Niagara
Niagara

Author: Pierre Berton

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2010-03-31

Total Pages: 509

ISBN-13: 1438429304

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A sweeping history of this natural wonder, from its geological beginnings to the present. "The noble cataract reflects the concerns, failings, and fancies of the times. If we gaze deeply into its shimmering image we can perhaps discern our own." - page 22 “[Pierre Berton] makes a serious and convincing case for Niagara's pivotal role in North American history. ... His Niagara is a lodestar for North American culture and invention: site of the first railway suspension bridge, inspiration for Nikola Tesla's discovery of the principle of alternating current, and the subject of Frederic Church's most celebrated landscape; a natural wonder that has bewitched generations of scientists, authors, and utopians, and stimulated innovations and social movements still casting long shadows. ... surprising, rich and engrossing.” -- Thurston Clarke, New York Times Book Review “Canadian historian Berton tells dozens of absorbing tales about the region and those who passed through it ... He tells them all superbly, aided by essential maps and a few reproductions of posters advertising some of the more bizarre stunts.” -- Publishers Weekly “Entertaining. . . . Berton brings to life the adventurers and dreamers, visionaries and industrialists, who over centuries have been drawn to the Falls.” -- Maclean’s "Berton at his storytelling best; there is something here for everyone. ... a vintage, full-bodied read." -- The London Free Press "A book worth diving into." -- Calgary Herald "By turns ironic, amused, shocked, horrified and awestruck, Berton traces Niagara's history through the deeds of those who came in contact with it ... all the while walking the fine line between detachment and emotion with agility and grace." -- The Whig-Standard (Kingston) Pierre Berton was one of Canada’s most popular and prolific authors, and is widely credited with popularizing Canadian history. His previous books include The Wild Frontier, Prisoners of the North, Klondike, The Invasion of Canada, and The Great Depression.

Fixing Niagara Falls
Fixing Niagara Falls

Author: Daniel Macfarlane

Publisher: UBC Press

Published: 2020-09-01

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 0774864257

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Since the late nineteenth century, Niagara Falls has been heavily engineered to generate energy behind a flowing façade designed to appeal to tourists. Fixing Niagara Falls reveals the technological feats and cross-border politics that facilitated the transformation of one of the most important natural sites in North America. Daniel Macfarlane shows how this natural wonder is essentially a tap: huge tunnels around the reconfigured Falls channel the waters of the Niagara River, which ebb and flow according to the tourism calendar. This book offers a unique interdisciplinary and transborder perspective on how the Niagara landscape embodies the power of technology and nature.

Inventing Niagara
Inventing Niagara

Author: Ginger Strand

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2008-05-06

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 1416564810

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Americans call Niagara Falls a natural wonder, but the Falls aren't very natural anymore. In fact, they are a study in artifice. Water diverted, riverbed reshaped, brink stabilized and landscape redesigned, the Falls are more a monument to man's meddling than to nature's strength. Held up as an example of something real, they are hemmed in with fakery -- waxworks, haunted houses, IMAX films and ersatz Indian tales. A symbol of American manifest destiny, they are shared politely with Canada. Emblem of nature's power, they are completely human-controlled. Archetype of natural beauty, they belie an ugly environmental legacy still bubbling up from below. On every level, Niagara Falls is a monument to how America falsifies nature, reshaping its contours and redirecting its force while claiming to submit to its will. Combining history, reportage and personal narrative, Inventing Niagara traces Niagara's journey from sublime icon to engineering marvel to camp spectacle. Along the way, Ginger Strand uncovers the hidden history of America's waterfall: the Mohawk chief who wrested the Falls from his adopted tribe, the revered town father who secretly assisted slave catchers, the wartime workers who unknowingly helped build the Bomb and the building contractor who bought and sold a pharaoh. With an uncanny ability to zero in on the buried truth, Strand introduces us to underwater dams, freaks of nature, mythical maidens and 280,000 radioactive mice buried at Niagara. From LaSalle to Lincoln to Los Alamos, Mohawks to Marilyn, Niagara's story is America's story, a tale of dreams founded on the mastery of nature. At a time of increasing environmental crisis, Inventing Niagara shows us how understanding the cultural history of nature might help us rethink our place in it today.

Love Canal
Love Canal

Author: Richard S. Newman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 0195374835

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A history of the Love Canal region from the nation's founding and the utopian city planned for the Niagara area to the building of the region's chemistry industry to the environmental disaster at Love Canal and its aftermath.

The Second Greatest Disappointment
The Second Greatest Disappointment

Author: Karen Dubinsky

Publisher: Between The Lines

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1896357237

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A lively and wide-ranging work on the history of the North American honeymoon, and, of necessity, the tourist industry at Niagara Falls. Dubinsky charts the growth of Niagara Falls as a tourist destination from the 1850s to the 1960s and explains how it acquired its reputation as the "Honeymoon Capital of the World." Ultimately, the author asks: Of all the ways to promote a waterfall, why honeymoons? Winner of the 2000 Albert B. Corey prize from the Canadian Historical Association and the American Historical Association for the best book in Canadian-American history.

Where Is Niagara Falls?
Where Is Niagara Falls?

Author: Megan Stine

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2015-09-15

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 0448484250

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

While traveling through Canada in 1678, a French priest came across the most gigantic waterfalls he'd ever seen. Stricken with both awe and fear, he began to shake, fell to his knees, and prayed. Ever since, people from all over the world have come to explore Niagara: among them the daredevils determined to tumble down or walk across the falls on tightrope. Kids will get a kick reading about the hare-brained stunts and will also learn how the falls were formed and how--one day--they will disappear.