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Rambunctious Garden
- Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World
- Narrated by: Renee Chambliss
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
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Publisher's summary
A paradigm shift is roiling the environmental world. For decades people have unquestioningly accepted the idea that our goal is to preserve nature in its pristine, pre-human state. But many scientists have come to see this as an outdated dream that thwarts bold new plans to save the environment and prevents us from having a fuller relationship with nature. Humans have changed the landscapes they inhabit since prehistory, and climate change means even the remotest places now bear the fingerprints of humanity. Emma Marris argues convincingly that it is time to look forward and create the "rambunctious garden," a hybrid of wild nature and human management.
In this optimistic book, listeners meet leading scientists and environmentalists and visit imaginary Edens, designer ecosystems, and Pleistocene parks. Marris describes innovative conservation approaches, including re-wilding, assisted migration, and the embrace of so-called novel ecosystems.
Rambunctious Garden is short on gloom and long on interesting theories and fascinating narratives, all of which bring home the idea that we must give up our romantic notions of pristine wilderness and replace them with the concept of a global, half-wild rambunctious garden planet, tended by us.
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They are trees of life and trees of knowledge. They are wish-fulfillers, rain forest royalty, more precious than gold. They are the fig trees, and they have affected humanity in profound but little-known ways. Gods, Wasps and Stranglers tells their amazing story. Fig trees fed our prehuman ancestors, influenced diverse cultures, and played key roles in the dawn of civilization.
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Incredible research in a wonderful story
- By Alonsa Guevara on 11-24-22
By: Mike Shanahan
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Water in Plain Sight
- Hope for a Thirsty World
- By: Judith D. Schwartz
- Narrated by: Tia Rider
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Water scarcity is on everyone's mind. Long taken for granted, water availability has entered the realm of economics, politics, and people's food and lifestyle choices. But as anxiety mounts - even as a swath of California farmland has been left fallow and extremist groups worldwide exploit the desperation of people losing livelihoods to desertification - many are finding new routes to water security with key implications for food access, economic resilience, and climate change.
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Crucial solutions
- By Shane Emanuelle on 07-25-19
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Superlative
- The Biology of Extremes
- By: Matthew D. LaPlante
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The world's largest land mammal could help us end cancer. The fastest bird is showing us how to solve a century-old engineering mystery. The oldest tree is giving us insights into climate change. The loudest whale is offering clues about the impact of solar storms. For a long time, scientists ignored superlative life forms as outliers. Increasingly, though, researchers are coming to see great value in studying plants and animals that exist on the outermost edges of the bell curve.
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Fascinating survey of amazing biology
- By Nerd's-eye view on 12-06-19
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The Triumph of Seeds
- How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses & Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History
- By: Thor Hanson
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life, supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and the humble peppercorn drove the Age of Discovery, so did coffee beans help fuel the Enlightenment and cottonseed help spark the Industrial Revolution. And from the fall of Rome to the Arab Spring, the fate of nations continues to hinge on the seeds of a Middle Eastern grass known as wheat.
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Delightfully simplistic!
- By Adrian on 03-30-16
By: Thor Hanson
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The Cabaret of Plants
- Forty Thousand Years of Plant Life and the Human Imagination
- By: Richard Mabey
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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A rich, sweeping, and compelling work of botanical history, The Cabaret of Plants explores dozens of plant species that for millennia have challenged our imaginations, awoken our wonder, and upturned our ideas about history, science, beauty, and belief. Going back to the beginnings of human history, Richard Mabey shows how flowers, trees, and plants have been central to human experience not just as sources of food and medicine but as objects of worship, actors in creation myths, and symbols of war and peace, life and death.
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Can't wait to listen to again!
- By hyacinthgirl on 12-27-16
By: Richard Mabey
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The Galápagos
- A Natural History
- By: Henry Nicholls
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The Galapagos were once known to the sailors and pirates who encountered them as Las Encantadas: the enchanted islands, home to exotic creatures and dramatic volcanic scenery. In The Galapagos, science writer Henry Nicholls offers a lively natural and human history of the archipelago, charting its evolution from deserted wilderness to scientific resource (made famous by Charles Darwin) and global ecotourism hot spot.
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Thought-Provoking
- By Jean on 10-23-18
By: Henry Nicholls
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Collapse
- How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
- By: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 27 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion, and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization. Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted.
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Jared Diamond Downs You in Explanation
- By Rob on 07-20-18
By: Jared Diamond
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Trees in Paradise
- A California History
- By: Jared Farmer
- Narrated by: Kevin Scollin
- Length: 19 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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California now has more trees than at any time since the late Pleistocene. This green landscape, however, is not the work of nature. It’s the work of history. In the years after the Gold Rush, American settlers remade the California landscape, harnessing nature to their vision of the good life. Horticulturists, boosters, and civic reformers began to "improve" the bare, brown countryside, planting millions of trees to create groves, wooded suburbs, and landscaped cities.
