Kayaking the Keys: 50 Great Paddling Adventures in Florida's Southernmost Archipelago

Book Description

Spanning the 200-mile stretch of the Florida Keys, this field guide to the entire island chain highlights 50 paddling adventures, many for canoeists as well as kayakers. Trips include short paddles suitable for beginners and children, half-day trips as well as day-long and overnight excursions.

Kathleen Patton provides an overview of the region's environment, describing its terrestrial and marine habitats. She covers equipment needs, safety concerns, weather patterns, and adapting tide tables for specific areas. Trips are arranged geographically, beginning near Miami at the top of the Keys in Biscayne National Park and stretching 73 miles past Key West to Dry Tortugas National Park. Each profile includes directions to the launch site, estimated paddling time, kayak rental availability, a detailed itinerary, and a route map. Icons mark each route's particular strengths: for example, great snorkeling, historical interest, camping, and appropriate trips for canoeists and for children. Patton also directs paddlers to the best reefs, swimming holes, and pristine sandbars for wildlife viewing--birds, manatees, dolphins, tropical reef fish, coral heads, sponges, sea stars, and huge spotted eagle rays.

Clear, concise trip descriptions and detailed maps make Kayaking the Keys the most complete guide for paddlers of all ages and abilities who want to explore the only tropical waters in America that are accessible by automobile.

Customer Reviews:

Captures the magic and practical info of kayaking the Keys.......2007-03-14

If you, like me, are a deep lover of nature and someone who likes discover new adventures in the natural world this book is a prize! It's prose excited me about the wonders waiting for me in the Keys, and it's information gave me the confidence to take those three free days I had in South Florida while on a business trip and rent a kayak, throw it on my rental car, and explore. Wow! What a trip. Thank you Kathleen Patton for your passion and attention to detail.

good but lacks features.......2004-10-05

Nice book, engagingly written. Unfortunately, it lacks a good naturalist section, which is indispensable for answering those "ohmigod, what did I just see?!" questions. Bill Keogh's book has got all the trips, with better maps and precise GPS coordinates, plus a comprehensive "about the flora and fauna" section with fun animal facts and drawings that make it easy to identify your quarry.

Book Description

From San Francisco's stately Victorian homes to Sonoma's historic Mission, over 600 entries fill this convenient, information-packed gem of a guidebook to notable architectural sites around the Bay Area. Including classic estates, civic buildings, parks, and public artworks and illustrated throughout with hundreds of black-and-white photographs, this comprehensive, one-of-a-kind volume is arranged geographically, featuring one chapter for each of 12 San Francisco neighborhoods. Eight additional chapters cover areas of interest outside the city -- San Jose, Stanford, Berkeley, Oakland, Marin, Sonoma, Napa, and Petaluma -- and include walking tours for each location. An indispensable reference for historians and preservationists, as well as tourists and residents, San Francisco Architecture is the definitive guide to some of the world's most distinctive architecture.

Visit S.F. Gate to find out what's happening in Bay Area news, entertainment, sports, and more.

Customer Reviews:

Not detailed enough........2000-10-10

San Francisco is a city with a long and unique history. With this history comes a wide variety of interesting and sometimes stunningly beautiful buildings. Wandering the streets of San Francisco, and noticing these buildings, one frequently wants to learn more about them. And that is why I bought this book.

However, I was disappointed by the fact that most of the houses featured in this volume only have the year it was built, who built it, and a very brief description. Often there is only one sentence saying this house was built in Queen Anne style and that it has a tower (self-evident from the picture, or once you actually see the building). The book says very little about the history of each house, why it was built like it was, notable persons that lived there, etc. It also does very little to put the houses in the context of the surrounding neighborhood.

The book features "tours" that you can take to view the described houses, but it doesn't quite pull it off, and the end result is a strange mix of tourist guide and architectural reference that performs mediocre at both.

San Francisco desperately needs a good book to picture, describe and catalog its unique architecture, but alas, this book is not it. It would have been better if the author concentrated the book on San Francisco houses only, instead of the entire Bay Area, and offered fewer houses with a better description of each. Still, it is the best I have been able to find, and it is better than nothing, hence the three stars.

