From the dinosaurs and the glaciers to the first native peoples and the first European settlers, from Dutch and English Colonial rule to the American Revolution, from the slave society to the Civil War, from the robber barons and bootleggers to the war heroes and the happy rise of craft beer pubs, the Hudson Valley has a deep history. The Hudson Valley: The First 250 Million Years chronicles the Valley's rich and fascinating history and charms. Often funny, sometimes personal, always entertaining, this collection of essays offers a unique look at the Hudson Valley's most important and interesting people, places, and events.
From the dinosaurs and the glaciers to the first native peoples and the first European settlers, from Dutch and English Colonial rule to the American Revolution, from the slave society to the Civil War, from the robber barons and bootleggers to the war heroes and the happy rise of craft beer pubs, the Hudson Valley has a deep history. The Hudson Valley: The First 250 Million Years chronicles the Valley’s rich and fascinating history and charms. Often funny, sometimes personal, always entertaining, this collection of essays offers a unique look at the Hudson Valley’s most important and interesting people, places, and events.
New York's version of Los Angeles's famous La Brea Tar Pits? Sand Dunes in the city of Albany? Frederic Church's Olana, a gift of the Ice Age? A Niagara Falls in Philmont? Mastodons in Greenville? The Vanderbilt Mansion and Springwood, FDR's home in Hyde Park, at risk? Join Professors Robert and Johanna Titus on a tour of the Hudson Valley and see this familiar region with new eyes the eyes of geologists who see a half-mile-thick sheet of ice grinding its way down the valley and overtopping even the highest mountains. With the Tituses as your guides, -see- an ancient Manhattan high and dry with the Atlantic shoreline 100 miles to the southeast, North/South Lake State Park as a giant and frigid -waterslide park,- and the immense expanse of Glacial Lake Albany stretching the entire length of the Hudson Valley with its deltas that would become the sites of some of America's most famous estates. Finally, witness the cataclysmic flood that cascaded through the valley at the end of the Ice Age as a great ice dam broke and a gigantic wall of water swept down the valley. The Tituses take the reader through the Catskills, the Shawangunks, the Taconics, along the banks of the Hudson River, to Bash Bish Falls and Lake Taghkanic to all those unique and beautiful places that make the Hudson Valley -the landscape that defined America- and demonstrate that all this rose phoenix-like from the devastation caused by the slow, inexorable advance of a grinding, half-mile-thick bulldozer of ice and the raging flood that followed its retreat. The result of these devastating events is the landscape that inspired the Hudson River School painters and America's pioneer landscape architects gifts of the Ice Age, and the familiar landscape we enjoy today.
Since 1996, The Hudson has been an essential guide to the full sweep of the great river's natural history and human heritage. This updated third edition includes the latest information about the ongoing fight against pollution, plus vibrant new full-color illustrations showing the plants and wildlife that make this ecosystem so special.
The Hudson Valley of New York has a geologic history spanning over a billion years. Local geology professor Steven Schimmrich has written an interesting and accessible account for anyone who's ever wondered about the deep time history of this beautiful area. Covering more than geology, this book also includes tangents on the history of life, human and economic history of the Valley, and the importance of the Hudson River in the modern-day environmental movement.
"Superbly written and researched." --Booklist "Builds a strong case." --Kirkus Lyme disease is spreading rapidly around the globe as ticks move into places they could not survive before. Mary Beth Pfeiffer argues it is the first epidemic to emerge in the era of climate change, infecting millions around the globe. She tells the heart-rending stories of its victims, families whose lives have been destroyed by a single, often unseen, tick bite. Pfeiffer also warns of the emergence of other tick-borne illnesses that make Lyme more difficult to treat and pose their own grave risks. Lyme is an impeccably researched account of an enigmatic disease, making a powerful case for action to fight ticks, heal patients, and recognize humanity's role in a modern scourge.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning view of the continent, across the fortieth parallel and down through 4.6 billion years Twenty years ago, when John McPhee began his journeys back and forth across the United States, he planned to describe a cross section of North America at about the fortieth parallel and, in the process, come to an understanding not only of the science but of the style of the geologists he traveled with. The structure of the book never changed, but its breadth caused him to complete it in stages, under the overall title Annals of the Former World. Like the terrain it covers, Annals of the Former World tells a multilayered tale, and the reader may choose one of many paths through it. As clearly and succinctly written as it is profoundly informed, this is our finest popular survey of geology and a masterpiece of modern nonfiction. Annals of the Former World is the winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction.
Connecticut State Historian Walter Woodward helps us understand how people and events in Connecticut’s past played crucial roles in forming the culture and character of Connecticut today. Woodward, a gifted story-teller, brings the history we thought we knew to life in new ways, from the nearly forgotten early presence of the Dutch, to the time when Connecticut was New England’s fiercest prosecutor of witches, the decades when Connecticans were rapidly leaving the state, and the years when Irish immigrants were hurrying into it. Whether it’s his investigation into the unusually rough justice meted out to Revolutionary War hero Nathan Hale, or a peek into Mark Twain’s smoking habits, Creating Connecticut will leave you thinking about our state’s past––and its future––in a whole new way.
