year have received a copy of the book and are reading it.
An Extraordinary Work: Important and Readable.......2007-09-23
`Field Notes From a Catastrophe' is Elizabeth Kolbert's masterpiece of conciseness and clarity explaining current climate change science and the political obstacles (read the US, Republicans, and Bush Administration in ascending order) to getting serious about attacking the problem. Originally published in 2005, the paperback version has an afterword written in 2006.
Kolbert takes a journalist's approach to explaining the climate change phenomenon (the book began as a series in the New Yorker). She takes the reader to Shishmaref, Alaska an island village rapidly becoming an untenable place to live due to climate-induced sea ice changes, to the North Slope, to the great Greenland ice shield and she brings the story down to a human scale.
Kolbert also leads the reader through the science of global warming making understandable seemingly arcane topics like "dangerous anthropogenic interference" (DAI), which is basically the point where something truly major goes haywire. Kolbert brings the joy of learning to the reader, until one ponders the potential consequences of what she lays out for us. Perhaps most disturbing is the evidence she marshals that the climate has already changed. For example, the climate has warmed sufficiently to allow numerous butterfly species to migrate to new previously too cold locations and to cause the extinction of certain frog species.
Scientists do not, of course, understand everything about climate change (indeed, it is in the very nature of science that an endpoint of total knowledge is never achieved). Those political and economic forces (primarily in the United States) that benefit from the status quo latch on to the uncertainties to create doubt among the public and forestall action. Her interviews with Bush administration officials strike an odd note - they stonewall with robotic incantations. While Europe and most of industrialized world has acted, the US has dithered, delayed, and denied.
Kolbert explains why scientists conclude that it is virtually certain that under the current `business as usual' approach, greenhouse gas concentrations will reach a level that causes massive coastal flooding, large scale extinctions, and crop failures leading to starvation (DAI). These outcomes will not be evenly distributed and are likely to fall heaviest on the poorest countries. Scientists do not, however, know what level of greenhouse gas concentration will cause these impacts. The Bush administration uses that uncertainty as a reason to do essentially nothing and Congress too has failed to force any action.
Kolbert's book inspires the reader to search out even more current information (NOAA's Arctic Change web site is one good source). And the news is alarming. This stuff is not just a tree hugger's paranoid delusion: global heating is happening, it is happening now, and it is getting worse faster than anticipated.
Kolbert's book is a work of journalism (and given the rapidly changing reality, journalism is probably the best source of information) that informs on both the science and the politics of climate change without stridently hectoring the reader. Kolbert presents the facts. The reader would have to be a dim bulb indeed not to get the picture.
Absolutely the very highest recommendation. Kolbert's Field Notes From a Catastrophe deserves more than 5 stars.
Some very misleading reviews here.......2007-08-09
Reviewer T. Ferrell says "The author comes from an assumption that climate was once stable and has recently become unstable. She states this directly several times and it is the overall impression she intentionally leaves."
I'm not sure if the reviewer didn't actually read the book or is deliberately trying to smear it, but Kolbert states many times that the climate has changed in the past.
This is clearly written sober account of global warming and the effects it is having, and will have, on the environment. An excellent, concise read.
Climate has never been "stable".......2007-07-04
While the book was well written as prose, it was intellectually myopic. The author comes from an assumption that climate was once stable and has recently become unstable. She states this directly several times and it is the overall impression she intentionally leaves. Certainly climate change has an effect on people, flora and fauna, but that does not mean that you ignore the fact that there are winners with climate change as well as losers. Example, as the globe warms agriculture moves north expanding into areas previously too frigid to support farming. No mention of this?
But it is not that she just focuses just on the losers. She glosses over issues that might complicate her simple thesis that man is responsible for climate change as "not understood." This is the explanation she gives for example when discussing how atmospheric CO2 was historically low during the ice ages and was high during periods of warming. This is "unknown." She simply ignores the fact that the worlds oceans hold most of the planets CO2 both directly as an absorbed gas, its concentration being directly related temperature. She also ignores the carbon bank in phytoplankton. I believe she does this because it would bring into question her simple thesis. What warmed or cooled the worlds oceans before man was on the scene.
