Hamilton Morris Recommended Books

A bestseller in its three previous editions, Buzzed is now revised and updated with the most recent discoveries about drugs. It includes new information about biological and behavioral changes in addiction, the prescription-drug abuse epidemic, distinctive drug effects on the adolescent brain, and trends from synthetic cannabinoids to e-cigarettes. "Lively, highly informative, unbiased, [and] thorough" (Addiction Research & Theory), this no-nonsense handbook surveys the most used and abused drugs from caffeine to heroin to methamphetamine. In both quick-reference summaries and in-depth analysis, it reports on how these drugs enter the body, how they manipulate the brain, their short-term and long-term effects, the different "highs" they produce, and the circumstances in which they can be deadly. Neither a "just say no" treatise nor a "how-to" manual, Buzzed is based on the conviction that people make better decisions with accurate information in hand.

The fascinating account of a pioneering ethnobotanist’s travels in the Amazon—at once a gripping adventure story, a passionate argument for conservationism, and an investigation into the healing power of plants, by the author of The What Everyone Needs to KnowFor thousands of years, healers have used plants to cure illness. Aspirin, the world's most widely used drug, is based on compounds originally extracted from the bark of a willow tree, and more than a quarter of medicines found on pharmacy shelves contain plant compounds. Now Western medicine, faced with health crises such as AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer, has begun to look to the healing plants used by indigenous peoples to develop powerful new medicines. Nowhere is the search more promising than in the Amazon, the world's largest tropical forest, home to a quarter of all botanical species on this planet—as well as hundreds of Indian tribes whose medicinal plants have never been studied by Western scientists. In Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice , ethnobotanist Mark J. Plotkin recounts his travels and studies with some of the most powerful Amazonian shamans, who taught him the plant lore their tribes have spent thousands of years gleaning from the rain forest.For more than a decade, Dr. Plotkin raced against time to harvest and record new plants before the rain forests' fragile ecosystems succumb to overdevelopment—and before the Indians abandon their own culture and learning for the seductive appeal of Western material culture. Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice relates nine of the author's quests, taking the reader along on a wild odyssey as he participates in healing rituals; discovers the secret of curare, the lethal arrow poison that kills in minutes; tries the hallucinogenic snuff epena that enables the Indians to speak with their spirit world; and earns the respect and fellowship of the mysterious shamans as he proves that he shares both their endurance and their reverence for the rain forest.

A continuation of the classic PIHKAL, TIHKAL focuses on the family of psychoactive drugs in the tryptamine family and provides a blend of biography, botanical facts, scientific speculation, and psychological and political commentary written by renowned psychopharmacologist Alexander Shulgin and his wife Ann Shulgin. Where PiHKAL focuses on a class of compounds called phenethylamines, TiHKAL is written about a family of psychoactive drugs known as tryptamines with TiHKAL being an acronym for Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved". Like its predecessor, it is divided into two parts. The first part of the book begins with the story of Alice and Shura, a fictionalized autobiography, which picks up where the similar section of PiHKAL left off. The book opens with the story about the DEA raid that occurred a few years after the publication of their first book, PiHKAL. It's a window into the DEA, the institutional aspect and human side of it as well, and the price that Shura and Alice pay for doing what they do, including exercising their first amendment rights. It then continues with a collection of essays on topics ranging from psychotherapy and the Jungian mind, to the prevalence of DMT in nature, ayahuasca, the War on Drugs, and even the Big Bang. It is a blend of travel, botanical facts, scientific speculation, psychological and political commentary. It is fascinating getting to know the mind of the man behind the compounds - his thoughts on science, technology, law, and society. And the mind of the woman who brought his work and their story into the light of the world. The second part of TiHKAL is "The Chemistry Continues". It is a detailed manual for 55 psychedelic compounds (many discovered by Shulgin himself). For each compound there is information on synthesis, effective dosage, duration of effects, and commentary on the subjective effects that were experienced. The Shulgin's' two big books span autobiography, organic chemistry, politics, ethnobotany and psychopharmacology and the cultural impact of these works has been profound and will continue to be so in the future.

