Nature's Chaos

The essence of the earth's beauty lies in chaos, in the disorder of grasses strewn in a meadow, the blotching of green lichen on a tree trunk. Eliot Porter's photographs of the natural world, spanning thirty-five years and five continents-from an Antarctic ice floe to an American desert to an Icelandic lava field-reveal in mesmerizing ways what scientists are beginning to see for themselves: the patterns, relations, and inter-actions present in nature's disorder and wildness. This is the perfect marriage of image and text-brilliant full-color photographs by the preeminent nature photographer of his generation together with an illuminating essay by the widely praised author of Chaos.Author Biography: James Gleick is also the author of the bestselling book, Faster. He has been an editor and a science writer for the New York Times and edited The Best American Science Writing 2000. Eliot Porter (1901-1990) was a photographer of international renown. His books include In the Wilderness Is the Preservation of the World and Intimate Landscapes, a retrospective compiled by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.