Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Weekly Reviews
A globe-trotting nature writer meditates on the fraught interactions between people and ecosystems in this sprawling environmentalist travelogue. Essayist Lopez (Arctic Dreams) recounts episodes from decades of his travels, most of them tied to scientific investigations: camping on the Oregon coast while considering the exploits of British explorer James Cook; examining archaeological sites in the high Arctic while reflecting on the harshness of life there; hunting for hominin fossils in Kenya while weighing human evolution; scuba-diving under an Antarctic ice shelf while observing the rich marine biota. His free-associative essays blend vivid reportage on landscapes, wildlife, and the knotty relationships among the scientists he accompanies with larger musings on natural history, environmental and climate crises, and the sins of Western imperialism in erasing indigenous cultures. It's often hard to tell where Lopez is going with his frequent digressions: one two-page section skitters from global cancer rates past a one-eyed goshawk he once saw in Namibia to an astrophysics experiment at the South Pole to detect dark matter, with no particular conclusion. Still, his prose is so evocative--during a tempest at sea, "veils of storm-ripped water ballooned in the air around us" amid "the high-pitched mewling of albatrosses, teetering impossibly forty feet away from us on the wind"--and his curiosity so infectious that readers will be captivated.
Review
"Barry Lopez is a straight-up magnificent writer. To read Horizon is to be transported to wondrous landscapes far beyond the pale, and thereby obtain an astounding perspective on our increasingly uncertain future. Lopez expresses faith that our species can avert annihilation by investing 'more deeply in the philosopher's cardinal virtues' courage, justice, reverence, and compassion--virtues this book possesses in abundance." - Jon Krakauer
Synopsis
From the National Book Award-winning author of the now-classic Arctic Dreams, a vivid, poetic, capacious work that recollects the travels around the world and the encounters--human, animal, and natural--that have shaped an extraordinary life.
Taking us nearly from pole to pole--from modern megacities to some of the most remote regions on the earth--and across decades of lived experience, Barry Lopez, hailed by the Los Angeles Times Book Review as "one of our finest writers," gives us his most far-ranging yet personal work to date, in a book that moves indelibly, immersively, through his travels to six regions of the world: from Western Oregon to the High Arctic; from the Galápagos to the Kenyan desert; from Botany Bay in Australia to finally, unforgettably, the ice shelves of Antarctica.
As he takes us on these myriad travels, Lopez also probes the long history of humanity's quests and explorations, including the prehistoric peoples who trekked across Skraeling Island in northern Canada, the colonialists who plundered Central Africa, an enlightenment-era Englishman who sailed the Pacific, a Native American emissary who found his way into isolationist Japan, and today's ecotourists in the tropics. Throughout his journeys--to some of the hottest, coldest, and most desolate places on the globe--and via friendships he forges along the way with scientists, archaeologists, artists and local residents, Lopez searches for meaning and purpose in a broken world.
Horizon is a revelatory, epic work that voices concern and frustration along with humanity and hope--a book that makes you see the world differently, and that is the crowning achievement by one of America's great thinkers and most humane voices. About the Author
Barry Lopez is the author of two collections of essays; several story collections; Arctic Dreams, for which he received the National Book Award; Of Wolves and Men, a National Book Award finalist, and Crow and Weasel, a novella-length fable. He contributes regularly to both American and foreign journals and has traveled to more than 70 countries to conduct research. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim, Lannan, and National Science Foundations and has been honored by a number of institutions for his literary, humanitarian, and environmental work. Additional information at barrylopez.com.
Table of Contents
Author's Note
Prologue
Introduction: Looking for a Ship
1. Mamaroneck
2. To Go/To See
3. Remember
4. Talismans
CAPE FOULWEATHER
Coast of Oregon
Eastern Shore of the North Pacific Ocean
Western North America
SKRAELING ISLAND
Mouth of Alexandra Fjord
East Coast of Ellesmere Island
Nunavut
Canada
PUERTO AYORA
Isla Santa Cruz
Archipiélago de Colón
Eastern Equatorial Pacific
JACKAL CAMP 267
Turkwel River Basin
Western Lake Turkana Uplands
Eastern Equatorial Africa
PORT ARTHUR TO BOTANY BAY
State of Tasmania Northern Shore of the Southern Ocean
Southeastern Australia
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State of New South Wales
Western Shore of the South Pacific
GRAVES NUNATAKS TO PORT FAMINE ROAD
Queen Maud Mountains
Central Transantarctic Mountains
Northern Edge of the Polar Plateau
Antarctica
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Brunswick Peninsula
Shore of the Strait of Magellan
Southern Chile
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Scientific Binomials
Overview Maps
Acknowledgments
Index