World-renowned anthropologist and ethnopharmacologist Christian Ratsch provides the latest scientific updates to this classic work on psychoactive flora by two eminent researchers.• Numerous new and rare color photographs complement the completely revised and updated text.• Explores the uses of hallucinogenic plants in shamanic rituals throughout the world.• Cross-referenced by plant, illness, preparation, season of collection, and chemical constituents.Three scientific titans join forces to completely revise the classic text on the ritual uses of psychoactive plants. They provide a fascinating testimony of these "plants of the gods," tracing their uses throughout the world and their significance in shaping culture and history. In the traditions of every culture, plants have been highly valued for their nourishing, healing, and transformative properties. The most powerful of those plants, which are known to transport the human mind into other dimensions of consciousness, have always been regarded as sacred. The authors detail the uses of hallucinogens in sacred shamanic rites while providing lucid explanations of the biochemistry of these plants and the cultural prayers, songs, and dances associated with them. The text is lavishly illustrated with 400 rare photographs of plants, people, ceremonies, and art related to the ritual use of the world's sacred psychoactive flora.

Pharmacotheon Drogas entegenas, sus fuentes vegetales y su historia Jonathan Ott Se trata del libro multidisciplinar ms completo sobre el tema de los...

A worldfamous ethnobotanist scours the planet in search of new natural cures, unveiling the healing power in snake venom, leech saliva, rainforest frogs, and other natural sources. 22,500 first printing.

THE GHOST DANCE The Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion by Weston La Barre (1915-1996) is a classic search for the origins of religion, employing psychology and anthropology to explain elements of Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, Christian, shamanic and Native American religion.The Ghost Dance offers a fascinating exploration of the history and origins of religious belief from earliest times to the present day. The Ghost Dance takes its place beside other great studies of religion, such as those by Sigmund Freud, Geza Roheim or Mircea Eliade.WESTON LA BARREWeston La Barre is best known for his work in anthropology and ethnography, in which he drew on the theories of psychoanalysis and psychiatry. Born in Uniontown, PA, La Barre studied at Princeton and Yale, and later taught at Rutgers, Wisconsin and Duke universities. La Barre conducted field work across North and South America, and later through India, China, Africa and Europe. He studied the Plains Indians and their peyote cult with Richard Evans Schultes (which resulted in the 1938 book The Peyote Cult). La Barre's masterwork is The Ghost Dance: The Origin of Religion (1970), which draws together his explorations of shamanism, world religion, Native American culture, altered states of consciousness and the use of drugs in belief systems. His other books include The Human Animal (1954), They Shall Take Up Serpents (1962), Culture In Context (1990), and Muelos (1985).BOOKS BY WESTON LA BARREThe Peyote Cult The Aymara Indians of the Lake Titicaca Plateau The Human Animal Materia Medica of the Aymara They Shall Take up Serpents: Psychology of the Southern Snakehandling Cult Shadow of Childhood: Neoteny and the Biology of Religion The Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion Culture in Context, Selected Writings of Weston La Barre Muelos: A Stone Age Superstition About Sexuality

Pihkal (phenethylamines I have known and loved) is a unique book written by renowned psychopharmacologist Alexander shulgin and his wife Ann shulgin. This book gives details of their research and investigations into the use of psychedelic drugs for the study of the human mind, and is also a love story. The second half of the book describes in detail a wealth of phenethlyamines, their physical properties, dosages used, duration of effects observed, and commentary on effects.

In his most extraordinary book, Oliver Sacks recounts the stories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. These are case studies of people who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people or common objects; whose limbs have become alien; who are afflicted and yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents. In Dr Sacks' splendid and sympathetic telling, each tale is a unique and deeply human study of life struggling against incredible adversity.

