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Modern American environmentalism owes much to such predecessors as Henry Thoreau, John Muir, and Theodore Roosevelt. But it owes much more, suggests historian Adam Rome, to the sprawling suburbs of the postwar era, when great sections of the country fell under the bulldozer to make way for the vaunted American Dream.
Homebuilders of the immediate postwar era did not, as a rule, take into account the environmental costs of their work--nor did they have to. "To take advantage of the cheap, unsewered land at the fringes of cities," writes Rome,
they could install septic tanks on tiny lots, in unsuitable soils, or near streams and wells. To reduce land-acquisition costs, builders also could level hills, fill wetlands, and build in floodplains. To maximize the number of lots in a tract, they could design subdivisions with no open space.
Such actions improved a builder's chances of making a profit, to be sure, but in the coming years they yielded significant opposition--and not just from the occasional birdwatcher or hiker. Activist citizen groups and government agencies began demanding responsible building and zoning practices. In the end, non-urban America's onetime habit of letting landowners do what they would on their land gave way to "an explosion of codes, regulations, and guidelines," the product of a growing awareness of environmental problems and the need to solve them--and an extraordinarily far-reaching shift in public policy.
Rome's well-written book makes a welcome addition to the history of environmental thought, one to shelve alongside the best of Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
The Bulldozer in the Countryside is the first scholarly history of efforts to reduce the environmental costs of suburban development in the United States. The book offers a new account of two of the most important historical events in the period since World War II--the mass migration to the suburbs and the rise of the environmental movement. This work offers a valuable historical perspective for scholars, professionals, and citizens interested in the issue of suburban sprawl.
Customer Reviews:
Will we ever see an end to Septic Tank Suburbia?.......2006-09-20
Not many Environmenal Health Specialists like myself will probably ever read this book (or even the chapter 'Septic Tank Suburbia'), but they should. Sanitarians, the old term for health inspectors, have approved a crap-load of septic systems serving sprawl development in this nation, and in reading it, the old timers would quickly recognize their place in the undoing of the American environment. Regardless of their 'professional' title.
I was so impressed with the author's history of septic tank sprawl that I emailed him with thanks. I'm actually surprised no one else has reviewed this title on Amazon.
For recent American environmental history, this is one of the best.
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- A love affair with rivers
- Brilliant Set of Photographs
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Rivers of America
Tim Palmer
Manufacturer: "Harry N. Abrams, Inc."
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America's Parks
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White Paradise: Journeys to the North Pole
ASIN: 0810954850 |
Book Description
“This book is a remarkable celebration of America. In photographs and in words, Tim Palmer has captured the magic and value of rivers as nobody has ever done, and as nobody is ever likely to do again.” —Don Elder, president, River Network
Anyone who has ever paddled down, fished in, or relaxed along one of AmericaÂ's rivers understands their power to nourish, inspire, and enchant—but until now, no book has truly captured the riversÂ' majesty. Award-winning author, conservationist, and photographer Tim Palmer has spent his life exploring and learning about these sometimes peaceful, sometimes turbulent waterways, and in the pages of Rivers of America he shares his amazing images. An incomparable collection of nearly 200 stunning photographs from all across the United States, Rivers of America celebrates the essence of flowing water like no other book before it. Accompanying the dazzling images are PalmerÂ's eloquent essays, in which he describes the magic of rivers and their vital ecological role in our lives.
Customer Reviews:
A love affair with rivers.......2007-01-03
A prolific author, gifted outdoor photographer and a nationally-renowned river conservationist, this is Tim Palmer's ode to America's bountiful and beautiful rivers. No one writes about rivers -- or captures their magical essence in photos -- like Tim, because no one knows and cares as much about them as he clearly does. If you love rivers, then you will love this book! Learn more about Tim's love affair with rivers by visiting: www.americanrivers.org/palmerprofile.
Brilliant Set of Photographs.......2006-09-25
A photographer with the eye of an artist, Tim Palmer has spent a lifetime photographing rivers. He has gone to extremes to get just the right view, at the right time of day, the right time of the year. He has combines these photographs with prose that is almost poetic to add in our understanding of what he sees, what he feels.
