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Author: Dilip da Cunha
Publisher: Penn Studies in Landscape Arch
Published: 2018
Total Pages: 352
ISBN-13: 9780812249996
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFeaturing more than 150 illustrations, many in color, The Invention of Rivers integrates history, art, cultural studies, hydrology, and geography to tell the story of how rivers have been culturally constructed as lines granted special roles in defining human habitation and everyday practice.
Author: Anuradha Mathur
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2001-01-01
Total Pages: 196
ISBN-13: 0300084307
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Each time the waters of the mighty Mississippi River overflow their banks, questions arise anew about the battle between "man" and "river". How can we prevent floods and the damage they inflict while maintaining navigational potential and protecting the river's ecology?" "The design of the Mississippi and how it should proceed has long been a subject of controversy. What is missing from the discussion, say the authors of this book, is an understanding of the representations of the Mississippi River. Landscape architect Anuradha Mathur and architect/planner Dilip da Cunha draw together an array of perspectives on the river and show how these different images have played a role in the process of designing and containing the river landscape. Analyzing maps, hydrographs, working models, drawings, photographs, government and media reports, painting, and even folklore, Mathur and da Cunha consider what these representations of the river portray, what they leave out, and why that might be. With original silk screen prints and a selection of maps, the book joins historic, scientific, engineering, and natural views of the river to create an entirely new portrait of the great Mississippi."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Author: Lalita Tademy
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2001-04-17
Total Pages: 348
ISBN-13: 0759522421
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club Pick-the unique and deeply moving saga of four generations of African-American women whose journey from slavery to freedom begins on a Creole plantation in Louisiana. Beginning with her great-great-great-great grandmother, a slave owned by a Creole family, Lalita Tademy chronicles four generations of strong, determined black women as they battle injustice to unite their family and forge success on their own terms. They are women whose lives begin in slavery, who weather the Civil War, and who grapple with contradictions of emancipation, Jim Crow, and the pre-Civil Rights South. As she peels back layers of racial and cultural attitudes, Tademy paints a remarkable picture of rural Louisiana and the resilient spirit of one unforgettable family. There is Elisabeth, who bears both a proud legacy and the yoke of bondage... her youngest daughter, Suzette, who is the first to discover the promise-and heartbreak-of freedom... Suzette's strong-willed daughter Philomene, who uses a determination born of tragedy to reunite her family and gain unheard-of economic independence... and Emily, Philomene's spirited daughter, who fights to secure her children's just due and preserve their dignity and future. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Cane River presents a slice of American history never before seen in such piercing and personal detail.
Author: Rebecca Solnit
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2004-03-02
Total Pages: 321
ISBN-13: 1101662662
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA New York Times Notable Book Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, The Mark Lynton History Prize, and the Sally Hacker Prize for the History of Technology “A panoramic vision of cultural change” —The New York Times Through the story of the pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge, the author of Orwell's Roses explores what it was about California in the late 19th-century that enabled it to become such a center of technological and cultural innovation The world as we know it today began in California in the late 1800s, and Eadweard Muybridge had a lot to do with it. This striking assertion is at the heart of Rebecca Solnit’s new book, which weaves together biography, history, and fascinating insights into art and technology to create a boldly original portrait of America on the threshold of modernity. The story of Muybridge—who in 1872 succeeded in capturing high-speed motion photographically—becomes a lens for a larger story about the acceleration and industrialization of everyday life. Solnit shows how the peculiar freedoms and opportunities of post–Civil War California led directly to the two industries—Hollywood and Silicon Valley—that have most powerfully defined contemporary society.