Published more than forty years ago, The Desert Smells Like Rai n remains a classic work about nature, how to respect it, and what transplants can learn from the longtime residents of the Sonoran Desert, the Tohono O’odham people.In this work, Gary Paul Nabhan brings O’odham voices to the page at every turn. He writes elegantly of how they husband scant water supplies, grow crops, and utilize edible wild foods. Woven through his account are coyote tales, O’odham children’s impressions of the desert, and observations of the political problems that come with living on both sides of an international border. Nabhan conveys the everyday life and extraordinary perseverance of these desert people.This edition includes a new preface written by the author, in which he reflects on his gratitude for the O’odham people who shared their knowledge with him. He writes about his own heritage and connections to the desert, climate change, and the border. He shares his awe and gratitude for O’odham writers and storytellers who have been generous enough to share stories with those of us from other cultural traditions so that we may also respect and appreciate the smell of the desert after a rain.Longtime residents of the Sonoran Desert, the Tohono O'odham people have spent centuries living off the land—a land that most modern citizens of southern Arizona consider totally inhospitable. Ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan has lived with the Tohono O'odham, long known as the Papagos, observing the delicate balance between these people and their environment. Bringing O'odham voices to the page at every turn, he writes elegantly of how they husband scant water supplies, grow crops, and utilize wild edible foods. Woven through his account are coyote tales, O'odham children's impressions of the desert, and observations on the political problems that come with living on both sides of an international border. Whether visiting a sacred cave in the Baboquivari Mountains or attending a saguaro wine-drinking ceremony, Nabhan conveys the everyday life and extraordinary perseverance of these desert people in a book that has become a contemporary classic of environmental literature.

Oliver Sacks's luminous memoir charts the growth of a mind. Born in 1933 into a family of formidably intelligent London Jews, he discovered the wonders of the physical sciences early from his parents and their flock of brilliant siblings, most notably "Uncle Tungsten" (real name, Dave), who "manufactured lightbulbs with filaments of fine tungsten wire." Metals were the substances that first attracted young Oliver, and his descriptions of their colors, textures, and properties are as sensuous and romantic as an art lover's rhapsodies over an Old Master. Seamlessly interwoven with his personal recollections is a masterful survey of scientific history, with emphasis on the great chemists like Robert Boyle, Antoine Lavoisier, and Humphry Davy (Sacks's personal hero). Yet this is not a dry intellectual autobiography; his parents in particular, both doctors, are vividly sketched. His sociable father loved house calls and "was drawn to medicine because its practice was central in human society," while his shy mother "had an intense feeling for structure ... for her [medicine] was part of natural history and biology." For young Oliver, unhappy at the brutal boarding school he was sent to during the war, and afraid that he would become mentally ill like his older brother, chemistry was a refuge in an uncertain world. He would outgrow his passion for metals and become a neurologist, but as readers of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat know, he would never leave behind his conviction that science is a profoundly human endeavor. --Wendy Smith

Marihuana Reconsidered. 1st published in 1971 & updated in '77, was a Harvard University Press bestseller much praised by reviewers. Noted psychiatrist Dr Lester Grinspoon methodically reviews the scientific, medical & popular literature on the effects of marihuana. Today, as the issue of legalizing marihuana for medical use is being reconsidered, this book continues to offer what has been widely acclaimed as the most comprehensive assessment of marihuana & its place in society.PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionThe history of marihuana in the United StatesFrom plant to intoxicant Chemistry & pharmacologyThe acute intoxication: literary & other reportsThe acute intoxication: its properties Motivation of the user Turning on The place of cannabis in medicineAddiction, dependence & the "stepping-stone" hypothesisPsychoses, adverse reactions & personality deteriorationCrime & sexual excessThe campaign against marihuanaThe question of legalizationAbbreviationsSelected BibliographyNotesIndex

A scientific investigation and personal adventure story about zombis and the voudoun culture of Haiti by a Harvard scientist.In April 1982, ethnobotanist Wade Davis arrived in Haiti to investigate two documented cases of zombis—people who had reappeared in Haitian society years after they had been officially declared dead and had been buried. Drawn into a netherworld of rituals and celebrations, Davis penetrated the vodoun mystique deeply enough to place zombification in its proper context within vodoun culture. In the course of his investigation, Davis came to realize that the story of vodoun is the history of Haiti—from the African origins of its people to the successful Haitian independence movement, down to the present day, where vodoun culture is, in effect, the government of Haiti’s countryside.The Serpent and the Rainbow combines anthropological investigation with a remarkable personal adventure to illuminate and finally explain a phenomenon that has long fascinated Americans.

