Nature's Chaos - Softcover

James Gleick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349108013 ISBN 13: 9780349108018

Publisher: Abacus, 1996

Synopsis

The essence of the earth's beauty lies in chaos, in the disorder of grasses strewn in a meadow, the blotching of green lichen on a tree trunk. Eliot Porter's photographs of the natural world, spanning thirty-five years and five continents-from an Antarctic ice floe to an American desert to an Icelandic lava field-reveal in mesmerizing ways what scientists are beginning to see for themselves: the patterns, relations, and inter-actions present in nature's disorder and wildness. This is the perfect marriage of image and text-brilliant full-color photographs by the preeminent nature photographer of his generation together with an illuminating essay by the widely praised author of Chaos.

About this title

About the Author

James Gleick is also the author of the bestselling book, Faster. He has been an editor and a science writer for the New York Times and edited The Best American Science Writing 2000.

Eliot Porter (1901-1990) was a photographer of international renown. His books include In the Wilderness Is the Preservation of the World and Intimate Landscapes, a retrospective compiled by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

From Library Journal

This collaboration by the eminent nature photographer and the recent author of Chaos: Making a New Science ( LJ 8/87) uses the photographer's observation of the "random chaos of the natural world--a world of endless variety where nothing was ever the same" to elucidate the new science. While reflections on the disorder of nature are eloquently articulated by both Gleick and Porter, the main offering is the selection of over 100 photographs, most previously unpublished, culled from a lifetime of work. Details and fragments are intermixed with landscapes, exploring the tension between order and chaos. Here are icicles, lichens, mosses, rocks, leaves, lava flows, clouds, cinders, even crab scratchings and flamingos, from far flung places such as Kenya, Uganda, Tan zania, Maine, Michigan, the Galapagos, Iceland, Antarctica, and Asia. What is revealed in this new book is more than the science of chaos--it is the wonder of this photographer's eye and artistry.
- Ann Copeland, Champaign, Ill.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Abacus
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0349108013
• ISBN 13: 9780349108018
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English