Critical Assessment of a Book Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Critical Assessment of a Book - Essay Example Her greatest asset was a keen and observant biological eye which she made use of whenever she worked. Carson’s book ‘Silent Spring’ shot her to fame when it featured at the top of the bestseller lists. She was greatly encouraged by her mother to explore the natural world around her in which Rachel found immense solace. Her books were quite appealing due to their simplicity, style, lyrical value and thoroughness for which she was widely reviewed and honored. She adopted a visionary approach which was quite novel to the mainstream scientific community. Through her writing Rachel Carson handed down to us a legacy of scientific knowledge. She died on April 14th, 1964 at Silverspring, Maryland, USA. Part 2 Outline Structure of the Book   The book Silent Spring, written by Rachel Carson, was first published in the year 1962 and became an instant best seller. Silent Spring was written as a serial article for the magazine, The New Yorker but later was published as a boo k. Carson’s reputation as a writer and scientist helped in establishing the credibility of the book. This book had an enduring and enormous impact on the world. This book was not written for a narrow scientific audience but for the layman and it has been credited with kick starting a debate on the limits of technology, responsibility of science and the use of pesticides. She was of the view that "The best and cheapest controls for vegetation are not chemicals but other plants."  (pg.75) Carson meticulously described the process whereby the entire world food supply chain was contaminated by DDT. DDT entered the food chain and got accumulated in the fatty tissues of man and animal. A single application of the chemical on crops killed not only the targeted insects but also the other organisms present for weeks and months. These chemicals remained toxic even after dilution with rain water thereby causing irrevocable harm to animals and birds. "Carrots absorb more insecticide th an any other crop studied;...In the future it may become necessary to analyze soils for insecticides before planting certain food crops. Otherwise even unsprayed crops may take up enough insecticide merely from the soil to render them unfit for market."  (pg.59) The author implicitly states that these chemicals in the environment caused cancer. The scientist-author meticulously gathered evidence to show the adverse effect caused by the indiscriminate application of mineral based agricultural pesticides and synthetic phosphates and chlorinated hydrocarbons. She argued that not only was the environment being degraded but the very fabric of American natural beauty was being laid threadbare. The indiscriminate use of the chemicals resulted in the development of resistant strains. When they reached high levels of concentration in the water bodies it led to the death of aquatic flora and fauna. â€Å"It is not possible to add pesticides to water anywhere without threatening the purity of water everywhere. Seldom if ever, does nature operate in closed and separate compartments, and she has not done so in distributing the earth’s water supply.†(pg. 42) The efforts of Carson were rewarded when the Government of the United States of America regulated the use of pesticides by enacting the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act of 1972. Silent Spring is a book which still holds currency for the debate it still

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Essays -- Essays Papers

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight As with so many stories written in the Middle Ages Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is filled with wonders, magic and knightly pursuit of fame and nobility. It combines folklore and romance as does, according to The Norton Anthology, no other known work. The character of the Green Knight fascinates and amuses. Most people would not think of it as an Arthurian-time creature. The Green Man in fact, is a part of an ancient folklore where the beheading of a green man would assure the return of spring next year. The passage that I am discussing takes place almost a year after the Green Knight has visited King Arthur's court to challenge the court. He has specifically challenged Sir Gawain who steps forward to accept the challenge. The passage starts with the appearance of a castle. This is very significant to the story, and this fact is communicated to the reader in the description of the castle and even by the initial fact that it appears so suddenly and so very conveniently after Sir Gawain's prayer. Sir Gawain has been suffering, trying to find the Green Knight. The Green Knight has set a date on which they will meet, and Sir Gawain, as is the custom for knights, has to keep his promise that he will fight him. Furthermore, Sir Gawain is the best of King Arthur's knights and his five-pointed star symbol on his shield stands for truth so there is no way he will not keep his promise. We are made aware of the importance of the castle first when it just suddenly appears from nowhere and secondly when we notice it is set in a green field. The green field makes no sense to the reader because it is the middle of winter, but it does signify the fact that the appearance of the castle is not acci... ...ain is not aware of. Sir Gawain is just grateful that he has found this castle (or that he has been led there) and that he will have a place where he can spend Christmas day. He does not see all the symbols that make this castle special. From all the clues that the author gives us, we know that the castle is crucial for the story as well as for Gawain's life. He is not aware of it, but the castle is the place where he is tested, and ultimately his future is decided there. It is very typical of this kind of story to include such symbols, like the castle, to convey to the reader that whatever happens there should be remembered because it is important part of the story. References: 1. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In The Norton Anthology of Literature. Ed. M.H.Abrams, et al. Vol I. Sixth Edition. New York: W.W.Norton & Company, 1993, pp 200- 254.

