Survival, Samuel Layne
Survival, Samuel Layne
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Survival
Evolutionary Rules for Intelligent Species Survival

Author: Samuel Layne, Sherry Wang, Illustrator

Narrator: Nathaniel Ascher

Unabridged: 20 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Maijai Press

Published: 08/01/2020


Synopsis

FINALIST: (1) 2020 (14TH) ANNUAL NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE AWARDS; (2) 2021 NEXT GENERATION INDIE BOOK AWARDSHow different might the history of our species have been had our hunter-gatherer forebears failed to migrate out of Africa in time to survive 70,000 years ago when threatened by extinction due to climate change brought on by the last ice age? Simply put, we would not exist. Now, similarly threatened, we too must act quickly if we hope to survive. Yet despite all the signs of a potential greenhouse mass extinction, again due to climate change, this threat is still being ignored.Like the passengers aboard the Titanic, who knew that in two hours and forty minutes they would either be in a lifeboat or drowning in the cold waters of the Atlantic but waited a full hour before taking action-we too are not getting our lifeboats ready.This book is a wake-up call and looks to evolution itself for guidance on how to avoid extinction.Evolution, the author claims, seems firmly on the side of survival and has left Evolutionary Survival Patterns-Adapt, Innovate, Mature, and Migrate to Survive or go Extinct. Survival depends on how we adapt and innovate as well as on whether we can mature and migrate. Unfortunately, misuse of the Adapt and Innovate patterns over the last two hundred years has driven us to the brink of self-extinction. What can be done?Survival, this book claims, will not emerge from the products of adapting and innovating-science, technologies, and inventions-but by migrating and maturing to evolutionary maturity-maturing beyond the ability to drive ourselves and other species to extinction-and by restoring Earth's habitats, species and a return to sustaining our lives from within Earth's ecosystems, as our forebears did. And failing these, like them, we must be free, willing, and able to choose to migrate-to other planets if necessary-to survive.

Reviews

Goodreads review by W.D. on July 04, 2018

I survived! It was actually intermittently enjoyable, as the introductory pages to each chapter were written with a dry wit, though then she dives into the weeds of representative novels and the tone shifts toward the more dryly academic (this evolved out of her MA thesis, if I am not mistaken). So,......more

Goodreads review by Stela on October 06, 2015

I think this is the first time ever I’ve read a book of literary criticism without being familiar with the name of at least some of the writers it was talking about (in fact I know of two of them, Alice Munro and Leonard Cohen, but theses ones are too little discussed to really count). It was a stra......more

Goodreads review by Krista on March 23, 2013

I picked up the book Survival A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature because as much as I do love Canadian Literature, I'm not a terribly critical reader and I thought I could benefit from an esteemed author such as Margaret Atwood pointing me in the direction of what I should be reading. She state......more

Goodreads review by Jeanne on August 27, 2017

An interesting and enlightening read on the traditions of Canadian literature. What is Canadian literature about? A simple enough question in theory but with a more complicated answer that is discussed throughout the book. The short answer is this: survival and victims. Atwood doesn't paint a pretty p......more

Goodreads review by Maria on November 01, 2012

Absolutely brilliant! Atwood has showed once again her absolute mastery of the Art. She dances gracefully from novel to poetry, to science fiction, to satire, to essay. Absolutely brilliant piece of work, as always educating but fun a light-hearted. It reminded me of V. Woolf's Three Guineas (esp. t......more