The Best Guide to San Francisco's Buildings.......1997-11-10

You can look-up just about any noteworthy San Francisco building in this guide to the best. My own choice is the historic Monadnock Building at 685 Market Street. It was being constructed in 1906, but before its west wall was even completed the Great Earthquake and Fire struck. Somehow the building managed to survive not only those calamities but two separate attempts by the army to destroy it with dynamite (hoping to create a firebreak that was intended to save the original Palace Hotel). After the Monadnock was completed in 1907 it was casually referred to as "the railroad building," because it housed so many offices in that business. By 1985 it was thoroughly renovated, however, and the tenants inhabiting it became almost exclusively those involved in either art or law pursuits. As the book recommends, be sure to ask the guard in the lobby for the free leaflet by Hamilton Barrett, the building's own historian. When we went for our copy the guard even contributed a few additional details about one of the ghosts known to frequent the first floor at night. A "Lady in White," she wears a long turn of the century style dress and likes to silently float toward the guard's desk from the west hallway. She then touches anyone who would dare sleep.

Book Description

Using archival materials newly available in China and records in Britain and the US, Robert Bickers paints a detailed portrait of the traders, missionaries, businessmen, diplomats and settlers who constituted "Britain-in-China." Bickers argues that the British presence in China was dominated by urban settlers whose primary allegiance lay not with any grand imperial design but with their own communities and precarious livelihoods. This brought them into growing conflict with the Chinese population and the British imperial government. Bickers goes on to examine how the British state and its allies brought an end to the reign of freelance, settler imperialism on the China coast. At the same time, other British sectors, missionary and business, renegotiated their own relationship with their Chinese markets and the Chinese state and distanced themselves from the settler British.

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A Long Presence

Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History
Rozina Visram
Manufacturer: Pluto Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0745313736

Customer Reviews:

A Long Presence.......2004-01-05

This fine book tells the story of the Asian (that is, Indian) presence in Britain prior to 1950, before Britain's post-war labour shortage attracted immigration from the Subcontinent in significant numbers. Therefore the book provides a wider historical context for that immigration, and as Rozina Visram points out in her conclusion, helps explode the myth of a homogeneous monocultural Britain (quite how some can view that myth as being tenable given Britain's imperial and trading history is a mystery on its own).

The source material is patchy, but Rozina Visram does a good job at piecing the evidence together. The Asian presence in Britain was varied both in scale and type - from the seventeenth century there was a mixture of what might be termed "prominent visitors" and "transient workers", the latter group composed primarily of lascars working on trading ships and ayahs working for British families either returning from or going to India.

The experiences of these people and the British reaction to them are complex: it seems that it was not a case of universal bad treatment and racism. Yet their stories, when taken as a whole, are not a great advertisement for the British Empire. Official policy seemed to be that the Indians should stay in India - and that those coming to Britain should be "encouraged" to make their stay here as short as possible. Not a policy that was applied to subjects of the "white colonies".

There's no doubt that the Empire was exploitative, both at the national and individual level - Indians were employed, but on worse pay and conditions than their white counterparts. It occurred to me though, that this is not primarily a characteristic of imperialism, but one of capitalism (the British Empire was a capitalist enterprise). For example, the criticism that transferring work from the West to the East due to lower labour costs in the East worked to the detriment of both sets of workers (one group losing their jobs, the other being paid poverty-level wages) can be applied to multinational companies now - in the past, it just happened against an imperial background.

Overall, it seems that Britain owes immense debts to the Indian presence in many spheres - not least in the sacrifices made during both world wars. At least by accident, the Empire was a source for some good in that it helped defeat fascism, but that does not mean that its exploitative and repressive nature can be overlooked.

Book Description

This study analyzes the interactions between caste, class, ethnicity, and dominance in India from colonial times through the 1989 national election and 1990 state elections. Departing from modernization theories, the contributors set out an interactional framework of society-state relations to
provide an explanation of how state policies have undermined the religious legitimacy of dominant groups in the hierarchical social order, at the same time as democratic politics has been used in manipulation of linguistic, communal, caste, and ethnic loyalties to diffuse class differentiation. The
analysis clearly shows that low caste groups are mounting increasingly militant challenges to the hold of the upper castes and classes over state institutions which have provided the most important avenue of social mobility in modern India.