Compare and Contrast of Agriculture Technology Between hang Dynasty and Han Dynasty Essay

For the past five thousand years, human civilizations have existed on the earth and constantly reforming and contributing to our society. The excellences human made are unprecedented, and the experience theses civilizations cumulated can also be continuously studied by the people nowadays. This year, we learnt many great civilizations, among the civilizations in ancient China, the Shang dynasty and the Han dynasty are the most outstanding civilizations. Their cultures are distinct and their contributions are tremendous. Although now we can find their stories, cultures and inventions only on history books, their contributions and achievements are still having deep affection to us. Agriculture is a very significant part of a civilization. Without agriculture, making progress is impossible. Agriculture is the foundation of everything. Agriculture is a good reflection of science and technology in a civilization. During the comparing and contrasting of the agriculture of Shang dynasty and Han dynasty, we can get a deeper understanding of the great knowledge and intelligent of the people of the two dynasties. We can also discover the development and progress they have made. The Shang dynasty is the second dynasty in Chinese history. The Shang Dynasty last from 1600 B. C. to 1046 B. C. and experienced three big stages. The Han dynasty can be divided into two historical period which are western Han dynasty (202 B. C. to 9 A. D. ) and eastern Han dynasty (25A. D. to 220 A. D. ) Both Shang dynasty and Han dynasty are important civilization in Chinese history. Also, both dynasties made big breakthrough in agriculture. From the research of a large number of archaeological material and oracle records, archaeologists concluded that the Shang dynasty is operating mostly on agriculture. Although at that time, the handicraft industry has been developed, agriculture is still the ifeline of the economy during Shang dynasty. Basically, the main type of agriculture during Shang dynasty was glebe farming, and in the southward of Shang dynasty, which is the Yangtze River area, the popular agriculture type was paddy fields farming. A very important reason that stimulates the development of agricultural technology during the Shang dynasty is the development of bronze industry. During Shang dynasty, the bronze industry developed very quickly. Especially in the late Shang dynasty, the development of bronze industry came into its own stage. The appearance of bronze tools made the agricultural technology developed quickly. The question that most people will concern is that how did people in Shang dynasty make bronze tools? It is true that it was a very hard process for people in the Shang dynasty to make bronze tools. So, at the beginning, the amounts of bronze tools are very limited. People in the Shang dynasty usually use carpentry tools including knife, adz, and axes to make bronze tools. In the middle Shang period, craftsmen can already made variety kinds of bronze tools like shovels, Jues, adz. However, at that time, there were no enough sources of cooper metal compared with sources of stone tools; also, the process of making bronze tools is complicated. As the result, in the middle period of Shang dynasty, bronze tools were not widely used. Also, most of the bronze tools were under the control of agricultural officers. Civilians and slaves cannot have these bronze tools. They can only use the heavy farm tools like stone spade, axes. Then, at the late period of the Shang dynasty, this problem got solved because of the expansion of the production scale. At the same time, the appearance of irrigation technology and the strict management also helped to make the development of the agriculture in the Shang dynasty. As the main production department during the Shang dynasty, the developed agricultural technology provided the society with lots of food, in this way, a large number of people leave the career of agricultural production and began to work in other aspects for example business people, officers, soldiers, professional producers and so on. The government of Han dynasty put lots of effort on the restore and development of agricultural. Han dynasty began after the perish of Qin dynasty. At the beginning of the Han dynasty, because of the long period of wars occur during the late period of the Qin dynasty, the agricultural and economy paralyzed. The people died in the wars are mostly farmers, as a result, the labor decrease and there‘s not enough people to take care of the cropland. At that time, the total population went straight down from 20 million to 8 million. Emperor Gaozu of Han solved these problems and agriculture of Han dynasty restored and developed very quickly. There were lots of innovations and invention of agriculture during the Han dynasty. These achievements can be divided into three aspects. Firstly, there are huge developments towards the irrigation. Secondly, there are improvements of agricultural tools and technology. The third one is the cultivation of crops and vegetables. At the beginning of the Han dynasty, there are flood from upstream the Yellow River every year. It is a big hazard to the residents who lived in the downstream of the Yellow River. Their croplands got destroyed and some of them lost their houses. Emperor Wudi of Han lead his people solved this problem. Thirty thousand people work together to remove the siltation of the river and planted trees on the upstream of the river. After this recuperation, there was no big flood occurred in the Yellow River. There are lots of interesting and useful inventions during the Han dynasty. Above is agriculture equipment called Libi. Libi is a plow equipped with a double moldboard. People put Libi on a plough can turns up the soil on each side of the furrow. With the Libi, the efficiency of cultivation increase. The application of Libi is a big improvement in agriculture. Also, it is nearly 1000 years earlier than Europe of using the similar thing. Above is another invention which is called Lou. It is an animal- drawn seed plough. It has three feed. With Lou, people can do cultivation job three rows at a time. Lou can do three tasks: opening ditches, sowing, covering with soil at one time. Lou made farmers during the Han dynasty save much times and did more works. Lou increased the efficiency of the busy working farmers. The popularization of cultivation works with cattle would be another development on agriculture during the Han Dynasty. At that time, the most popular ways of cultivation are two people with three cattle and one people with two cattle. The ways that cultivation using cattle made people worked easily. The third achievement that we mentioned above is the cultivation crops and vegetables. Firstly, people made the cultivation of crops regionalized. In the northern area, people grew wheat, and In the Yangtze River area and Southern area, people grew rice. Also then the scales of the cultivation get larger. Another impressive improvement on agriculture is the cultivation of vegetables. During the Han dynasty, people already has variety chooses of vegetables including the vegetables we usually eat now like celeries, carrot, taro, green onion, garlic and so on. The most amazing thing is that during Han dynasty, people already learnt to grow vegetables in the greenhouse. During the eastern Han period, there were over 20 kinds of vegetables grew in the greenhouse. The use of greenhouse is one thousand years earlier than Europe. The biggest difference of agriculture between Shang Dynasty and Han Dynasty is the mode of production. Shang dynasty is a slavery society, slaves worked collectively. Also, During Shang dynasty, the croplands were all belonged to the emperor of Shang, and he put the land law of serf society into practice. As the image show above, at that time, the roads and channel crisscross and partitioned the cropland into squares. The emperor of Shang forced people work on the cropland. The outside parts are private fields and the inside part is public field. On the opposite, during the Han dynasty, people live and cultivation in the unit of a family. People have their own croplands. This kind of mode of production was usually described as small-scale farming by individual owners. Nowadays, in the remote mountain area or countryside, people are still using this kind of mode of production. A question may come out, why the first kind of production mode didn’t last long and in the contrary the second kind of production mode last till today. In my opinion, in the Shang dynasty’s example, people don’t have their own croplands. They work hard but the wheat and rice that come out of the croplands did not belongs to them, so they are not satisfy with the works they are doing. In contrast, with the second kind of mode of production, people are glad because if they put more effort, they will get more payback, so they are satisfy with their works and willing to do better. From the analyzing of the agriculture technology and development of Shang dynasty and Han dynasty, we can certainly conclude that the development in agriculture of both dynasties are significant and they both show their incredible intelligence to us. Their inventions and new ideas gave us inspirations. We can also see the huge improvement from Shang dynasty to Han dynasty in the 800 years. Their progresses are starling.

