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In this innovative, wide-ranging synthesis of anthropology and biogeography, Alexander Harcourt tells how and why our species came to be distributed around the world. He explains our current understanding of human origins, tells how climate determined our spread, and describes the barriers that delayed and directed migrating peoples. He explores the rich and complex ways in which our anatomy, physiology, cultural diversity, and population density vary from region to region in the areas we inhabit. The book closes with chapters on how human cultures have affected each other's geographic distributions, how non-human species have influenced human distribution, and how humans have reduced the ranges of many other species while increasing the ranges of others. Throughout, Harcourt compares what we understand of human biogeography to non-human primate biogeography

Cover ; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Table of Contents; List of Figures ; Preface ; Author ; Chapter 1: Theoretical Background ; EVOLUTIONARY BIOGEOGRAPHY ; STEPS OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOGEOGRAPHY ; Biogeographic Regionalization ; Nomenclatural Conventions ; Format Used in the Book ; Chapter 2: Historical Background ; Biogeographic placement of the Neotropical region ; Early regionalization of the Neotropical region ; Modern Biogeographic Regionalization ; Biogeographic Regionalization in the Twenty-First Century ; Chapter 3: The Neotropical Region ; NEOTROPICAL REGION.

Front -- CONTENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- MADAGASCAR RELIEF AND MAIN TYPES OF LANDS CAPE -- THE GEOLOGY OF MADAGASCAR -- THE CLIMATOLOGY OF MADAGASCAR -- FLORA AND VEGETATION OF MADAGASCAR -- THE FORESTS OF MADAGASCAR -- LES SOLS DE MADAGASCAR -- ACCELERATED EROSION AND SOIL DEGRADATION -- RIVERS AND STREAMS ON MADAGASCAR -- MAN AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN MADAGASCAR -- THE MALAGASY SUBFOSSILS -- THE CORAL REEFS OF MADAGASCAR -- SOME ECOLOGICAL AND BIOGEOGRAPHICAL PROBLEMS OF THE ENTOMOFAUNA OF MADAGASCAR -- LES ARACHNIDES DE MADAGASCAR -- LE PEUPLEMENT DE MOLLUSQUES TERRESTRES DE MADAGASCAR -- FISHES OF THE CONTINENTAL WATERS OF MADAGASCAR -- LES REPTILES DE MADAGASCAR ET DES ILES VOISINES -- THE EVOLUTION AND AFFINITIES OF THE BIRDS OF MADAGASCAR -- INSECTIVORES -- THE RODENTS OF MADAGASCAR: THE SEVEN GENERA OF MALAGASY RODENTS -- THE CARNIVORA OF MADAGASCAR -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- ORDER OF PRIMATES: SUB-ORDER OF LEMURS -- HUMAN DISEASES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO THE ENVIRONMENT -- THE PROBLEMS OF NATURE CONSERV ATION IN MADAGASCAR -- IN CONCLUSION

"Before starting to outline the structure of biogeography today, it is worthwhile to try to explain how scientists work, and what are their limitations - how far should the student trust what they say and believe? And the best way to learn this is to look at how scientists have behaved in the past, for the research workers of today are no different from them. So history has much to teach us. It is natural to assume that any research worker is free to make any sort of suggestion as to what new idea they might put forward in trying to solve their current problems. The reality is rather different. Just as in the past, the range of what are seen as possible solutions is limited by what contemporary society or science views as permissible or respectable. Attitudes to the idea of evolution (chapter 6) or of continental drift (see below) are good examples of such inhibitions in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the concept of evolution is still controversial today in some societies and communities. The history of scientific debate is rarely, if ever, one of dispassionate, unemotional evaluation of new ideas, particularly if they conflict with one's own. Scientists, like all men and women, are the product of their upbringing and experience, affected by their political and religious beliefs (or disbeliefs), by their position in society, by their own previous judgments and publicly expressed opinions, and by their ambitions-just as "there's no business like show business," there's no interest like self-interest! Very good examples of this, discussed later in this chapter, is the use of the concept of evolution by the rising middle-class scientists of England as a weapon against the 19th-century establishment (see later in this chapter) while, at the individual level, the history of Leon Croizat and his ideas (see later in this chapter) provides an interesting study"--

Addresses vertebrate and many key invertebrate groups of Bulgaria, their faunistics, origin, geographical and ecological distribution, as well as their conservation issues. This book is of interest to academics, scientists, researchers and graduates studying the zoology, geography and ecology of the eastern Mediterranean region.