History of the Asian Community in Britain (History of Communities)

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History of the Asian Community in Britain (History of Communities)
Rozina Visram
Manufacturer: Hodder Wayland
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Europe | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Politics & Government | Reference & Nonfiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Modern Urban History in Europe, USA and Japan: A Handbook

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Modern Urban History in Europe, USA and Japan: A Handbook
Christian Engeli , and Horst Matzerath
Manufacturer: Berg Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

Japan | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

Book Description

An excellent survey of research on urban history offering an introduction to the development and methods used in various countries with a list of resources and facilities available to urban historians.

Muslim Britain: Communities Under Pressure

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Muslim Britain: Communities Under Pressure

Manufacturer: Zed Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

History | Religious Studies | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

Islamic | World | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1842774484
Release Date: 2005-05-12

Book Description

This edited collection is a cogent exploration of how the events of September 11 and the subsequent war on terror have impacted on the lived experiences of British South Asian Muslims in a number of important spheres, namely, religious and ethnic identity, citizenship, Islamophobia, gender and education, radicalism, media and political representation. The contributors to this volume are specialists in the fields of sociology, social geography, anthropology, theology and law. Each of the chapters explores the positions of South Asian Muslims from different analytical perspectives based on various methodological approaches. A number of the chapters carry primary empirical analysis, therefore making this one of the most pertinent compilations in this field. Other contributions are more discursive, providing valuable polemics on the current positions of British South Asian Muslims.

The Non-Official British in India to 1920

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The Non-Official British in India to 1920
Raymond K. Renford
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

South Asia | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

Constitutions | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

From the late 1880s through the 1920s, this book focuses on the political, economic, social, educational, and religious activities of a complex non-official British and European community in India--a group comprised of planters, businessmen, and traders. Looking at the development and social
and economic impact of this group, Renford's work provides a new perspective on the period for both the historian and general reader.

Poor Relations: The Making of a Eurasian Community in British India, 1773-1833

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Excellent addition to history of "mixed race" communities
A good introduction to an overlooked part of the Raj

Poor Relations: The Making of a Eurasian Community in British India, 1773-1833
Christoph Hawes
Manufacturer: RoutledgeCurzon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

Human Rights | Constitutional Law | Law | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0700704256

Customer Reviews:

Excellent addition to history of "mixed race" communities.......2003-05-03

The Anglo-Indians were created by intermarriage and mating between British soldiers and Indian women. As early as the 1830s, Eurasians (later called Anglo-Indians) already exceeded the number of British civilians in colonial India. At the time of India's independence, they outnumbered ALL British residents. Yet, there has been little historical attention to the development of this mixed-race community, the problems which it faced (social, economic and attitudinal) nor to the questions which its rise posed to British authority.
Hawes describes how the mixed-race experience in India is typical of the "European colonial adventure" worldwide. The social and legal experiences of mixed-race people is influenced by class status (especially the father's status), birth within marriage versus the stigma of bastardy (British discrimination against people born outside of wedlock was especially harsh), and the conflict between the law and family ties.

Hawes' research shows that the British as individuals had no real qualms about interracial marriage and, contrary to the hypodescent rule, wanted their biracial offspring to be British. The problem lay with British elites whose devotion to the new "scientific" racist doctrines resulted in oppression typical of the mixed-race experience:

a) The mixed-race communities are utilized to maintain colonial authority but denied the highest offices reserved for "pure" whites (with a few exceptions for multiracial persons of great wealth).

b) The colonial power fears that the mixed-race community will present a challenge to "white" authority and blur the lines between the "superior" European and the "inferior" non-European.

c) The mixed-race community (especially its educated elites) maintains its ambition to be treated as part of the European caste, but is subject to laws that prevent a full identification with the ruling nation to which it is bound by blood and culture.