Detecting Deception in Nonverbal Communication Essay

Using nonverbal communication during deception can be seen through body language like hand gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact. Research remains inconclusive as to whether or not one can restrain facial expressions to deceive. The results derived from micro momentary coding revealed that facial actions can be reduced, but not eliminated, and that instructions to suppress on element of the expression resulted in reduction in all facial movement, regardless of veracity. (Hurley, Frank, 2011, p. 1). Detecting Deception In Nonverbal Communication Through The Observation of Hand Gestures, Facial Expressions, and Eye Contact Nonverbal communication is a constantly used form of communication for†¦show more content†¦The third reason is because we read the wrong cues. What Schweitzer means by this is that by listening to common thinking about body language is most of the time wrong, and can lead to wrong conclusions in deception situations. Facial Expressions Suppressing facial expressions seems to the most difficult thing to control during deception because it is so closely tied with our emotions. We display emotions on our faces when we feel them. The question is, how does one control their face to not betray oneself? It would seem the simple answer to this question would be commonly suggested solutions such as just acting natural, or looking relaxed. A problem occurs when using this approach called Ironic Process Theory, from now on referred to as IPT (IPT; Wegner 1994, quoted in Hurley, Frank 2011 p. 122). IPT says that when someone is actively trying to suppress an emotion or behavior, they inadvertently display the emotion or behavior because all they are thinking about is trying to suppress it. It would seem that the greater the effort the person puts in to maintaining a facade of innocence while making up a story, the harder it becomes to control what ones face might show (e.g., Porter and Ten Brinke 2008). In t his study we specifically instructed participants to suppress upper face activity, manifested through eyebrow raising actions that mimic the expression of fear, and lower face activity, manifested through smiling. This is the first study toShow MoreRelatedNonverbal Indicators of Deception: Verbal and Nonverbal Cues in Advertising1165 Words   |  5 Pageshow well we encode and decode messages that are both written and spoken. This is because people tend to range in a variety of highs and lows with regard to their verbal language abilities. This would a lot for differences in nonverbal communication as well. Nonverbal communication refers to the exchange of information between people and an explanation or establishment of the meaning of information by any means other than the use of spoken or written words. 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