As one who added the study of astronomy to my natural philosophy repertoire rather late in life, I found it a bit challenging to get the gist of just what I was looking at whenever I cast my eyes skyward (and if I’m honest, I very often still do). Not that there aren’t a number […]
“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “First Inaugural Address” As I have watched many of my fellow citizens, as well as others from all […]
This past summer, I once again took up Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle, as my “daily morning read” for most of July and a bit of August. This was perhaps the third or fourth time I’d read the book, but like so many works to which I return, I find I discover something newly […]
Taking the form of a large-format plate book, The Splendor of Birds presents a collection of some of the finest ornithological artwork and photography from the National Geographic archives. Spanning a 130 year range, beginning in 1888 and moving forward chronologically up to the present, the images included present a remarkably varied assortment of photographic styles and subject focus areas, as well as some truly choice illustrations, most notably by the great Louis Agassiz Fuertes.