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ovenbird_reads's review against another edition
3.0
I didn't find this quite as arresting as some of Ackerman's other books, but it was decent.
ocurtsinger's review against another edition
4.0
Diane Ackerman always finds a way to turn science into poetry, and this book is no exception. With a Sagan-like lens that can zoom out to space, back in time, and down to the microscopic, she analyzes what drastic changes humans have brought to the earth in our relatively short time here, beating the environmentalism drum but also offering offbeat explorations, beautifully poetic insights, and more hope and respect for the ingenuity of humans than many other doomsayer conservationists. An entertaining and inspiring read.
forestfae's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
silea's review against another edition
2.0
I'm not sure it's fair to say i 'read' this book. I certainly skimmed it. Well, as much as i could while rolling my eyes constantly at the malicious abuse of the english language. I'd never seen purple prose in non-fiction before (well, excluding biographies), so i guess i can tick that off the Bucket List.
swoody788's review against another edition
4.0
Informative and beautifully written, Diane Ackerman's newest work The Human Age describes many of the dumb things we as humans have done to harm our planet. But even better, it spends much more time expounding on really awesome things we as humans have done to stop or reverse that harm. The old adage "You get more flies with honey than vinegar" comes to mind as I reflect on the way Ackerman artfully approached this topic. Her descriptions of many recent innovations humans have made to help Mother Earth were uplifting and awe-inspiring, and she truly is a poet with her countless vivid metaphors and flowery prose (sometimes flowery prose gets on my nerves but in this case it did not). I appreciated her gentle encouragement to be more aware of the effect I am having on our planet in the way I live my life.
estromdotcom's review against another edition
1.0
1.5 stars
I finished this out of spite. I felt like I was being lectured by some random old person about things I know much more about than them, particularly in the first three parts of this book.
Ultimately, pretty disappointing. This reads like a very long introduction to something longer, more in-depth: something that focuses more on humans’ reshaping of the earth in numerous ways. Instead, it’s more like window-shopping around all the various cool science and technology people have developed in the 21st century, and ONLY the science and technology: cultural, political, and economic debates surrounding her chosen topics are largely absent.
The first four parts of this book tend to jump around between futurist monologues and grafting at least four or five different descriptions of human innovations in a really jarring, stream-of-consciousness prose that is legitimately hard to follow at times. She seems to want to talk more about where human lines are blurred with different discussions of nature, which I’m all for, but doesn’t work in the way she’s set it up here. I felt like I was reading the script for some trendy new show about technology, or listening to Ackerman rattle off facts she’d learned in an afternoon seminar about 3D printing or urban agriculture. There’s simply too much going on here, which is a shame: some parts are genuinely good, especially when she forms narratives around Patrick Blanc’s work or partula species in French Polynesia. These were the parts I was actually invested in, and continuously frustrated by Ackerman’s meandering between the story at hand and her own tangential thoughts about the future.
Her writing style is also downright irksome for me at times: overly flowery metaphorical language, cliché s-sound alliteration when describing snakes, mistaking topography for geology, apparently thinking Red Delicious apples actually taste good, describing her backyard like she’s the only person who appreciates nature. Small, but fucking annoying.
And I find she had an unconscious disregard and lack of faith in humans’ aggressively social nature, especially considering young digital natives like me and how our fluency with technology is destroying our ability to socialize. That’s certainly not true: and while this book is eight years old at the time of reading, there’s still that pessimism about youth and technology, that we are going to be so caught up in ourselves and our digital lives that we won’t participate in the future. That was really disheartening to see in this book, which touts hope for the future so much. It’s also apparent that no one interviewed for this book, besides perhaps Hod Lipson, is young. Ackerman probably thinks that emerging technologies hold so much potential, if only its inheritors like myself cared enough to use it. That’s why I was disappointed that culture, history, economy and policy were not really explored here: they fill in so many of those gaps of why her chosen sciences and technologies exist, particularly within the first
four sections.
It’s a book about exploring the current age’s fossil record that seems to forget its own premise to gush about genetic engineering. Ackerman largely ignores the impacts of Westernization and the massive imbalances it has caused when discussing how her chosen technologies could
be used: only in the last part and a half does she really try to bring that to the table, with epigenetics, microbiomes, and prosthetics. Though, it’s arguable if the first two would even show up in fossils.
This book has so much potential, but is afraid to actually go deeper and dig up the reasons why she thinks this is what our fossil record will look like. It’s a book of “it could look like this. Isn’t that cool?” It’s cool if you don’t know anything about the science or technology discussed here, but if do you know anything about them coming into this, it’s shallow and unfulfilling, and crumbles apart if thought about for too long.
