Northeastern Naturalist B5 Noteworthy Books 2014 Vol. 21, No. 2 The Olmsted Parks of Louisville: A Botanical Field Guide. Patricia Dalton Haragan. 2014. University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY. 472 pp. $50.00, softcover. ISBN 9780813144542. Frederick Law Olmsted, popularly known as the “Father of American Landscape Architecture”, is famous for designing New York City’s Central Park, the US Capitol grounds, and the campuses of institutions such as Stanford University and the University of Chicago. His celebrated projects in Boston, Buffalo, Detroit, Milwaukee, and other cities led to a commission from the city of Louisville, KY, in 1891. There, he partnered with community leaders to design a network of scenic parks, tree-lined parkways, elegant neighborhoods, and beautifully landscaped estate gardens that thousands of visitors still enjoy today. The Olmsted Parks of Louisville is the first authoritative manual on the 380 species of trees, herbaceous plants, shrubs, and vines populating the nearly 1900 acres that comprise Cherokee, Seneca, Iroquois, Shawnee, and Chickasaw Parks. Designed for easy reference, this handy field guide includes detailed photos and maps as well as ecological and historical information about each park. Author Patricia Dalton Haragan also includes sections detailing the many species of invasive plants in the parks and discusses the native flora that they displaced. This guide provides readers with a key to Olmsted’s vision, revealing how various plant species were arranged to emphasize the beauty and grandeur of nature. It will serve as an essential resource for students, nature enthusiasts, and the more than ten thousand visitors who use the parks. Art and Architecture of Insects. David M. Phillips. 2014. University Press of New England, Lebanon, NH. 152 pp. $24.95, softcover. ISBN 9781611685329. Clad in spiked and scaled armor, lance-like pincers at the ready, alien creatures are in our gardens, our floorboards, and our bedsheets. David M. Phillips has taken his life-long love of insect biology and microscopy and produced a mesmerizing look into the hidden world of the insect form. The 150 photographs in this book, all taken using an electron microscope, reveal an amazing variety of anatomical structures normally invisible to the human eye: a wax surface that prevents evaporation, antennae that sense molecules that are undetectable by other animals, and feet that allow insects to walk upside down on almost any surface. Organized with the nonscientific reader in mind, Art and Architecture of Insects explores the intricate structures of some of our planet’s most fascinating residents. This book’s stunning photography and entertaining facts will fill readers with a sense of wonder at the unseen universe that surrounds them.Whether young or old, jaded insect-lover or new to the awe-inspiring strangeness of insect exoskeletons, one thing is certain: You will never look at insects in the same way again. Wildlife in Airport Environments: Preventing Animal–Aircraft Collisions through Science- Based Management. Travis L. DeVault, Bradley F. Blackwell, and Jerrold L. Belant (Eds.). 2013. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. 200 pp. $75.00, hardcover. ISBN 9781421410821. The pilot watches the instrument panel and prepares for touchdown—a routine landing until a burst of birds, a Coyote, or a herd of deer crosses the runway! Every year, pilots experience this tension and many aircraft come into direct contact with birds and other wildlife, resulting in more than one billion dollars in damage annually. The United States Federal Aviation Administration has recorded a rise in these incidents over the past decade due to the combined effects of more reporting, rebounding wildlife populations, and an increased number of flights. Wildlife in Airport Environments tackles the issue of what to do about encounters with wildlife in and around airports—from rural, small-craft airparks to major international hubs. Whether the problem is birds or bats in the flight path or a Moose on the runway, the authors provide a thorough overview of the science behind wildlife management at airports. This wellwritten, carefully documented volume presents a clear synthesis for researchers, wildlife managers, and airport professionals. The book belongs in the hands of all those charged with minimizing the risks that wildlife pose to air travel. The Design and Implementation of US Climate Policy. Don Fullerton and Catherine Wolfram (Eds.). 2012. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. 