In this remarkable book, Chilean-American psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo takes us on a scientific adventure through his groundbreaking research into new experiential methods of psychotherapy facilitated by psychedelic substances. The Healing Journey reveals these consciousness-expanding compounds to be fascinating therapeutic tools that are now—40 years after the original publication—gaining wider recognition in Western clinical and academic circles.This book takes an in-depth look at the spiritual and psychotherapeutic potential of the amphetamine derivatives MDA and MMDA, harmaline (the active compound in ayahuasca), and ibogaine. To distinguish them from classical psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin, Naranjo coins the terms “emotion-enhancers” and “fantasy-enhancers” for these substances. This book is a must-read for all serious students of consciousness and the human psyche, and for those with a personal or professional desire to explore revolutionary innovations in psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, experimental psychiatry, or the psychology of religion. The exceptional clarity of Naranjo’s book also makes it an important resource for any intelligent layperson seeking information to guide them in their own search for spiritual growth and self-exploration.

in English and Spanish.

Pp. viii, 459, 6 full page color plates, numerous text-figures, black-and-white photos, and maps. Publisher's original olive green cloth, lettered in gilt over black on the spine, pictorial green dust jacket, lettered in white, lg 4to. A detailed study of how the approximately 200 species of the genus Bufo evolved and attained their present distribution. No ownership marks and no signs of use.

The first new book on psychoactive mushrooms in 10 years. Introducing a rich variety of psychoactive mushrooms from around the globe -including some rare and little-known species - the author describes dozens of species and covers a broad range of mushroom- related topics, from distribution maps to comparisons of cultural attitudes to laboratory analyses of active ingredients. One of the book's most remarkable features is its multi-disciplinary chemistry, botany, biology, history, anthropology, religion, pharmacology, medicine - all of these are among the fields contributing a diversity of data, questions and information that are assembled into one of the most comprehensive and intriguing portraits of psychoactive mushrooms ever created. Lavishly illustrated, well-organized and enriched by numerous accounts of mushroom experiences, this book explores the psychoactive mycoflora on five continents and reconstructs a continuity of psychoactive mushroom use throughout history, from as early as 10,000 years ago to the present day. You will also find detailed chapters on mushroom cultivation techniques, psychotherapy applications, the bluing phenomenon, the dangers of accidental poisonings caused by misidentification of species, and more. A treasure trove of information, illustrations and magnificent color photography, the book contains much novel information as well, such as the first report on the psychoactivity of baeocystin and up-to-date findings on the use of plant growth hormones to accelerate growth.**************************** "Jochen Gartz has made an outstanding contribution to the field of mycology by embracing the Magic Mushrooms of Germany and from around the world and by pursuing their scientific study and investigation." - Christian Ratsch, from his Introduction**************************** 130 pages, 8"x11", sturdy softcover 30 color plates 36 black & white illustrations 3 maps of geographic distribution patterns 10 tables 18 reprodu! ctions of historic source materials and citations from the early mycological literature Bibliography of 250+ citations and sources FROM THE TABLE OF "Who Was the First Magician?" - Foreword by Christian Rtsch 1. Introduction 2. Fancy of Fools or Flesh of the Reflections on the History Study of Magic Mushrooms 3. The Current State of Knowledge About European Species 3.1 Psilocybe semilanceata - The Classic Psychotropic Species of Europe 3.2 Psilocybe cyanescens - Potent Mushrooms Growing on Wood Debris 3.3 Panaeolus subbalteatus - Mycology & Myths about the Panaeolus Species 3.4 Inocybe aeruginascens - Fast-Spreading New Arrivals 3.5 Gymnopilus purpuratus - Magnificent Mushrooms from South America 3.6 Conocybe cyanopus - Tiny Mushrooms of Remarkable Potency 3.7 Pluteus salicinus - A Little-Known Wood-Inhabiting Species 4. Mushroom The Potential for Deadly Mistakes 5. The Bluing Phenomenon and Metol Testing - Reality vs. Wishful Thinking 6. Mushroom Cultivation - Classic Findings and New Techniques 7. Psychotropic Mushroom Species All Around The World 7.1 Spotlight on North America and Hawaii 7.2 Mycophilia in Central and South America 7.3 Australia's Mycoflora Attracts Attention 7.4 European Customs and Conventions 7.5 Japanese Experiments 7.6 Intoxications and the Oldest Known Mushroom Cult in Africa 7.7 Usage in Asia and Oceania 8. Remarks About Effects of Mushrooms from the Category Phantastika 9. Psychotherapy 10. Outlook 11. Bibliography (Reference Section with over 250 entries)