I finished this out of spite. I felt like I was being lectured by some random old person about things I know much more about than them, particularly in the first three parts of this book.
Ultimately, pretty disappointing. This reads like a very long introduction to something longer, more in-depth: something that focuses more on humans’ reshaping of the earth in numerous ways. Instead, it’s more like window-shopping around all the various cool science and technology people have developed in the 21st century, and ONLY the science and technology: cultural, political, and economic debates surrounding her chosen topics are largely absent.
The first four parts of this book tend to jump around between futurist monologues and grafting at least four or five different descriptions of human innovations in a really jarring, stream-of-consciousness prose that is legitimately hard to follow at times. She seems to want to talk more about where human lines are blurred with different discussions of nature, which I’m all for, but doesn’t work in the way she’s set it up here. I felt like I was reading the script for some trendy new show about technology, or listening to Ackerman rattle off facts she’d learned in an afternoon seminar about 3D printing or urban agriculture. There’s simply too much going on here, which is a shame: some parts are genuinely good, especially when she forms narratives around Patrick Blanc’s work or partula species in French Polynesia. These were the parts I was actually invested in, and continuously frustrated by Ackerman’s meandering between the story at hand and her own tangential thoughts about the future.
Her writing style is also downright irksome for me at times: overly flowery metaphorical language, cliché s-sound alliteration when describing snakes, mistaking topography for geology, apparently thinking Red Delicious apples actually taste good, describing her backyard like she’s the only person who appreciates nature. Small, but fucking annoying.
And I find she had an unconscious disregard and lack of faith in humans’ aggressively social nature, especially considering young digital natives like me and how our fluency with technology is destroying our ability to socialize. That’s certainly not true: and while this book is eight years old at the time of reading, there’s still that pessimism about youth and technology, that we are going to be so caught up in ourselves and our digital lives that we won’t participate in the future. That was really disheartening to see in this book, which touts hope for the future so much. It’s also apparent that no one interviewed for this book, besides perhaps Hod Lipson, is young. Ackerman probably thinks that emerging technologies hold so much potential, if only its inheritors like myself cared enough to use it. That’s why I was disappointed that culture, history, economy and policy were not really explored here: they fill in so many of those gaps of why her chosen sciences and technologies exist, particularly within the first
four sections.
It’s a book about exploring the current age’s fossil record that seems to forget its own premise to gush about genetic engineering. Ackerman largely ignores the impacts of Westernization and the massive imbalances it has caused when discussing how her chosen technologies could
be used: only in the last part and a half does she really try to bring that to the table, with epigenetics, microbiomes, and prosthetics. Though, it’s arguable if the first two would even show up in fossils.
This book has so much potential, but is afraid to actually go deeper and dig up the reasons why she thinks this is what our fossil record will look like. It’s a book of “it could look like this. Isn’t that cool?” It’s cool if you don’t know anything about the science or technology discussed here, but if do you know anything about them coming into this, it’s shallow and unfulfilling, and crumbles apart if thought about for too long.
jelina's review against another edition
3.0
Sweeping beautiful prose but rather longwinded and lacks focus also doesn't cite all the research she references
lietmanna's review against another edition
4.0
Ackerman seems to have aggregated all of the most impressive global innovations in the environmental sector, eloquently bestowing on her reader a hopeful outlook for our planet’s future. For me, this optimism has sparked a renewed desire to combat climate change, a cause it can be tragically easy to give up on.
As someone who has always embellished my writing, to the detriment of my more “scientific” papers, I personally really like her flowy writing style, and how she takes scientific concepts that I’m sure she’s thoroughly researched and writes about them so vibrantly, inserting lots of fluff in the form of literary devices and side commentary. However, I did at some points get confused, at other points bored, and sometimes her embellishing was a bit too much for me.
Overall though she’s a brilliant writer with a fun voice, and she tackles really important environmental concepts with gusto.
As someone who has always embellished my writing, to the detriment of my more “scientific” papers, I personally really like her flowy writing style, and how she takes scientific concepts that I’m sure she’s thoroughly researched and writes about them so vibrantly, inserting lots of fluff in the form of literary devices and side commentary. However, I did at some points get confused, at other points bored, and sometimes her embellishing was a bit too much for me.
Overall though she’s a brilliant writer with a fun voice, and she tackles really important environmental concepts with gusto.