Bücher von Peter Matthiessen

One September, the writer and explorer Peter Matthiessen set out with field biologist George Schaller to journey 250 miles through the Himalayas to the Crystal Mountain on the Tibetan plateau. The Snow Leopard is not only an exquisite book of natural history but an extraordinary account of an inner journey ;

For environmentally critical times, Courage for the Earth is a centennial appreciation of Rachel Carson's brave life and transformative writingRachel Carson's lyrical, popular books about the sea, including her best-selling The Sea Around Us, set a standard for nature writing. By the late 1950s, Carson was the most respected science writer in America.She completed Silent Spring (1962) against formidable personal odds, and with it shaped a powerful social movement that has altered the course of history. In Silent Spring, Carson asserted that ?the right of the citizen to be secure in his own home against the intrusion of poisons applied by other persons? must surely be a basic human right. She was the first to challenge the moral vacuity of a government that refused to take responsibility for or to acknowledge evidence of environmental damage.In this volume, today's foremost scientists and writers give compelling evidence that Carson's transformative insights -- her courage for the earth -- are giving a new generation of activists the inspiration they need to move consumers, industry, and government to action.Contributors include John Elder, Al Gore, John Hay, Freeman House, Linda Lear, Robert Michael Pyle, Janisse Ray, Sandra Steingraber, Terry Tempest Williams, and E. O. Wilson

Im Visier der schönsten Raubkatze der Welt: eine Reise an den Rand des Himmels und an die Grenzen unserer WahrnehmungIm Herbst 1973 bricht Peter Matthiessen mit dem Biologen George Schaller in die höchsten ganzjährig bewohnten Bergtäler der Erde auf: ins nepalesische Dolpo. Hier trotzen Menschen und Tiere extremen Bedingungen ein Leben voller Schärfe und Kontur ab. Und seit Jahrhunderten blüht hier eine Tradition des tibetischen Buddhismus. Schaller will das Brunftverhalten hochalpiner Blauschafe dokumentieren, Matthiessen die Trauer über den Krebstod seiner Frau verarbeiten. Beide verbindet die Faszination für den geheimnisvollsten Bewohner des Dolpos: den Schneeleoparden. In diesem Meisterwerk, für das Matthiessen gleich zweimal - 1979 und 1980 in unterschiedlichen Kategorien - den National Book Award erhielt, verbinden sich naturkundliche Klarheit, spirituelle Wachsamkeit und die lyrische Kunst der Sprachverknappung zu einem lebensverändernden Leseerlebnis. Noch nie war dieses literarische Zeugnis für den unermesslichen Reichtum der Welt, der geistige wie materielle Entsagung bedeuten kann, dringlicher und zeitgemäßer als heute.Überarbeitet und mit einem Nachwort versehen von Bernhard Malkmus.

In August 1968, naturalist-explorer Peter Matthiessen returned from Africa to his home in Sagaponack, Long Island, to find three Zen masters in his driveway—guests of his wife, a new student of Zen. Thirteen years later, Matthiessen was ordained a Buddhist monk. Written in the same format as his best-selling The Snow Leopard, Nine-Headed Dragon River reveals Matthiessen''s most daring adventure of all: the quest for his spiritual roots.