The volume is a compendium unlike most others. Rather than gather causal arguments about specific substantive outcomes, Vayda and Walters have assembled essays on how to question, how to reason, and why to do it a pragmatic fashion....The book is thoroughly coherent, strategically repetitive, and by no means unconvincing. Whether your field is human ecology, land change science, vulnerability research, or political ecology, there are sobering lessons here about bad methodological habits and good question writing....[ I]t is hard not to come away from this collection with a renewed sense of energy and possibility. The world is filled with strange events and outcomes, after all, none of which have ready-made answers, and all of which can avail themselves to energetic observers with open minds. For a moment, viewed this way, it is possible to think that environment-society research might actually be filled with surprise. That is a welcome message. * Human Ecology *