344 pp. $110.00, hardcover. ISBN 9780226269146. Economic research on climate change has been crucial in advancing our understanding of the consequences associated with global warming as well as the costs and benefits of the various policies that might reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. As nations work to Noteworthy Books Received by the Northeastern Naturalist, Issue 21/2, 2014 Northeastern Naturalist Noteworthy Books 2014 Vol. 21, No. 2 B6 develop climate policies, economic insights into their design and implementation are ever more important. With a balance between theoretical and empirical approaches, The Design and Implementation of US Climate Policy looks at the possible effects of various climate policies on a range of economic outcomes. The studies that comprise the volume examine topics that include the coordination— or lack thereof—between the federal and state governments, implications of monitoring and enforcing climate policy, and the specific consequences of various climate policies for the agricultural, automotive, and buildings sectors. The Golden Age of Botanical Art. Martyn Rix. 2013. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. 256 pp. $35.00, hardcover. ISBN 9780226093598. The seventeenth century heralded a golden age of exploration, as intrepid travelers sailed around the world to gain firsthand knowledge of previously unknown continents. These explorers also collected the world’s most beautiful flora, and often their findings were recorded for posterity by talented professional artists. The Golden Age of Botanical Art tells the story of these exciting plant-hunting journeys and marries it with full-color reproductions of the stunning artwork they produced. Covering work through the nineteenth century, this lavishly illustrated book offers readers a look at 250 rare or unpublished images by some of the world’s most important botanical artists. Truly global in its scope, The Golden Age of Botanical Art features work by artists from Europe, China, and India, recording plants from places as disparate as Africa and South America. Martyn Rix has compiled the stories and art not only of well-known figures— such as Leonardo da Vinci and the artists of Empress Josephine Bonaparte—but also of those adventurous botanists and painters whose names and work have been forgotten. A celebration of both extraordinarily beautiful plant life and the globe-trotting men and women who found and recorded it, The Golden Age of Botanical Art will enchant gardeners and art lovers alike. An Ecology of Happiness. Eric Lambin. 2012. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. 184 pp. $26.00, hardcover. ISBN 9780226466675. We know that our gas-guzzling cars are warming the planet, the pesticides and fertilizers from farms are turning rivers toxic, and the earth has run out of space for the mountains of unrecycled waste our daily consumption has left in its wake. We’ve heard copious accounts of our impact—as humans, as a society—on the natural world. But this is not a one-sided relationship. Lost in these dire and scolding accounts has been the impact on us and our well-being. You sense it while walking on a sandy beach, or in a wild, woody forest, or when you catch sight of wildlife, or even while gardening in your backyard. Could it be that the natural environment is an essential part of our happiness? Yes, says Eric Lambin emphatically in An Ecology of Happiness. Using a very different strategy in addressing environmental concerns, he asks us to consider that there may be no better reason to value and protect the health of the planet than for our own personal well-being. In this clever and wideranging work, Lambin draws on new scientific evidence in the fields of geography, political ecology, environmental psychology, urban studies, and disease ecology, among others, to answer such questions as: To what extent do we need nature for our well-being? How does environmental degradation affect our happiness? What can be done to protect the environment and increase our wellbeing at the same time? Drawing on case studies from Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America, Lambin makes a persuasive case for the strong link between healthy ecosystems and happy humans. Unique in its scope and evenhanded synthesis of research from many fields, An Ecology of Happiness offers a compelling human-centered argument that is impossible to overlook when we marvel at the varied songs of birds or seek out the most brilliant fall foliage: nature makes our steps a little lighter and our eyes a little brighter. Chemical Biomarkers in Aquatic Ecosystems. Thomas S. Bianchi and Elizabeth A. Canuel. 