A look inside almost half a century of pioneering research in the Amazon and Peru by a noted anthropologist studying hallucinogens, including ayahuasca• Reveals how ayahuasca successfully treats psychological and emotional disorders• Examines adolescent drug use from a cross-cultural perspective• Discusses the deleterious effects of drug tourism in the AmazonAyahuasca is an alkaloid-rich psychoactive concoction indigenous to South America that has been employed by shamans for millennia as a spirit drug for divinatory and healing purposes. Although the late Harvard ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes was credited in the early 1950s as being the first to document the use of ayahuasca, other researchers, such as the distinguished anthropologist Marlene Dobkin de Rios, were responsible for furthering his findings and uncovering the curative capabilities of this amazing compound.The Psychedelic Journey of Marlene Dobkin de Rios presents the accumulated experience of de Rios’s 45 years of pioneering field studies in the area of hallucinogens in Peru and the Amazon. Her investigation into ayahuasca--which she undertook in collaboration with more than a dozen traditional Mestizo folk curanderos, shamans, and fellow ethnobotanists--focuses on the use of this revolutionary plant in the treatment of recalcitrant psychological and emotional disorders. She also shares some of her theories that prove that the ancient Maya used psychedelic plants as part of their religious rituals, thereby demonstrating the impact of plant psychedelics on human prehistory. In addition, Dobkin de Rios examines altered states of consciousness derived from the use of biofeedback and hypnosis and discusses her current work on the deleterious effects of drug tourism in the Amazon.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The "poet laureate of medicine" ( The New York Times ) and author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat weaves together stories of mind-altering experiences to reveal what they tell us about our brains, our folklore and culture, and why the potential for hallucination exists in us all. “An absorbing plunge into a mystery of the mind.” — Entertainment WeeklyTo many people, hallucinations imply madness, but in fact they are a common part of the human experience. These sensory distortions range from the shimmering zigzags of a visual migraine to powerful visions brought on by fever, injuries, drugs, sensory deprivation, exhaustion, or even grief. Hallucinations doubtless lie behind many mythological traditions, literary inventions, and religious epiphanies.Drawing on his own experiences, a wealth of clinical cases from among his patients, and famous historical examples ranging from Dostoevsky to Lewis Carroll, the legendary neurologist Oliver Sacks investigates the mystery of these sensory what they say about the working of our brains, how they have influenced our folklore and culture, and why the potential for hallucination is present in all humans.

When a filmmaker makes a film with herself as a subject, she is already divided as both the subject matter of the film and the subject making the film. The two senses of the word are immediately in play – the matter and the maker―thus the two ways of being subjectified as both subject and object. Subjectivity finds its filmic expression, not surprisingly, in very personal ways, yet it is nonetheless shaped by and in relation to collective expressions of identity that can transform the cinema of 'me' into the cinema of 'we'. Leading scholars and practitioners of first-person film are brought together in this groundbreaking collection to consider the theoretical, ideological, and aesthetic challenges wrought by this form of filmmaking in its diverse cultural, geographical, and political contexts.

Neuropsychedelia examines the revival of psychedelic science since the "Decade of the Brain." After the breakdown of this previously prospering area of psychopharmacology, and in the wake of clashes between counterculture and establishment in the late 1960s, a new generation of hallucinogen researchers used the hype around the neurosciences in the 1990s to bring psychedelics back into the mainstream of science and society. This book is based on anthropological fieldwork and philosophical reflections on life and work in two laboratories that have played key roles in this a human lab in Switzerland and an animal lab in California. It sheds light on the central transnational axis of the resurgence connecting American psychedelic culture with the home country of LSD. In the borderland of science and religion, Neuropsychedelia explores the tensions between the use of hallucinogens to model psychoses and to evoke spiritual experiences in laboratory settings. Its protagonists, including the anthropologist himself, struggle to find a place for the mystical under conditions of late-modern materialism.