This is a problem for me because a wider view of climate change would reveal the true issues. At one point in time the earth was a snowball entirely covered with ice. At another point in our past the oceans were much higher and the poles were nearly devoid of ice. If global climate has always been in flux do we now propose that man should control the world's climate? If so, what is the best climate? Is it the best thing to have a sizeable portion of the worlds surface are covered in ice or too cold to support agriculture? Who decides? If man does control the weather is the only way to do it to cut back on fossil fuel useage? The author appears to believe so. Does the entity who controls climate take responsibilty for the weather and its effects? A freeze occurs in a temperate agricultural region. Is this now someone's fault?
It's very easy to look who loses with climate change. It is much more difficult to consider the bigger picture. I was not impressed by this book.
Book Description
A who's who of Lincoln scholars explores why Lincoln considered the Union the "last best hope of earth" and how his words and deeds have continued to shape the nation through modern times. Focusing on Lincoln's view of American history and his legacy for the United States and the world, this volume demonstrates the complexity of the problems Lincoln faced and the genius of his leadership in preserving the nation while purging it of slavery.
Book Description
God originally planned for mankind to live on earth, and His plan, though postponed by sin, will not be thwarted - it will come to pass in the future when a new earth is created.
God describes this future earth in hundreds of verses, and Christ spoke of it in his first recorded sermon, so surely it is important that we understand it properly. Christianity needs to replace the vague ideas about heaven with the concrete and vivid images of the future life that are so abundantly portrayed in Scripture. Only then Christians will become grounded in biblical certainties about the world to come.
Very importantly, The Christian's Hope shows from Scripture that each Christian will be rewarded in the coming world in direct proportion to the quality of how he lives for God in this world. If the believer's vision of the future is clear and certain, he has a much greater possibility of standing like a rock and working faithfully in service to the Lord, despite the pressures and pleasures of this world. Our Hope of a better place is to be the anchors of our souls. The Christian's Hope will become a treasured part of any believer's library, and its contents an important source of comfort, peace, and strength.
Customer Reviews:
"The Christians Hope", A book that will touch your heart. .......2007-10-07
There are so many christians who start out on fire for the Lord, and then fizzle once the attacks and temptations of this world come. Many of them don't have a clear picture of just what our "Christian Hope" is all about. That what we do on this earth counts! Many believe that after salvation there is nothing else to accomplish. The truth is there is so much more after that. Reading this book will recharge your battery, and allow you to hold onto that "Hope" when the trials and temptations of this life come your way.
This book is beautifully written by a man who obviously loves God, and has a heart to share the truth with others. This book has really blessed me, and I believe it can do the same for you.
I can't say it better than the author himself. Here is a quote from pg. 11 in the introduction.
Pg. 11 "Truly the Lord opens our blind eyes so that we may see and opens our hearts so we can understand both the meaning and value of the timeless word of God. My prayer, for myself and for you as you read this book, is not original. It was in the heart of the apostle Paul and penned to the church in Ephesus almost 2000 years ago."
Ephesians 1:18
I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.
"May we all understand the Hope the Lord has set before us"
How did I miss it before?.......2007-07-28
John Schoenheit makes such wonderful information so clear. He always ask those reading his studies to see if it is true or not and not to accept it just on blind faith. I've read a lot of John's works and he is one that loves God's Word and shows how it all fits from beginning to end. Sorry to say, there are many who claim to love God's Word and yet grab verses here and there to make their case and yet don't make sense how those verses fit along others that are contradictory.
John brings out God's truth on a Christian's future. You will praise God on what He has in store for us and want to be a part of it now. What we do now determines so much about our future.
I highly recommend this book.
Book Description
Mark E. Neely, Jr., gives us the first compact biography of Abraham Lincoln based on new scholarship. Neely, a Pulitzer prize-winning historian, vividly recaptures the central place of politics in Lincoln's life. Richly illustrated, nuanced and accessible, written with attention to the age in which Lincoln lived, yet ever alert to universal moral questions, this book provides a portrait of Lincoln as an extraordinary man in his own time and ours.
Customer Reviews:
A PRAGMATIC HERO.......2000-10-16
The Title of Professor Neely's biography of Lincoln is taken from Lincoln's second Message to Congress dated December 1, 1862. It is an inspiring phrase and an apt title for a Lincoln biography. Professor Neely's biography is good and solid in its analysis of Lincoln's life. It lacks, however, something of the eloquence and vision of the title and of Lincoln's words. We never learn why Lincoln considered the United States "the Last Best Hope of Earth" or what that can mean for our country today.