2011. Princeton University Press Princeton, NJ. 416 pp. $105.00, hardcover. ISBN 9780691134147. This textbook provides a unique and thorough look at the application of chemical biomarkers to aquatic ecosystems. Defining a chemical biomarker as a compound that can be linked to particular sources of organic matter identified in the sediment record, the book indicates that the application of these biomarkers for an understanding of aquatic ecosystems consists of a biogeochemical approach that has been quite successful but underused. This book offers a wide-ranging guide to the broad diversity of these chemical biomarkers, is the first to be structured around the compounds themselves, and examines them in a connected and comprehensive way. This timely book is appropriate for advanced undergraduate and Northeastern Naturalist B7 Noteworthy Books 2014 Vol. 21, No. 2 graduate students seeking training in this area; researchers in biochemistry, organic geochemistry, and biogeochemistry; and paleoceanographers, petroleum geologists, and ecologists. Eco-Republic: What the Ancients Can Teach Us about Ethics, Virtue, and Sustainable Living. Melissa Lane. 2012. Princeton University Press Princeton, NJ. 256 pp. $19.95, softcover. ISBN 9780691162201. An ecologically sustainable society cannot be achieved without citizens who possess the virtues and values that will foster it, and who believe that individual actions can indeed make a difference. Eco-Republic draws on ancient Greek thought—and Plato's Republic in particular—to put forward a new vision of citizenship that can make such a society a reality. Melissa Lane develops a model of a society whose health and sustainability depend on all its citizens recognizing a shared standard of value and shaping their personal goals and habits accordingly. Bringing together the moral and political ideas of the ancients with the latest social and psychological theory, Lane illuminates the individual’s vital role in social change, and articulates new ways of understanding what is harmful and what is valuable, what is a benefit and what is a cost, and what the relationship between public and private well-being ought to be. Eco-Republic reveals why we must rethink our political imagination if we are to meet the challenges of climate change and other urgent environmental concerns. Offering a unique reflection on the ethics and politics of sustainability, the book goes beyond standard approaches to virtue ethics in philosophy and current debates about happiness in economics and psychology. Eco-Republic explains why health is a better standard than happiness for capturing the important links between individual action and social good, and diagnoses the reasons why the ancient concept of virtue has been sorely neglected yet is more relevant today than ever. Rare Birds of North America. Steve N.G. Howell, Ian Lewington, and Will Russell. 2014. Princeton University Press Princeton, NJ. 448 pp. $35.00, hardcover. ISBN 9780691117966. This volume is the first comprehensive illustrated guide to the vagrant birds that occur throughout the United States and Canada. Featuring 275 stunning color plates, this book covers 262 species originating from three very different regions—the Old World, the New World tropics, and the world’s oceans. It explains the causes of avian vagrancy and breaks down patterns of occurrence by region and season, enabling readers to see where, when, and why each species occurs in North America. Detailed species accounts describe key identification features, taxonomy, age, sex, distribution, and status. Rare Birds of North America provides unparalleled insights into vagrancy and avian migration, and will enrich the birding experience of all interested in finding and observing rare birds. The Hard Ticks of the World. Alberto A. Guglielmone, R.G. Robbins, D.S. Apanaskevich, T.N. Petney, A. Estrada-Peña, and I.G. Horak. 2014. Springer, New York, NY. 738 pp. $279.00, hardvocer. ISBN 9789400774964. Hard ticks (family Ixodidae) are obligately blood-feeding ectoparasites of all classes of vertebrates except fishes. They occur worldwide and are preeminent among hematophagous arthropods for the variety of infectious agents that they transmit to humans and other animals. Because hard ticks have long been a focus of medical and veterinary research, the literature on this group is both voluminous and diffuse, with the result that those seeking information on a particular species are often at a loss as to where to turn. This book addresses that problem. Working as a team, six leading authorities on the Ixodidae have summarized current, essential information for every one of the world’s 700+ hard tick species. Under each species name, readers will find a discussion of the original taxonomic description, followed by sections on type depositories, known life-history stages, distribution by zoogeographic region and ecoregion, principal and exceptional hosts, and human parasitism. Each species account concludes with a list of salient references and, where necessary, remarks on any unresolved issues warranting further research or important species-specific information, such as introductions into regions outside a species’ natural range or collections from novel hosts. No similar synopsis of the world’s hard tick species has ever been attempted. The Northeastern Naturalist welcomes submissions of review copies of books that publishers or authors would like to recommend to the journal’s readership and are relevant to the journal’s mission of publishing information about the natural history of the northeastern US. Accompanying short, descriptive summaries of the text are also welcome.