The Penguin Group (London) 1993, English text 252 pp.

In this exploration of ecology and the media, acclaimed nature writer Bill McKibben demolishes our complacent notion that we are "better informed" than any previous generation. To find out exactly what television has brought to and stolen from our lives, McKibben performed an experiment: he watched a single day's worth of programming on 93 cable stations. In this visual blitzkrieg, he saw more ?? than any sane man could bear. Then, to uncover what we may be missing, McKibben spent twenty-four hours on a mountain, watching insects and vultures. There he made small yet vital discoveries about himself and about the world around us - information that can never flow through a cable in the wall, but only through the sinews of unmediated experience.