That said, this book is a good introduction to Lincoln and his Presidency. The book skims briefly over Lincoln's life before he became the 16th President. There are advantages to this, but the treatment of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and of the Kansas-Nebraska Act which led to them is too brief to help understand sucession and the Civil War which followed.
The book's treatment of Lincoln's relationship with his Generals and of the strategy of the War is probably the best single chapter. It has something to teach even those who are familiar with the military history of the war. The chapter on Lincoln as a pragmatic politician and on the 1864 campaign is also well done. The book treats the Emancipation Proclamation at length but to me anyway left something to be desired. (The text and some explicit treatment of it would help) and discusses the fate of Civil Liberties during the War and domestic development during the war in good but not dispositive detail.
If you are looking for an understanding of Lincoln and of the Civil War this is a good place to start but not to end. I suggest reading the book together with the complilation of Lincoln's own speeches and writings in the Library of America series.
Good general biography.......2000-05-14
I really enjoyed this work. I felt it could have been more in-depth, but only so much can be expected from its relatively short length. It is a good resource and point of departure for the Lincoln historian or enthusiast, but I would recommend additional reading to fill in the gaps.
Book Description
The Latest Available Pictures From Space
*Produced in cooperation with NASA
*Showcases Earth's most spectacular images from orbiting satellites
*Includes over 250 color photos graphically depicting climate changes, pollution, population growth and more
For the past 40 years, satellites have been sent into space to look back at amazing planet Earth. Scientists, using the most sophisticated imaging technology available, have been recording intimate imagery of life on Earth including:
*Natural geography from oceans to deserts
*Weather and natural events
*Cities and landmarks
*Land and land use
Earthcam, award-winning journalist Terry Hope's follow-up to his hugely successful Spacecam, brings together images of ice caps, volcanoes, forests and more to create this remarkable visual spectacle.
Customer Reviews:
Earthcam.......2007-01-22
Great book with breathtaking photos. It shows the earth at its best. You get a sense of being connected to the world and its place in the the solar system. What a beautiful place.You can actually see the forest and the trees with this book. I would recommend it highly to anyone.
Book Description
Patients need attention, doctors need assistance, the front desk needs records filled out-when you're one of the 2.6 million nurses in America today, everyone needs something! So where's the encouragement, care, and medicine for the soul that a busy nurse needs in order to be an agent of hope and healing? On Call delivers a vital prescription: 366 devotions that help busy nurses go direct to the source of all hope and healing. The daily meditations are brief, uplifting, and supplemented by Scripture. In one year, readings go through the New Testament and psalms to help nurses gain important insight into their own spiritual health as well as learn how to better help others. Written by a nurse with more than forty years experience, this unique devotional speaks directly to the essential needs anyone in the demanding health care profession.
Average customer rating:
- LOUIS' BLUE
- This book is a rare and beautiful find!
- An absolute gem!
- Somewhat entertaining
- I Don't Think So
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Hope: Adventures of a Diamond
Marian Fowler
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Similar Items:
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Blue Mystery: The Story of the Hope Diamond
-
Hope Diamond: The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem
ASIN: 0345444868
Release Date: 2002-03-26 |
Amazon.com
Born scores of miles below the earth's surface eons ago, the great gem known today as the Hope diamond has been "crisscrossing countries and cultures for more than two thousand years," bringing fortune and disaster alike to its many owners. Marian Fowler reconstructs the flawless blue diamond's long journey from its discovery in the mines of northern India to Europe and onward to America. Along the way she looks at the strange mania for gem collecting among Europe's nobility (noting, for instance, that French monarch Louis bought $16 million worth of jewels in the year 1687, to his treasurer's great consternation); studies a remarkable gang of jewel thieves who used the turmoil of the French Revolution to their highly profitable advantage; and examines the career of the American entrepreneur and gem collector Harry Winston, who "became obsessed with owning all the world's largest, most famous diamonds," and whose largesse, though self-serving, made the great gem part of the holdings of the Smithsonian Institution. Fowler's tale has all the twists and turns of a good mystery, and gem fanciers and history buffs alike will enjoy following the Hope diamond's curious career through her pages. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
The Hope Diamond–the largest and most beautiful blue diamond ever found–has inspired centuries of legends and lies, fabulous superstition, and fierce passion. French kings and ravishing Hollywood stars have worn it next to their hearts; reckless aristocrats have let it slip through their fingers. Flaunted, hidden, stolen, and cursed, the Hope Diamond still tantalizes and inspires all who lay eyes on it. Now in Hope: Adventures of a Diamond, Marian Fowler tells the riveting story of this mythical gem and the extraordinary men and women who have owned and lost it.