I don't know just how many states he covers in these photographs, but perhaps the most dramatic pictures are those taken in Alaska. From the bears fishing for salmon, to the young wolf who has found a drowned sheep, the broad expanse of the mountains the pictures show nature at its most attractive.
Surprisingly though his pictures show the beauty that remains in the rivers of the lower 48. In spite of what has happened in terms of polution, concrete channalizing by the Corp of Engineers, there is beauty to be found. And Mr. Palmer has the eye to find that beauty.
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- A lyrical book about a fragile habitat
- Sandhills Classic
- A lovesong to an alluring, little-known place
- When a book makes you dream about a place you've never been.
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The Last Prairie: A Sandhills Journal
Stephen R. Jones
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Peterson Field Guides: The North American Prairie (Peterson Guides)
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Old Jules (Third Edition)
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Prairie: A Natural History
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The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
ASIN: 007135347X |
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Running 100 miles from north to south and 200 miles from east to west, the Sandhills make up about a quarter of the state of Nebraska and constitute the largest grass-stabilized dune field in the Western Hemisphere. Sparsely settled, the region has inspired a fine literature, numbering books by Jim Harrison, Mari Sandoz, and Merrill Gilfillan, among other writers.
Stephen Jones's The Last Prairie is a welcome, elegant addition to that library. An inspired blend of science, natural history, ethnography, and memoir, it recounts Jones's travels along the Niobrara River and deep into the heart of dune country--once the province of buffalo, cranes, and scattered bands of Pawnee and Cheyenne Native Americans, now the site of huge ranches and, as Jones notes, an army of white-tailed deer and other former denizens of wetland forests that edged out onto the plains with the disappearance of large predators. "When it comes to ecosystem disturbances," Jones notes, "the white-tailed deer are just the tip of the iceberg," and indeed the Sandhills are threatened at every turn by industrial agriculture and other manifestations of putative progress. Jones considers some of the programs that have been advanced to save the area, including the apparently ill-advised "Buffalo Commons" preserve that residents fear would make the region an unnatural zoo; he suggests instead a more modest prairie preserve that would attract tourists and provide new revenue for the region's residents, now dependent on ecologically destructive ranching.
But Jones's book is less a program for action than a literate, attractive celebration of a place unlike any other--a book that will inspire readers to go and have a look for themselves. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
It is an area that has captivated and inspired travelers, philosophers, and artists for centuries. Long celebrated as one of the most visually stunning regions of the American landscape, it is also one of the most historically significant. And now, this vast, 25,000-square-mile expanse known as the Nebraska Sandhills is brought to life with passion, perspective, and ecological timeliness in an unforgettable collection by Stephen Jones.
The Last Prairie is an extraordinary triumph of the essayist's art. By turns graceful and penetrating, introspective and universal, ruminative and prescient, the 20 essays in The Last Prairie embodies the essence of Sandhills life. Jones delivers a series of riveting accounts of the Sandhills, flora and fauna, wildlife, and rich cultural history. Fascinating descriptions of bald eagles, trumpeter swans, and the annual migratory flight of a half-million sandhill cranes stand alongside equally vivid accounts of trailblazing homesteaders, range wars, and devastating prairie fires. Jones speaks eloquently to such timeless themes as humanity's search for community and the ties that bind man and nature.
Customer Reviews:
A lyrical book about a fragile habitat.......2001-06-26
Mr. Jone's admiration, appreciation and concern for this very special ecosystem shines through this lovely book. In it, he intertwines Native American myth, Plains history and well researched scientific data into a cohesive and readable overview of the Sandhills of Nebraska.
Through his eyes, we visit and experience a landscape of beauty, solitute, history and rich wildlife. It is, in turns, thought provoking, humourous, enlightening, yet never preachy. Steve is most respectful of the current private owners of these lands, and integrates their ongoing stewardship into well reasoned suggestions to insure the long-term integrity of this fecund habitat for posterity.
Sandhills Classic.......2000-07-13
The Last Prairie: A Sandhills Journal is an astonishing blend of nature, myth, and love of the land--richly textured with wry wit and something very close to wisdom. It's so deeply rooted in love and its own particular landscape that it transcends locality and becomes universal. In other words, it's a classic, akin to Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Writing, details, and a sensibility to treasure.
