A paleontologist draws on present-day research and the fossil record to recreate prehistoric life and to search for clues to the catastrophic mass extinctions that have transformed the evolution of life Ward (On Methuselah's Trail: Living Fossils and the Great Extinctions, LJ 9/15/91) continues his exploration of the history of life and death on Earth. He focuses on two episodes of major extinctions in Earth's past, contending that humanity is now causing a third "mass extinction." His evidence, derived from his research at the University of Washington, is comprehensive and convincing. Ward examines current scientific ideas on evolution and extinction in nontechnical terms. Though his thesis is clear-sometimes overwhelmingly so-interesting, if tangential, digressions occasionally mar the story's flow. Still, Ward's narrative and conversational style is highly readable and helps the text remain rather hopeful. Recommended as a thought-provoking look at the history and future of life on Earth. Jeanne Davidson, Augustana Coll. Lib., Rock Island, Ill. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. When scientists, nature writers, environmentalists, sages, and poets attempt to describe nature, they use words such as interdependent and interwoven. Nature is a web, or a mosaic. Such adjectives and metaphors are based on our still-evolving vision of the earth as a living organism of which we are as much a part as an oak, eagle, or elephant, however toxic and destructive our behavior and habits. This set of outstanding books considers various aspects of our interaction with our world, from creation myths to pollution, herbal medicine to politics. Family of Earth and Sky is an excellent multicultural anthology of nature stories. Editors Elder, who also coedited the invaluable Norton Book of Nature Writing (1990), and Wong have selected tales from cultures as far-flung as the Navajos in the southwestern U.S. and the Masai in Kenya, the Quechua in Guatemala and the Aeta in the Philippines, as well as from communities in India, Paraguay, and Korea. They have organized these stories not geographically, but thematically: origins, animal tales and transformations, tricksters, and tales to live by. In our era of baffling complexity and environmental crisis, these tales affirm our membership in the natural world and remind us that our destruction of life on earth is self-destruction. In The Way of the Earth , McLuhan also provides her readers with a stimulating selection of multicultural texts, but she places her examples within an extensive analysis of how six cultures interpret their spiritual connection to the earth. In a seamless union of thoughtful commentary and dazzling excerpts, McLuhan elucidates the beliefs of Australia's Aborigines, the people of Japan, Greece, and Africa, North American Indians, and the Kogi of Colombia. Her emphasis is on the common threads shared by these diverse and magnificent traditions. At the core of each tradition, she discovered a firm belief in the intrinsic value of the natural world and a vital vision of the earth as mother, healer, and teacher. Every recent book about rain forests decries their destruction and attempts to quantify their value. The key word is biodiversity , and in Earthly Goods , Joyce does a masterly job not only of defining biodiversity, but of describing exactly how it impacts upon our lives. Rain forests generate countless plants that heal physical and spiritual ailments and are home to people who have developed deep knowledge of the properties, preparations, and applications of these medicinals. Certain passionate outsiders, explorer-scientists, perceived the importance of this wealth and created the discipline we now call ethnobotany. Joyce's account of the history of ethnobotany includes animated profiles of remarkable plant-hunters he calls green knights, such as Richard Gill, Richard Evans Schultes, Rosita Arvigo, Michael Balick, and Daniel Janzen. He also chronicles the discovery of such plant-based pharmaceuticals as aspirin, digitalis, quinine, steroids, oral contraceptives, and taxol. Joyce shifts his attention from the majesty and the mystery of the rain forest to the pharmaceutical industry, where science, ethics, and the profit motive interact to fuel wasteful controversies. It all boils down to this: we must commercialize rain forests to preserve them. An interest in modes of thought is at the heart of Marshall's Nature's Web , an analysis of our place on earth. Like McLuhan (see above), Marshall examines a number of diverse traditions, but rather than consider them in depth and offer excerpts of key texts, he provides his readers with succinct summations of how nature is defined in Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, the Judeo-Christian tradition, Christianity, Islam, and the beliefs of North American Indians as well as the religions of ancient Egypt, early Greece, the Romans, and the Celts (one of the liveliest sections). This is all in prepar