It is a tale that begins more than a billion years ago in the mountains of India where the gem was forged of basest materials. Unearthed sometime before the birth of Christ, it was more than twice its present size and wondrously shaped. For long slow centuries, the immense blue stone, revered as a divine gift, probably served as the unwinking eye in a statue of a Hindu god.
With the arrival of Europeans, the Diamond was snatched from the realm of the mystical and thrust into the world of commerce, materialism, and political symbolism. Marian Fowler brilliantly unfolds the complex story of how French merchant/adventurer Jean-Baptiste Tavernier acquired the sacred diamond in India and sold it to the one monarch who could–and would–pay for it, King Louis XIV of France. Cut and polished to half its original size, the diamond remained in the possession of the house of Bourbon, passed down from Louis to Louis, until a cabal of common thieves stole it during the French Revolution.
The pace quickens once the diamond comes into the possession of Philip Hope, the scion of a Dutch-based trading and banking empire who gave it the name it has carried ever since. But the heady days in the London townhouses and country estates of the Hope family were brief, and by the twentieth century, the Hope Diamond had become the object of unseemly marital wrangling and social climbing of American millionaires. It was only when diamond master Harry Winston donated this prize to the Smithsonian Institution that the Hope was finally safe and accessible to all who wanted to admire it.
A sweeping saga peopled with the world’s most beautiful women and most unprincipled men, Hope: Adventures of a Diamond is at once a page-turning thriller and a glittering social history of the astonishing few who craved–and could afford–such a gem. Dazzling and delicious, this is a book truly worthy of its flawless, priceless subject.
Customer Reviews:
LOUIS' BLUE.......2006-11-05
No other diamond in the world has the pedigree of the French Blue. This book is fascinating and the author infuses the story with mystery and peaks your interest throughout. From ancient India, to the pinnacle of the French Court, to the fog of London and Mr. Hope, to the elegant hand of Cartier, to the eccentric Mrs. McLean, to the remarkable Harry Winston, to the people of the United States of America, this diamond has had a singular journey. I found this book hard to put down and it made me want to see this breathtaking gem again, I want to look into the azure stone and feel its allure again.
This book is a rare and beautiful find!.......2005-09-27
Don't believe the four reviews below, gentle reader, I beg you! In Hope: Adventures of a Diamond, Marian Fowler has created an absolute masterpiece of non-fiction which combines rock-solid historical reportage with simply the most elegant and satisfying prose that I have ever encountered. This book is an absolute gem, and I can only pity those earlier reviewers who must not have had the intellectual stones to appreciate both the factual depth and stylistic complexity of this virtuoso performance. Simply one of the best books that I have ever read.
An absolute gem!.......2005-09-27
I read the hardcover version of this book, so I am sorry if this review is inappropriate, but I just wanted to express what a joy this book was to read. An inspired historical romp from the vantage point of probably the world's most famous and notorious gemstone, Dr. Fowler proves she is not only an exceptional detective, but one of the finest stylist of the English language writing non-fiction today. Hope is simply one of the most beautiful and enjoyable books that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. An absolute gem!
Somewhat entertaining.......2002-12-19
The most interesting part of this book for me was a glimpse into the lives of French kings who owned the diamond. For the most part, the first 3/4 of the book were a good read. I liked the way the diamond was personified, but didn't care for the way the curse was dramatized, as there was quite frankly little evidence to suggest such a curse. In the more modern history of the diamond, the book starts to become boring, I don't need so many words to tell me that Harry Winston planned not to cut the diamond at all, but changed his mind later and cut it anyway. If you have the time and are interested in the history of the diamond, read the first part of the book and skim through the rest.
I Don't Think So.......2002-07-20
One of the dumbest books I have ever read. Fowler does OK, just OK, when she writes of the more recent history of the diamond because she has well-documented information from which to draw. But, in her chronicles of the stone during the early years of its murky existence, she lets her imagination run wild, her prose becomes over-blown and turgid, and "facts" she throws about are questionable in the extreme. Ghastly, ghastly writing. Do NOT buy this book!
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