A lovesong to an alluring, little-known place.......2000-06-17
Stephen Jones notes in the book that the Sand Hills of Nebraska make up one of the few "dark spots" on those wall posters featuring a satellite view of the United States at night. It is, truly, a wide open space, and he does the landscape great justice with his evident love for the land, its wildlife, its people and history.
For those who think Nebraska is simply home to a football team and endless acres of corn, "The Last Prairie" should open some eyes.
Jones is a prose poet. He makes the Sand Hills live and breathe right there on the page. An excellent, deeply-felt homage to one of America's little-known (thankfully?)great natural treasures.
When a book makes you dream about a place you've never been........2000-05-31
As often happens in Washington, DC, I got inside information. The author (my eighth grade history teacher) tipped me off about his book, before it was available. I got to read a "galley" I think it is called, and felt even more like an insider. It's exciting when a friend publishes a book, and when that friend telegraphs, with the sound in his voice, that this one might be something special. Steve knows. I read the hardback copy as soon as I got it. Growing up in Colorado gave me some appreciation of this majestic place to the East, which I now plan to visit for the first time. Stephen Jones has woven history, geography several sciences into a literary work of art, that can provide great inspiration, even to the uninitiated. His images are vivid, whether he is describing the hard-scrabble personalities that live there or the spirit-ghosts of Native Americans that have long since perished. His treatments of the landforms and myriad species of animals that dwell in the Nebraska Sandhills, are characteristically perfect. He has written a couple of other nature books, including one with his photos, called the Shortgrass Prairie.What many do not know about Steve is that he was diagnosed with a back problem before he undertook his arduous weeks long trips, the several hundred miles East. He would not want me to mention this, Steve is a low key guy. But his courage is, well, another story. I hope everyone who loves nature, and our vanishing wild places will read this book and be inspired and dream and go there.
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Reshaping the Countryside: Perceptions and Processes of Rural Change
Manufacturer: CABI
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ASIN: 0851993435 |
Book Description
During the past few decades, characteristics of the countryside traditionally regarded as immutable have begun to change substantially. This book collects a variety of impressions of these changes in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. It explores the issues of continuity and change associated with the operation of demographic, socio-economic and political processes as they reshape the countryside. An valuable survey for students and researchers in rural studies and geography, the book is also an indispensable guide for policy makers and professionals concerned with the management and planning of rural resources and the countryside.
Book Description
A new edition of the book that received the Historic Preservation Book Prize and the American Society for Landscape Architects' Honor Award
Since publication of the first edition of Saving America's Countryside in 1989, the fight to save America's rural resources has met with much success. Approaches considered experimental just a decade ago--greenways and heritage areas, for example--are now widespread. Yet at the same time, such disquieting developments as continuing suburban sprawl, the weakening of federal laws, and the so-called property rights movement all suggest that work remains to be done.
Saving America's Countryside was the first and is still the only comprehensive, step-by-step guide to protecting the natural, historic, scenic, and agricultural resources of a rural community. The authors show how to organize a conservation effort, inventory available resources, pass effective new laws, set up land trusts, take advantage of federal programs, and change public attitudes.
The thoroughly revised and updated second edition reports on changes in conservation over the past eight years and adds a chapter on making economic development compatible with rural conservation. It includes new case studies, more than fifty new illustrations, and a section on heritage tourism. As in the previous edition, the detailed case studies document a variety of successful--and often surprisingly innovative--conservation efforts by residents of rural communities throughout the United States.
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Late in life, the American novelist and conservationist Wallace Stegner left California, where he had lived for half a century, to move to Vermont. The reason, he said, was simple: there is more wilderness to be found in the pine forests of western New England than in the Far West. John Elder supports Stegner's claim, writing in Reading the Mountains of Home that the abandoned farmsteads of so many of Robert Frost's Vermont poems have now reverted to wild lands, dense with fallen logs and snags, full of bird and animal life.