Wizard of the Four A Shaman’s Story is the text that introduced the outside world to shamanic healing in northern Peru. The story of don Eduardo Calderón (who was elevated to almost legendary status as a result of Sharon’s research), this book inspired a generation of academics and shamanic seekers alike. Back, finally and by popular demand, this long-awaited and completely revised second edition presents a detailed discussion of Sharon’s own experiences as the curandero’s apprentice as well as summaries of more than 40 years of scholarship (including Sharon’s own extensive work) into the lives and healing arts of other Peruvian shamanic practitioners. More than 70 pages of updated appendices compare and contrast the ritual symbolism of don Eduardo Calderón’s mesa with shamanic tools and practices found throughout ancient and modern Mesoamerica and South America. Wizard of the Four a Shaman’s Story is, now more than ever, an indispensable tool for any serious student of Peruvian shamanism!

A brilliant and brave investigation by Michael Pollan, author of five New York Times best sellers, into the medical and scientific revolution taking place around psychedelic drugs--and the spellbinding story of his own life-changing psychedelic experiences When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such as depression, addiction and anxiety, he did not intend to write what is undoubtedly his most personal book. But upon discovering how these remarkable substances are improving the lives not only of the mentally ill but also of healthy people coming to grips with the challenges of everyday life, he decided to explore the landscape of the mind in the first person as well as the third. Thus began a singular adventure into the experience of various altered states of consciousness, along with a dive deep into both the latest brain science and the thriving underground community of psychedelic therapists. Pollan sifts the historical record to separate the truth about these mysterious drugs from the myths that have surrounded them since the Sixties, when a handful of psychedelic evangelists catalyzed a powerful backlash against what was then a promising field of research.A unique and elegant blend of science, memoir, travel writing, history, and medicine, How to Change Your Mind is a triumph of participatory journalism. By turns dazzling and edifying, it is the gripping account of a journey to an exciting and unexpected new frontier in our understanding of the mind, the self, and our place in the world. The true subject of Pollan's "mental travelogue" is not just psychedelic drugs, but the eternal puzzle of human consciousness and how, in a world that offers us both struggle and beauty, we can do our best to be fully present and find meaning in our lives.

The untold story of Dr. Oliver Sacks, his own most singular patient"[An] engrossing biographical memoir. This is Sacks at full on endless ward rounds, observing his post-encephalitic patients . . . exulting over horseshoe crabs and chunks of Iceland spar." ―Barbara Kiser, NatureThe author Lawrence Weschler began spending time with Oliver Sacks in the early 1980s, when he set out to profile the neurologist for his own new employer, The New Yorker . Almost a decade earlier, Dr. Sacks had published his masterpiece Awakenings― the account of his long-dormant patients’ miraculous but troubling return to life in a Bronx hospital ward. But the book had hardly been an immediate success, and the rumpled clinician was still largely unknown. Over the ensuing four years, the two men worked closely together until, for wracking personal reasons, Sacks asked Weschler to abandon the profile, a request to which Weschler acceded. The two remained close friends, however, across the next thirty years and then, just as Sacks was dying, he urged Weschler to take up the project once again. This book is the result of that entreaty.Weschler sets Sacks’s brilliant table talk and extravagant personality in vivid relief, casting himself as a beanpole Sancho to Sacks’s capacious Quixote. We see Sacks rowing and ranting and caring deeply; composing the essays that would form The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat ; recalling his turbulent drug-fueled younger days; helping his patients and exhausting his friends; and waging intellectual war against a medical and scientific establishment that failed to address his greatest the spontaneous specificity of the individual human soul. And all the while he is pouring out a stream of glorious, ribald, hilarious, and often profound conversation that establishes him as one of the great talkers of the age. Here is the definitive portrait of Sacks as our preeminent romantic scientist, a self-described “clinical ontologist” whose entire practice revolved around the single fundamental question he effectively asked each of his How are you? Which is to say, How do you be ?A question which Weschler, with this book, turns back on the good doctor himself.

