Cold

April 27, 2009
Cold weather systems the earth needs to thrive is the subject of Streever's well-documented book, using all of the author's expertise from his field trips to the world's most frigid environments. Streever, who chairs the North Slope Science Initiative's Science Technical Advisory Panel, writes of the frostiest experience: “We fail to see cold for what it is: the absence of heat, the slowing of molecular motion, a sensation, a perception, a driving force.” Rather than giving the reader a dry, academic lecture on snow, glaciers, wind-chill factors and icebergs, he delivers a poetic, anecdotal narrative complete with polar expeditions, Ice Age mysteries, igloos, permafrost and hailstorms. Two of the most fascinating segments are the arduous task of scientific reconstruction of past climates and the magical navigation of migratory birds to warmer lands. This is a wonderful collection of one man's first-rate observations and commentary about the history and importance of cold to the earth and its occupants.

Starred review from June 15, 2009
An unexpectedly fascinating look into a seemingly banal subject.

Alaska-based biologist Streever spent a year documenting the nature and science of cold."Cold is a part of day-to-day life," he writes,"but we often isolate ourselves from it, hiding in overheated houses and retreating to overheated climates, all without understanding what we so eagerly avoid." With simple prose and a strikingly immediate present tense, the author carves landscapes, scientific processes and neat anthropological factoids out of the ice, a style guaranteed to transport readers into the unfamiliar—indeed, otherworldly—dimensions he describes. Streever, who uses science as a launching point for discussions of some of history's most memorable events, renders complicated biological theories eminently understandable. His treatment of 1815,"The Year without Summer," pieces together the seemingly unrelated events of an Indonesian volcano eruption, the origins of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the founding of the Mormon Church in a passage that will leave readers wholly impressed by the scope of the author's grasp on his subject. There's humor, too, in deftly crafted witticisms that pop up throughout the text:"When one reads past the stoicism and heroics, the history of polar exploration becomes one long accident report mixed with one long obituary";"Cold, really, is like malaria. If it does not kill you, it will help you lose weight." With aplomb, Streever charts a meandering course of the land around him, providing an enthralling tour through haunting arctic tundra, permafrost tunnels of 40,000-year-old ice and the winter dens of hibernating beasts.

A seamless blend of travelogue, history and scientific treatise.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 1, 2009
Open this book to any page and be treated to a tidbit about the cold, its effects on animals, on history, on the world. Do frogs and caterpillars actually freeze solid and then revive in spring? Have you ever heard of the School Children's Blizzard that froze cattle standing in place? What is the difference between hypothermia and frostbite? Biologist Streever explores benign cold, threatening cold, and monstrous/scary cold not only through history and science books but also in person, in Alaska and other frozen spots around the world. The author knows what he is talking about. He has worked in Arctic Alaska and chairs the Science Technical Advisory Panel of the North Slope Science Initiative. This reviewer found Streever's book more consistently enticing than Mariana Gosnell's "Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance". Written in a popular, accessible style, Streever's book also includes 34 pages of notes. Recommended for public libraries.Betty Galbraith, Owen Science & Engineering Lib., Washington State Univ., Pullman

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