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About the Author |
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Eric Scigliano worked as a journalist for more than twenty years, beginning in Santa Fe, New Mexico and continuing in Seattle, where he now lives. As a self-described “serial specialist,” he has covered a wide range of cultural, political, scientific, and environmental fields. Underlying all this work is an abiding interest in the relationship of human cultures and non-human nature, and the ways each affects the other. This interest led him to spend two years following the “elephant trail” through the forests, circuses, and zoos of Asia and America for his first major book, Love War, and Circuses: The Age-Old Relationship Between Elephants and Humans (Houghton Mifflin). It also underlies the texts he wrote for two regional photographic books, Puget Sound: Sea Between the Mountains and Seattle From the Air (both from Graphic Arts Publishing Co.), and his latest effort, Michelangelo’s Mountain.
Scigliano has written and reported from many countries in Europe, Asia, and South and Central America. He served as news editor or managing editor of several Seattle-based magazines and alternative newsweeklies, including Argus, Puget Sound/Enetai, and the Seattle Weekly. He is the co-translator, with Joseph Do Vinh, of a selection of the wartime verse of Trinh Cong Son, “Love Songs of a Madman,” published by Yale University’s Viet Nam Forum. His writing has appeared in Harper’s, Discover, Outside, Orion, Slate, Technology Review, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. It has received Livingston, Kennedy, and American Association for the Advancement of Science honors, and been selected for The Best American Science and Nature Writing and many other anthologies.
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Photo by Robert Scigliano |
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Selected articles by Eric Scigliano:
Science and environment
- “Tusk Tales: A trail of DNA may lead us to the killers of Africa’s elephants.” Discover, June 2005.
- “Through the Eye of an Octopus: An Exploration of the Brainpower of a Lowly Mollusk.” Discover, October 2003.
- “Turn Down the Lights: The party's over—when we turn up the lights, nature goes a little haywire.” Discover, July 2003.
- “Making Baby Elephants: It took a lot more than a stork to bring Hansa. Now that she's turning 1, was it worth it?” Seattle Weekly, October 31, 2001.
Technology and public policy
- “Ten Technologies That Refuse to Die: From typewriters to vacuum tubes, these 10 technologies aren't as obsolete as you might think.” Technology Review, February 2004.
- “Expand Mass Transit? No, Try mass transfers; This Good Idea Should Go Somewhere.” Washington Post Outlook, Oct 13, 2002.
- “10 Technology Disasters: What do a 17th-century Swedish warship, an opulent Chicago theater and a Kansas City hotel ‘skyway’ have in common? All met catastrophic ends—and they have important lessons to teach today's innovators.” Technology Review, June 2002.
- “Delayed Takeoff. Five years ago, the FAA set out to revolutionize air traffic control. Their comprehensive plan failed to attain airspeed—will an incremental approach fly before aerial gridlock sets in?” Technology Review, September 1999
- “The Tide of Prints. The FBI has struggled for decades to automate its vast and cumbersome collection of fingerprints. A new system is set to come online in July...but it could be obsolete even before it's introduced.” Technology Review, January 1999.
Nature and culture
- "Lopping a Large Chip off a Very Old Block" - Aug 3, 2005, The Wall Street Journal. “Anyone who doubts the power of art to inspire and provoke should consider the case of Italy's Monte Altissimo, which looms 5,000 feet above the remote Serra River Valley in the northwest corner of Tuscany. There, the Henraux firm, which has quarried Altissimo for 180-odd years, wants ...”
- “The Myths and Myopia of Lewis and Clark: These first ugly Americans bequeathed hubris, self-righteousness, and double standards.” Seattle Weekly, July 9, 2003.
- “Think Tank; A Band With a Lot More to Offer Than Talented Trumpeters” (the Thai Elephant Orchestra). The New York Times, December 16, 2000.
Exotic places
- “Northeast Brazil for Peanuts and a Song; Bars, Beaches And the Bands Along a Peppery Coast.” Washington Post, Feb 25, 1996.
- “Brazil Through the Back Door: Aracaju the Unsung--Discovering the Funky Charm of the Far Northeast.” Washington Post, Jul 21, 1991.
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