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Sounds wild and broken : sonic marvels, evolution's creativity, and the crisis of sensory extinction / David George Haskell.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Viking, [2022]Copyright date: ©2022Description: xiv, 430 pages ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781984881540
  • 198488154X
Subject(s):
Contents:
Origins. Primal sound and the ancient roots of hearing ; Unity and diversity ; Sensory bargains and biases -- The flourishing of animal sounds. Predators, silence, wings ; Flowers oceans, milk -- Evolution's creative powers. Air, water, wood ; In the clamor ; Sexuality and beauty ; Vocal learning and culture ; The imprints of deep time -- Human music and belonging. Bone, ivory, breath ; Resonant spaces ; Music, forest, body -- Diminishment, crisis, and injustice. Forests ; Oceans ; Cities -- Listening. In community ; In the deep past and future.
Summary: "A rich exploration of how the evolution of both natural and manmade sounds have shaped us and the world, and how the world's acoustic diversity is currently in grave danger of being destroyed. We live on a planet that is wrapped in the diverse acoustic marvels of song and speech. Yet never has this diversity been so threatened as it is now. Braiding his experience as a listener and an ecologist with the latest scientific discoveries, David Haskell explores the acoustic wonders of our planet. Starting in deep time with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth's history, he illuminates and celebrates the creative processes that have produced the varied sounds of our world. From the powers of animal sexuality and environmental change, to the unpredictable, improvisational whims of genetic evolution and cultural change, sounds on Earth are the products of and catalysts for vibrant ecosystems. Four interconnected sensory crises are currently diminishing the vitality of our sonic world. Deforestation is erasing the most complex communities of sounds the world has ever known. In the oceans, machine noise has created a living hell for the most acoustically sensitive animals on the planet. In cities, noise has resulted in dire sonic inequities among people, the result of racism, sexism, and power asymmetries. Last, in forgetting or being barred from hearing the voices of the living Earth, we lose both the experience of joyful connection and the foundation for ethics and action. As wild sounds disappear forever and human noise smothers other voices, the Earth becomes flatter, blander. According to Haskell, this decline is not a mere loss of sensory ornament. Sound is a generative force, and so the erasure of sonic diversity makes the world less creative. His book is an invitation to listen, wonder, belong, and act."-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 591.594 H349 Available 33111010779607
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A finalist for the 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

"[A] glorious guide to the miracle of life's sound." -- The New York Times Book Review

A lyrical exploration of the diverse sounds of our planet, the creative processes that produced these marvels, and the perils that sonic diversity now faces

We live on a planet alive with song, music, and speech. David Haskell explores how these wonders came to be. In rain forests shimmering with insect sound and swamps pulsing with frog calls we learn about evolution's creative powers. From birds in the Rocky Mountains and on the streets of Paris, we discover how animals learn their songs and adapt to new environments. Below the waves, we hear our kinship to beings as different as snapping shrimp, toadfish, and whales. In the startlingly divergent sonic vibes of the animals of different continents, we experience the legacies of plate tectonics, the deep history of animal groups and their movements around the world, and the quirks of aesthetic evolution.

Starting with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth history, Haskell illuminates and celebrates the emergence of the varied sounds of our world. In mammoth ivory flutes from Paleolithic caves, violins in modern concert halls, and electronic music in earbuds, we learn that human music and language belong within this story of ecology and evolution. Yet we are also destroyers, now silencing or smothering many of the sounds of the living Earth. Haskell takes us to threatened forests, noise-filled oceans, and loud city streets, and shows that sonic crises are not mere losses of sensory ornament. Sound is a generative force, and so the erasure of sonic diversity makes the world less creative, just, and beautiful. The appreciation of the beauty and brokenness of sound is therefore an important guide in today's convulsions and crises of change and inequity.

Sounds Wild and Broken is an invitation to listen, wonder, belong, and act.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 383-416) and index.

Origins. Primal sound and the ancient roots of hearing ; Unity and diversity ; Sensory bargains and biases -- The flourishing of animal sounds. Predators, silence, wings ; Flowers oceans, milk -- Evolution's creative powers. Air, water, wood ; In the clamor ; Sexuality and beauty ; Vocal learning and culture ; The imprints of deep time -- Human music and belonging. Bone, ivory, breath ; Resonant spaces ; Music, forest, body -- Diminishment, crisis, and injustice. Forests ; Oceans ; Cities -- Listening. In community ; In the deep past and future.

"A rich exploration of how the evolution of both natural and manmade sounds have shaped us and the world, and how the world's acoustic diversity is currently in grave danger of being destroyed. We live on a planet that is wrapped in the diverse acoustic marvels of song and speech. Yet never has this diversity been so threatened as it is now. Braiding his experience as a listener and an ecologist with the latest scientific discoveries, David Haskell explores the acoustic wonders of our planet. Starting in deep time with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth's history, he illuminates and celebrates the creative processes that have produced the varied sounds of our world. From the powers of animal sexuality and environmental change, to the unpredictable, improvisational whims of genetic evolution and cultural change, sounds on Earth are the products of and catalysts for vibrant ecosystems. Four interconnected sensory crises are currently diminishing the vitality of our sonic world. Deforestation is erasing the most complex communities of sounds the world has ever known. In the oceans, machine noise has created a living hell for the most acoustically sensitive animals on the planet. In cities, noise has resulted in dire sonic inequities among people, the result of racism, sexism, and power asymmetries. Last, in forgetting or being barred from hearing the voices of the living Earth, we lose both the experience of joyful connection and the foundation for ethics and action. As wild sounds disappear forever and human noise smothers other voices, the Earth becomes flatter, blander. According to Haskell, this decline is not a mere loss of sensory ornament. Sound is a generative force, and so the erasure of sonic diversity makes the world less creative. His book is an invitation to listen, wonder, belong, and act."-- Provided by publisher.

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