"Eurasian populations...undermined, in the most public manner possible, concepts of colonial rule which depended ultimately on maintaining the illusion of the racial superiority of white European males. The consequent dilemma for Eurasian populations was how they might identify fully with their parent colonial societies, on which they were economically dependent and to which they were culturally bound. They shared in what has been termed the `imagined community' of nationalism as fully as their European fathers and forefathers, but were denied participation on equal terms. In turn the predicament of colonial authority was how far should it go in acknowledging its children of mixed race. In practice it seems that there was an uneasy compromise in colonial societies between disavowal and acceptance. Parental responsibility and considerations of Eurasian utility to the regime were in tension with concepts of Eurasian political unreliability and the damage which full acceptance might do to perceptions of white prestige."

A good introduction to an overlooked part of the Raj.......2002-02-16

This book covers the British Eurasian community, descended from liaisions and marriages between British men and Indian (or Eurasian women). As the book points out, other Eurasian communities, notably a Portuguese and a French Eurasian community, existed before the creation of British India. But the "Eurasians" that came to exercise the minds and consciences of some British politicians and religious leaders, and British Indian administrators, was that formed by marriages or other unions between British men and Indian wives (not even Eurasian wives).

The book does a good job in explaining why this community first came about - because of the paucity of European women in India, at a time when the journey was long and arduous; because of the unsettled political future of Europeans in India for the first three centuries of their arrival as traders, and above all, because of the shaky financial position of many European men - merchants, administrators, or soldiers - when they first arrived. As soon as the British consolidated their hold on native states and then began to create their own empire (first in Bengal, and then spreading through most of what is now India by 1818), and as travel to India became faster and more comfortable, things began to change. More British women came out, supplanting the native concubine or Eurasian wife. The "bibi" was replaced by the "memsahib", giving rise to what we know as the Raj.

It is a pity that the book does not focus more on the crucial change in attitude towards the "poor relations" during the administrations of Hastings, Cornwallis, and then Wellesley. As the empire expanded, tolerance of the natives and of the Eurasians seemed to diminish. I would have liked to have seen this issue studied more.

I would also have liked to have seen a comparison of British attitudes towards their mixed-race offpsring in India, compared to that of the Portuguese or French or Spanish or Dutch official attitudes towards *their* mixed-raced offspring. If official policies were remarkably different, why were they different? Furthermore, how did the British treat non-British Eurasians? It is argued that anti-Catholic sentiment played a part in the distrust of French and Portuguese Eurasians (who were usually Catholics).

The book touches very little on the role played by British political intrigue both in London and in British India. Did Hastings' disgrace and removal have any connection to his having gone too "native"? [Hastings was noted as a scholar and patron of ancient Indian culture].

Some Eurasians did very well - including one James Skinner, a famous soldier, and many bankers and administrators - but they relied on their personal contacts and friendships, rather than their education alone. In the case of Skinner, Lake's support (and untimely death) made a difference at crucial moments.
Did personal friendships of individual administrators and commanders (such as Lord Lake) make that much of a difference to the average Eurasian, as opposed to a brilliant soldier like Skinner?

Within the British community, class and the financial and less material resources that a particular British male could muster played a part in the future of his Eurasian offspring. The higher-class British fathers are more able to do more for their sons and daughters, with the daughters frequently marrying British officers, administrators and so forth. Some of the children are even mentioned by their British fathers in their wills (back in England). And of course, an upper-class British male could ensure some help to his Eurasian sons even if separated by two oceans and three continents.

By contrast, the lower-class British fathers are unable to help that much, or are unwilling to help. Why were so many "wives" and children abandoned? There was no way to to transport them back to England on Company-owned ships (this was Company policy). Indian women were not always willing to move to England, and often financial settlements were made by a departing British father for his Eurasian concubine and children.

There are some curious points. Eurasians (the illegitimate scions of non-sanctioned unions) are considered "immoral" early on. No such judgement was made about the illegitimate British-born children of peers and other notables, some of whom came out to India and fathered Eurasian children.

The book is about the Eurasian community before the Mutiny. It therefore does not claim to present the state of the community in the real "Raj" (actual Crown rule), nor does it pretend to explain what happened to the descendants of these people after Indian independence (1947). But it is a worthy source to begin with, although hard to find at a reasonable price.

Recommended reading for anyone seriously interested in early British Indian history (ca 1600-1818)

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