Tyler Volk John Wiley & Sons 2002 FROM THE BACK COVER Answering the question "What is death?" by focusing on the individual is blinkered. It restricts attention to a narrow zone around the individual body of a creature. Instead, how expansive is the answer we receive when we look at the context of death within the biosphere. Death now is tied to all of life, via the atmosphere and ocean. Death supports the awesome biological enterprise of making abundant the green and squiggly life. Talk about death has headed us straight into a contemplation of life, not only individual life, but big life, life on a global scale. Death and life are neatly dovetailed by the supreme cabinetmaker of evolution. Again, the crucial feature is not the death of any one creature per se, but rather what is done with death. To reach into the meaning of death, we must reach out into the wider context of which death is a part. Tyler Volk, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at New York University. He is the acclaimed author of Metapatterns: Across Space, Time, and Mind and Gaia's Body: Toward a Physiology of Earth. CONTENTS Chapter 1. Introduction: Death, Thus Life 9 Part 1: Brain Chapter 2. The Three-Pound Miracle 27 Chapter 3. We Live in Two Different Worlds 41 Chapter 4. The Grateful Self 57 Part 2: Culture Chapter 5. Nobody Just Dies 77 Chapter 6. Managing Terror 101 Chapter 7. Death with Interconnected Dignity 127 Part 3: Biosphere Chapter 8. Sex and Catastrophic Senescence 151 Chapter 9. Lifestyle and Life Span 165 Chapter 10. Little Deaths, Big Lives 181 Chapter 11. Life and Death at the Smallest Scale 201 Chapter 12. Conclusion: Eternity's Sunrise 223 Notes 231 Bibliography 242 Acknowledgments 249 Index 251 WHERE TO ORDER John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Distribution Center 1 Wiley Drive Somerset, NJ 08875-1272 Phone: (732) 469-4400 or (800) 225-5945 Fax: (732) 302-2300 E-mail: bookinfo@wiley.com PRICE: $27.95 ISBN: 0-471-37544-6 Posted date: 10-01-02
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