Richly detailed definitive account covers every aspect of steamboat's development — from construction, equipment, and operation to races, collisions, rise of competition, and ultimate decline of steamboat transportation.
"As hip and breathless as William Gibson, but spiced with dark humor and the horrible realisation that Noon knows of what he writes....Vurtis passionate, distinctive, demanding and enthralling--first-time novelist Noon has started with a bang."--The London Times.
Sustainability defines the need for any society to live within the constraints of the land's capacity to deliver all natural resources the society consumes. This book compares the general differences between Native Americans and western world view towards resources. It will provide the ‘nuts and bolts’ of a sustainability portfolio designed by indigenous peoples. This book introduces the ideas on how to link nature and society to make sustainable choices. To be sustainable, nature and its endowment needs to be linked to human behavior similar to the practices of indigenous peoples. The main goal of this book is to facilitate thinking about how to change behavior and to integrate culture into thinking and decision-processes.
“Wonderfully written…Mr. Owen writes about water, but in these polarized times the lessons he shares spill into other arenas. The world of water rights and wrongs along the Colorado River offers hope for other problems.” —Wall Street Journal An eye-opening account of where our water comes from and where it all goes. The Colorado River is an essential resource for a surprisingly large part of the United States, and every gallon that flows down it is owned or claimed by someone. David Owen traces all that water from the Colorado’s headwaters to its parched terminus, once a verdant wetland but now a million-acre desert. He takes readers on an adventure downriver, along a labyrinth of waterways, reservoirs, power plants, farms, fracking sites, ghost towns, and RV parks, to the spot near the U.S.–Mexico border where the river runs dry. Water problems in the western United States can seem tantalizingly easy to solve: just turn off the fountains at the Bellagio, stop selling hay to China, ban golf, cut down the almond trees, and kill all the lawyers. But a closer look reveals a vast man-made ecosystem that is far more complex and more interesting than the headlines let on. The story Owen tells in Where the Water Goes is crucial to our future: how a patchwork of engineering marvels, byzantine legal agreements, aging infrastructure, and neighborly cooperation enables life to flourish in the desert—and the disastrous consequences we face when any part of this tenuous system fails.
This text is a magisterial account of John Wesley Powell, the great American explorer and environmental pioneer. It tells the true story of undaunted courage in the American West.
An epic saga based on true events of the American West—with the trailblazing fur trappers and the mountain men who lived it. This is an unforgettable journey into the untamed American frontier. Where nature is cruel, violence lurks behind every tree, and where only the strongest of the strong survive. This is a story of America. TO THE RIVER’S END Luke Ransom was just eighteen years old when he answered an ad in a St. Louis newspaper that would change his life forever. The American Fur Company needed one-hundred enterprising men to travel up the Missouri River—the longest in North America—all the way to its source. They would hunt and trap furs for one, two, or three years. Along the way, they would face unimaginable hardships: grueling weather, wild animals, hunger, exhaustion, and hostile attacks by the Blackfeet and Arikara. Luke Ransom was one of the brave men chosen for the job—and one of the few to survive . . . Five years later, Luke is a seasoned trapper and hunter, a master of his trade. The year is 1833, and the American Fur Company is sending him to the now-famous Rendezvous at Green River. For Luke, it may be his last job for the company. After facing death countless times, he is ready to strike out on his own. But when he encounters a fellow trapper under attack by Indians, his life takes an unexpected turn. A new friendship is forged in blood. And a dangerous new journey begins…
The New York Times–bestselling classic set amid the mountains and streams of early twentieth-century Montana, “as beautiful as anything in Thoreau or Hemingway” (Chicago Tribune). When Norman Maclean sent the manuscript of A River Runs Through It and Other Stories to New York publishers, he received a slew of rejections. One editor, so the story goes, replied, “it has trees in it.” Today, the title novella is recognized as one of the great American tales of the twentieth century, and Maclean as one of the most beloved writers of our time. The finely distilled product of a long life of often surprising rapture—for fly-fishing, for the woods, for the interlocked beauty of life and art—A River Runs Through It has established itself as a classic of the American West filled with beautiful prose and understated emotional insights. Based on Maclean’s own experiences as a young man, the book’s two novellas and short story are set in the small towns and mountains of western Montana. It is a world populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, but also one rich in the pleasures of fly-fishing, logging, cribbage, and family. By turns raunchy and elegiac, these superb tales express, in Maclean’s own words, “a little of the love I have for the earth as it goes by.” “Maclean’s book—acerbic, laconic, deadpan—rings out of a rich American tradition that includes Mark Twain, Kin Hubbard, Richard Bissell, Jean Shepherd, and Nelson Algren.” —New York Times Book Review Includes a new foreword by Robert Redford, director of the Academy Award–winning film adaptation
Daniel McCool chronicles the surging grassroots movement to bring America's rivers back to life and ensure they remain pristine for future generations. This book confirms the surprising news that America's rivers are indeed returning to a healthier, free-flowing condition. Through passion and dedication, ordinary people are reclaiming the American landscape, forming a nation-wide "river republic" of concerned citizens from all backgrounds and sectors of society. McCool profiles the individuals he calls "instigators," who initiated the fight for these waterways and have succeeded in the near-impossible task of challenging and changing the status quo. He ties the history, culture, and fate of America to its rivers and presents their restoration as a microcosm mirroring American beliefs, livelihoods, and an increasing awareness of our shared environmental fate.
From Lake Coeur d’Alene to its confluence with the Columbia, the Spokane River travels 111 miles of varied and often spectacular terrain—rural, urban, in places wild. The river has been a trading and gathering place for Indigenous peoples for thousands of years. With bountiful trout, accessible swimming holes, and challenging rapids, it is a recreational magnet for residents and tourists alike. The Spokane also bears the legacy of industrial growth and remains caught amid interests competing over natural resources. The contributors to this collection profile this living river through personal reflection, history, science, and poetry. They bring a keen environmental awareness of resource scarcity, climate change, and cultural survival tied to the river’s fate.
All the Gears' previous titles in the First North American series have been national bestsellers. Now, People of the River is finally available in mass-market. This gripping saga tells of the Mound Builders of the Mississippi Valley. In a time of many troubles, a warchief and his people have lost all hope. But hope is revived with a young girl learning to Dream of Power.