A longtime resident of the state, Elder uses Frost's great but little-known poem "Directive" as a touchstone by which to guide his discussion of how modern humans can truly inhabit a landscape--in this case, a landscape that had been developed for generations and then all but forgotten. In such places, Elder writes, the issue is not one of wilderness versus civilization, that old trope, but the wildness that endures at the edges of settled places, wildness that is accessible to people all around the world. His celebration of returning greenness, of the forest's seasons, and of his own life in the woods makes for engaging reading indeed. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
Small farms once occupied the heights that John Elder calls home, but now only a few cellar holes and tumbled stone walls remain among the dense stands of maple, beech, and hemlocks on these Vermont hills. Reading the Mountains of Homeis a journey into these verdant reaches where in the last century humans tried their hand and where bear and moose now find shelter. As John Elder is our guide, so Robert Frost is Elder's companion, his great poem "Directive" seeing us through a landscape in which nature and literature, loss and recovery, are inextricably joined.
Over the course of a year, Elder takes us on his hikes through the forested uplands between South Mountain and North Mountain, reflecting on the forces of nature, from the descent of the glaciers to the rush of the New Haven River, that shaped a plateau for his village of Bristol; and on the human will that denuded and farmed and abandoned the mountains so many years ago. His forays wind through the flinty relics of nineteenth-century homesteads and Abenaki settlements, leading to meditations on both human failure and the possibility for deeper communion with the land and others.
An exploration of the body and soul of a place, an interpretive map of its natural and literary life, Reading the Mountains of Home strikes a moving balance between the pressures of civilization and the attraction of wilderness. It is a beautiful work of nature writing in which human nature finds its place, where the reader is invited to follow the last line of Frost's "Directive," to "Drink and be whole again beyond confusion."
Customer Reviews:
Hope for Co-existence.......2002-09-27
This is an unusual book. John Elder has written a book that blends the rhythms of life with the rhythms of nature.
Using Robert Frost's poem "Directive" as a springboard, Elder guides the reader through a series of year-long hikes that provide a rare glimpse into the writer soul, family and surroundings. His musings transport the reader from the glaciers that shaped his the plateau for the Village of Bristol, VT., the farmers who struggled and more often than not, failed to scratch a living from the rocky soil that surrounds his adopted home.
He carries us from broken china to Abenaki settlements, meditating on family relationships and deeper relationships with the land.
This is a beautiful example of nature writing, a work that draws a balance between the machinations of civilization and the beauties of wilderness. By inviting the reader to follow the last line of Frost's "Directive," to "Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.", Elder creates a sense of hope that Vermont's balance between nature and culture can speak to the rest of the nation.
An outstanding book.......1998-10-31
I have read many of the reviews of Reading the Mountains of Home--both before and after I studied the book itself--in various magazines and newspapers, and, while many of them summarize accurately and manage to convey fairly clearly its complex and compelling structures, the musical grace of the sentences, the unique of John Elder's vision about the interlinking of language and place and time and family, of Robert Frost's "Directive" and of the concept of wilderness in America. There is a sense also in which he has taken nature writing--a broad genre forever in evolution--and brought it to new heights through this creative interweaving.
But what I notice most is the book's quiet heroism. By this I mean simply that the author exhibits the courage to put all of his deepest convictions, his most strongly held beliefs, the raw stuff of his very life in a place for all to see. One does not see this very often in books. We need more writers like John Elder. We need people like John Elder, people who have the courage to write from the deepest parts of themselves for the greater good of all of us and the larger home we call earth. If there were six stars I would give it six stars.
Smart and moving and insightful........1998-07-25
I learned much about New England from this fine book -- and about Robert Frost.
Book Description
A photographic excursion through some of the most beautiful National Trust properties in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, with 100 color photos.
Over a hundred years ago, the National Trust was founded to preserve places of historic interest or natural beauty in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Today it protects more than 600,000 acres of land. The variety is unparalleled—from the fells and lakes of Cumbria to the wilderness wetlands of Wicken Fen in East Anglia. This collection of photographs reveals not only the natural beauty, but how the human hand has shaped the landscape over the centuries.
Customer Reviews:
Very good book of photos.......2007-09-13
I had heard that this book was not highly recommended, but what the heck, it was $14.00 and free shipping from Amazon.