The Amazon is a land of superlatives. The complex ecosystem covers an area about the size of the continental U.S. The Amazon River discharges 57 million gallons of water per second--in two hours, this would be enough to supply all of New York City's 7.5 million residents with water for a year. Its flora and fauna are abundant. Approximately one of every four flowering plant species on earth resides in the Amazon. A single Amazonian river may contain more fish species than all the rivers in Europe combined. It is home to the world's largest anteater, armadillo, freshwater turtle, and spider, as well as the largest rodent (which weighs over 200 lbs.), catfish (250 lbs.), and alligator (more than half a ton). The rainforest, which contains approximately 390 billion trees, plays a vital role in stabilizing the global climate by absorbing massive amounts of carbon dioxide--or releasing it into the atmosphere if the trees are destroyed. Severe droughts in both Brazil and Southeast Asia have been linked to Amazonian deforestation, as have changing rainfall patterns in the U.S., Europe, and China. The Amazon also serves as home to millions of people.Approximately seventy tribes of isolated and uncontacted people are concentrated in the western Amazon, completely dependent on the land and river. These isolated groups have been described as the most marginalized peoples in the western hemisphere, with no voice in the decisions made about their futures and the fate of their forests. In this addition to the What Everyone Needs to Know� series, ecologist and conservation expert, Mark J. Plotkin, who has spent 40 years studying Amazonia, its peoples, flora, and fauna. The Amazon offers an engaging overview of this irreplaceable ecosystem and the challenges it faces.

The first ethnographic exploration of the contentious debate over whether nonhuman primates are capable of cultureIn the 1950s, Japanese zoologists took note when a number of macaques invented and passed on new food-washing behaviors within their troop. The discovery opened the door to a startling question: Could animals other than humans share social knowledge--and thus possess culture? The subsequent debate has rocked the scientific world, pitting cultural anthropologists against evolutionary anthropologists, field biologists against experimental psychologists, and scholars from Asia against their colleagues in Europe and North America. In Chimpanzee Culture Wars, the first ethnographic account of the battle, anthropologist Nicolas Langlitz presents first-hand observations gleaned from months spent among primatologists on different sides of the controversy.Langlitz travels across continents, from field stations in the Ivory Coast and Guinea to laboratories in Germany and Japan. As he compares the methods and arguments of the different researchers he meets, he also considers the plight of cultural primatologists as they seek to document chimpanzee cultural diversity during the Anthropocene, an era in which human culture is remaking the planet. How should we understand the chimpanzee culture wars in light of human-caused mass extinctions?Capturing the historical, anthropological, and philosophical nuances of the debate, Chimpanzee Culture Wars takes us on an exhilarating journey into high-tech laboratories and breathtaking wilderness, all in pursuit of an answer to the question of the human-animal divide.

The Nature of History, Pharmacology, and Social Impact, Volume 1, presents lectures from Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin’s popular course on what drugs are, how they work, how they are processed by the body, and how they affect our society. Transcribed from the original lectures recorded at San Francisco State University in 1987, The Nature of Drugs series highlights Shulgin’s engaging lecture style peppered with illuminating anecdotes and amusing asides. Ostensibly taught as an introductory course on drugs and biochemistry, these books serve as both a historical record of Shulgin’s teaching style and the culmination of his philosophy on drugs, psychopharmacology, states of consciousness, and societal and individual freedoms pertaining to their use, both medicinal and exploratory. The Nature of Drugs, Volume 1 features course lectures 1 through 8 and offers Shulgin’s view on the origin of drugs, the history of U.S. drug law enforcement, human anatomy, the nervous system, the range of drug administrations, varieties of drug actions, memory and states of consciousness, and research methods. It lays the groundwork for Shulgin’s philosophy on psychopharmacology and society. The Nature of Drugs series presents the story of humanity’s relationship with psychoactive substances from the perspective of a master psychopharmacologist and beloved luminary in the study of chemistry, pharmacology and consciousness. Audiobook The Nature of Drugs, Volume 1 audiobook contains portions of the original 1987 recordings of Shulgin himself conducting his course and interacting with his students. Those original clips are interlaced with newly recorded narration that fills in portions with more optimal audio quality.