Horizon Information Portal

HSPLS site

eBooks/Audiobooks

Reading Program

Sounds wild and broken : sonic marvels, evolution's creativity, and the crisis of sensory extinction / David George Haskell.

by Haskell, David George, author.

View full image

New York : Viking, [2022]

Bioacoustics -- Environmental aspects.

Nature sounds -- Environmental aspects.

Acoustic phenomena in nature -- Environmental aspects.

Sound -- Physiological effect.

9781984881540 (hardcover) :

198488154X (hardcover) :

xiv, 430 pages ; 24 cm

Origins. Primal sound and the ancient roots of hearing ; Unity and diversity ; Sensory bargains and biases -- The flourishing of animal sounds. Predators, silence, wings ; Flowers oceans, milk -- Evolution's creative powers. Air, water, wood ; In the clamor ; Sexuality and beauty ; Vocal learning and culture ; The imprints of deep time -- Human music and belonging. Bone, ivory, breath ; Resonant spaces ; Music, forest, body -- Diminishment, crisis, and injustice. Forests ; Oceans ; Cities -- Listening. In community ; In the deep past and future.

"A rich exploration of how the evolution of both natural and manmade sounds have shaped us and the world, and how the world's acoustic diversity is currently in grave danger of being destroyed. We live on a planet that is wrapped in the diverse acoustic marvels of song and speech. Yet never has this diversity been so threatened as it is now. Braiding his experience as a listener and an ecologist with the latest scientific discoveries, David Haskell explores the acoustic wonders of our planet. Starting in deep time with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth's history, he illuminates and celebrates the creative processes that have produced the varied sounds of our world. From the powers of animal sexuality and environmental change, to the unpredictable, improvisational whims of genetic evolution and cultural change, sounds on Earth are the products of and catalysts for vibrant ecosystems. Four interconnected sensory crises are currently diminishing the vitality of our sonic world. Deforestation is erasing the most complex communities of sounds the world has ever known. In the oceans, machine noise has created a living hell for the most acoustically sensitive animals on the planet. In cities, noise has resulted in dire sonic inequities among people, the result of racism, sexism, and power asymmetries. Last, in forgetting or being barred from hearing the voices of the living Earth, we lose both the experience of joyful connection and the foundation for ethics and action. As wild sounds disappear forever and human noise smothers other voices, the Earth becomes flatter, blander. According to Haskell, this decline is not a mere loss of sensory ornament. Sound is a generative force, and so the erasure of sonic diversity makes the world less creative. His book is an invitation to listen, wonder, belong, and act."--

Horizon Information Portal 3.25_9884

Powered by Dynix

© 2001-2013 SirsiDynix All rights reserved.

Horizon Information Portal