The cover photo, also displayed inside, is beautiful, as are all the other photos in the book. Some are not my cup of tea, but a lot of them are, and Joe Cornish has proven his mastery of light and the landscape photograph.
I found the book somewhat instructional because the images gave me ideas for my own work, and the text isn't preachy or anything. All in all, a very good buy!
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East of the Chesapeake
William H. Turner
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Chesapeake Boyhood: Memoirs of a Farm Boy (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf)
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An Island Out of Time: A Memoir of Smith Island in the Chesapeake
ASIN: 0801864704 |
Book Description
East of the Chesapeake continues the themes and story lines of Chesapeake Boyhood, William Turner's delightful account of growing up on the lower Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake during the years following the Great Depression. Here are Turner's singular accounts of curious characters, changing seasons, natural wonders, and small-town dramas. Once again, he brings the people and landscape of rural Virginia to life as no one else can. His own drawings illustrate the stories, and they, too, win us over with their honesty and charm.
"Bill Turner writes about characters who might have inspired the likes of Damon Runyon or Erskine Caldwell. Not that Turner is another Runyon or Caldwell. He isn't. He's Bill Turner. An original." -- Bob Hutchinson, Norfolk Virginian Pilot
"Bill Turner has done it again! Another wonderful memoir of growing up and living in a place wonderfully out of sync with the rest of our one-size-fits-all world." -- George Reiger, author of Heron Hill Chronicle
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The Heart of America: Our Landscape, Our Future
Tim Palmer
Manufacturer: Island Press
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ASIN: 1559634367 |
Book Description
From the cliffs of Big Sur to the dunes at Cape Hatteras, from the bogs of the Boundary Waters to the deserts of the Rio Grande, the landscape of America has shaped us into the people we are. Not only is it central to ecological health and essential to the economy, it has helped form our culture and serves as a basis of national pride. The heart of America lies in the rock and soil, the mountains and the plains that surround us.
In this illuminating portrait of America at the threshold of the new millennium, author Tim Palmer explores and assesses the landscape of the United States-both timeless wonders of natural beauty and lost places scarred by human exploitation. He takes the reader on an informative and inspirational tour of our most vital landscapes, including mountains, forests, grasslands, deserts, rivers, lakes, wetlands, and seashores. He introduces us to the basic geography and ecological value of each landscape, describes historical patterns of land use, considers the most serious threats, and discusses what is being done to protect the landscape for future generations. Throughout, he instills a deeper understanding of the importance of the land, a sense of outrage at the damage that has been done, and a feeling of hope that those working to correct past abuses will succeed.
Weaving together geographical, historical, and ecological information and insights, Palmer draws on thirty years of professional experience as a writer, photographer, conservationist, planner, landscape architect, and veteran traveler to present a fresh look at the past, present, and future of our land.
Resounding in its account of these landscapes, compelling in the force of its information and the hope of its timely message, The Heart of America offers a fascinating measure of the land around us and a unique look at the place we call home.
"It's the truest State of the Union address anyone ever gave." -Bill McKibben
Books:
- The Compleat Cockroach: A Comprehensive Guide to the Most Despised (And Least Understood) Creature on Earth
- The Elephant's Secret Sense: The Hidden Life of the Wild Herds of Africa
- The Elusive Eden: A New History of California
- The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - and What It Will Take to Win It Back
- The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism)
- The Prophet's Dictionary: The Ultimate Guide to Supernatural Wisdom
- The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God
- The Road to Disunion: Volume I: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854 (Road to Disunion Vol. 1)
- The Slumber of Christianity : Awakening a Passion for Heaven on Earth
- The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook: 200 Delicious Recipes Ready in 30 Minutes or Less
Books Index
Books Home
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- Retrofitting Blade Runner: Issues in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids D
- Physics of Semiconductor Devices
- Salton Sea Atlas
- Atlanta Jobbank 1999
- Leadership Begins with You: 3 Rules that will Transform your Job into a Career
- A Biography of Elihu Benjamin Washburne Congressman, Secretary of State, Envoy Extraordinary
Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s (Galaxy Books)
Changes in the Land, Revised Edition: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England
The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (Critical Issue Book)
Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States
