A globe-trotting nature writer meditates on the fraught interactions between people and ecosystems in this sprawling environmentalist travelogue. Essayist Lopez (Arctic Dreams) recounts episodes from decades of his travels, most of them tied to scientific investigations: camping on the Oregon coast while considering the exploits of British explorer James Cook; examining archaeological sites in the high Arctic while reflecting on the harshness of life there; hunting for hominin fossils in Kenya while weighing human evolution; scuba-diving under an Antarctic ice shelf while observing the rich marine biota. His free-associative essays blend vivid reportage on landscapes, wildlife, and the knotty relationships among the scientists he accompanies with larger musings on natural history, environmental and climate crises, and the sins of Western imperialism in erasing indigenous cultures. It's often hard to tell where Lopez is going with his frequent digressions: one two-page section skitters from global cancer rates past a one-eyed goshawk he once saw in Namibia to an astrophysics experiment at the South Pole to detect dark matter, with no particular conclusion. Still, his prose is so evocative-during a tempest at sea, "veils of storm-ripped water ballooned in the air around us" amid "the high-pitched mewling of albatrosses, teetering impossibly forty feet away from us on the wind"-and his curiosity so infectious that readers will be captivated. Photos. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

*Starred Review* As a preternaturally curious boy subjected to coast-to-coast upheavals, Lopez dreamed of traveling the world, and travel he has, with serious intent, to 70 countries, becoming, along the way, a much-lauded writer of conscience who illuminates the nexus between natural and human history. In his most encompassing, autobiographical, passionately detailed, and reflective book, a life's travelogue, he shares memories, stories, observations, concerns, condemnations, and hope. Prodigiously attentive out in the world and rigorous on the page, morally inquisitive and bracingly candid, Lopez pegs this expansive narrative to places that have special resonance for him, beginning with Oregon's Cape Foulweather, so named by Captain James Cook. Lopez visits archaeological sites in the Canadian High Arctic, takes measure of environmental pressures on the Galápagos Islands, participates in fieldwork in East Equatorial Africa, studies penal colonies in Australia, and searches for meteorites in Antarctica. Each place on Earth goes deep, writes Lopez, as does he. Sharply attuned to the wonders and decimation of the living world, the endless assaults against indigenous people, and the daunting challenges of a changing climate, Lopez tells revelatory tales, poses tough questions, and shares wisdom, all while looking to the horizon, the sill of the sky, separating what the eye could see from what the mind might imagine. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2019 Booklist

Lopez is a natural philosopher in an almost literal sense, sharing his observations on the natural world and how different cultures have made sense of it and one another. His ruminations take us on a peripatetic journey around the globe and across the sweep of time with major sections of the book set on the Antarctic ice, the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, a small island in the Canadian arctic, the Galapagos, Australia, and the coast of Oregon. Each setting provides the fodder for a discursive meditation on his personal travels, the landscape and local ecology, humankind's impact on the environment, and the painful effects of histories of colonialization on indigenous populations. A recurrent theme is the role of elders in a culture, not as mere repositories of institutional knowledge but as nonlinear thinkers who draw on their cultural past to see new ways of solving problems based on empathic listening and letting go of assumptions. VERDICT While not a memoir or travelog, this first-person account is ideal for anyone who likes nature writing that also manages to bring philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and history to bear with a personal guide. [See Prepub Alert, 9/24/18.]-Wade Lee-Smith, Univ. of -Toledo Lib. © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.