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lovely audiobook
- By Michael M. on 08-02-22
By: Jared Farmer
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The Wonder of Birds
- What They Tell Us About Ourselves, the World, and a Better Future
- By: Jim Robbins
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Birds, Jim Robbins posits, are our most vital connection to nature. They compel us to look to the skies, both literally and metaphorically, draw us out into nature to seek their beauty, and let us experience vicariously what it is like to be weightless. Birds have helped us in so many of our human endeavors: learning to fly, providing clothing and food, and helping us better understand the human brain and body.
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Stories about birds with something for everyone
- By D on 07-24-17
By: Jim Robbins
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First Peoples in a New World
- Colonizing Ice Age America
- By: David J. Meltzer
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 11 hrs
- Abridged
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More than 12,000 years ago, in one of the greatest triumphs of prehistory, humans colonized North America, a continent that was then truly a new world. Just when and how they did so has been one of the most perplexing and controversial questions in archaeology.
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Last Gasp of American Anthropological Orthodoxy
- By Thomas66 on 01-05-17
By: David J. Meltzer
What listeners say about Rambunctious Garden
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- jeffrey kasprow
- 02-28-24
Interesting Environmental Theory
Marris provides interesting environmental theory on conservation and how we should go about preserving our ecosystems.
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- Andre
- 08-15-15
Loved the content
I really liked the content of the book. Lots of good stories and the summary of ideas in the last chapter was really good. I didn't care for the reading style, because every sentence ended in a drawn out syllable.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Furniture Guy
- 11-08-16
Did not meet personal preferences
The point of this book is a paradigm shift from how we currently see, use, and restore nature. Objectively, the points Marris makes are not all that bad, and it seems like over half the book is citing other experts, giving the ideas credit. For me, I just really dislike the tone of the writing and the reading. I find Marris's writing style and opinions to be rather pompous and unforgiving to anyone who does not share her viewpoint. The reader sounds a bit this way, as well, but that is probably simply because of the text. She also has an unpleasant habit of drawing out the last vowel of the last word in a sentence or phrase, which is rather annoying to me.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Eileen
- 05-01-15
informative and entertaining
narrator was engaging and kept me listening. the story had some rough parts. I learned a great deal of information about novel eco systems and how we can preserve this rambunctious garden of earth with people
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- Michael Dowd
- 01-06-14
Conservation at the Cusp of Change
What did you love best about Rambunctious Garden?
The storytelling and site-specific descriptions make this scientifically rigorous book unusually memorable and meaningful.
What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?
Marris extracts from the polarized advocates (human manipulation v. hands-off of nature) direct quotes that vividly show the deep emotions and uncertainties in this unusual time of worldviews in collision.
Which character – as performed by Renee Chambliss – was your favorite?
Jessica Hellman
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
no
Any additional comments?
Anyone concerned about climate change will find the science stories in this book deeply disturbing, in that humans will have to get extensively involved in helping plants move north faster than they are capable of doing on their own.
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1 person found this helpful
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- alexis fernandez
- 08-20-18
Eye opening and perspective changer!
Loved it! Great read, share with everyone.
Tho, the narroraors voice can feel a bit robotic and cold.
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- MM
- 02-05-23
A thorough and analytical look at novel ecosystems
Well-researched from many angles and perspectives. Excellent writing and synthesis of ideas. A must-read for anyone interested in non-native species and ecology.
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-11-22
Anti-science
Although the author brings up many important points to consider, she routinely denies the science behind many of these concepts in favor of controversial opinions by a single person that she interviews. She gives no valid arguments for why the science is incorrect beyond stating quotes from these (potentially uneducated) people. While the book is interesting, the science denial is concerning
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- Andrea-lee Cipollone
- 05-07-24
not an ecologist
The author on the surface makes compelling arguments, which fall flat if you have any knowledge of ecology or ecosystem functions. This is the kind of book that could do legitimate damage if someone doesn't have that knowledge going into it. This is a nice thought experiment, but it is not worth your while as an entry level book into the topic, unless you want to frustrate ecosystem management professionals like me by ignoring scientific consensus and committing ecocide.
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- L.E. Winter
- 04-11-16
Very bad book
What character would you cut from Rambunctious Garden?
Any additional comments?
Inaccurate. Patronizing. Very bad science. Ignorant. I was very hopeful that this would be an interesting approach to a very serious subject, but I was bitterly disappointed.
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2 people found this helpful