Author: Tamim Ansary
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2019-10-01
Total Pages: 501
ISBN-13: 1610397975
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom language to culture to cultural collision: the story of how humans invented history, from the Stone Age to the Virtual Age Traveling across millennia, weaving the experiences and world views of cultures both extinct and extant, The Invention of Yesterday shows that the engine of history is not so much heroic (battles won), geographic (farmers thrive), or anthropogenic (humans change the planet) as it is narrative. Many thousands of years ago, when we existed only as countless small autonomous bands of hunter-gatherers widely distributed through the wilderness, we began inventing stories--to organize for survival, to find purpose and meaning, to explain the unfathomable. Ultimately these became the basis for empires, civilizations, and cultures. And when various narratives began to collide and overlap, the encounters produced everything from confusion, chaos, and war to cultural efflorescence, religious awakenings, and intellectual breakthroughs. Through vivid stories studded with insights, Tamim Ansary illuminates the world-historical consequences of the unique human capacity to invent and communicate abstract ideas. In doing so, he also explains our ever-more-intertwined present: the narratives now shaping us, the reasons we still battle one another, and the future we may yet create.
Author: Margaret Leslie Davis
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-04-01
Total Pages: 323
ISBN-13: 1497613779
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe rise and fall of William Mulholland, and the story of L.A.’s disastrous dam collapse: “A dramatic saga of ambition, politics, money and betrayal” (Los Angeles Daily News). Rivers in the Desert follows the remarkable career of William Mulholland, the visionary who engineered the rise of Los Angeles as the greatest American city west of the Mississippi. He sought to transform the sparse and barren desert into an inhabitable environment by designing the longest aqueduct in the Western Hemisphere, bringing water from the mountains to support a large city. This “fascinating history” chronicles Mulholland’s dramatic ascension to wealth and fame—followed by his tragic downfall after the sudden collapse of the dam he had constructed to safeguard the water supply (Newsweek). The disaster, which killed at least five hundred people, caused his repudiation by allies, friends, and a previously adoring community. Epic in scope, Rivers in the Desert chronicles the history of Los Angeles and examines the tragic fate of the man who rescued it. “An arresting biography of William Mulholland, the visionary Los Angeles Water Department engineer . . . [his] personal and public dramas make for gripping reading.” —Publishers Weekly “A fascinating look at the political maneuvering and engineering marvels that moved the City of Angels into the first rank of American cities.” —Booklist
Author: Fred Pearce
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2006
Total Pages: 340
ISBN-13: 9780807085738
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this groundbreaking book, veteran science correspondent Fred Pearce travels to more than thirty countries to examine the current state of crucial water sources. Deftly weaving together the complicated scientific, economic, and historic dimensions of the world water crisis, he provides our most complete portrait yet of this growing danger and its ramifications for us all. "A strong-and scary-case that a worldwide water shortage is the most fearful looming environmental crisis. With a drumbeat of facts both horrific (thousands of wells in India and Bangladesh are poisoned by fluoride and arsenic) and fascinating (it takes 20 tons of water to make one pound of coffee), the former New Scientist news editor documents a "kind of cataclysm" already affecting many of the world"s great rivers." -Publishers Weekly, starred review "Oil we can replace. Water we can"t-which is why this book is both so ominous and so important." -Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
Author: David Cayley
Publisher: House of Anansi
Published: 2005-02-26
Total Pages: 274
ISBN-13: 0887848931
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn The Rivers North of the Future David Cayley has compiled Ivan Illich's moving and insightful thoughts concerning the fate of the Christian Gospel. Illich's view, which could be summed up as the corruption of the best is the worst, is that Jesus' call to love more abundantly became the basis for new forms of power in the hands of those who organized and administered this New Testament. Illich also explores the invention of technology, the road from hospitality to the hospital, the criminalization of sin, the church as the template of the modern state, and the death of nature. Illich's analysis of contemporary society as a congealed and corrupted Christianity is both a bold historical hypothesis and a call to believers to re-invent the Christian church. With a foreword by Charles Taylor. Ivan Illich (1926-2002) was a brilliant polymath, an iconoclastic thinker, and a prolific writer. He was a priest, vice-rector of a university, founder of the Centre for Intercultural Documentation in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and author of numerous books, including Deschooling Society, Tools for Conviviality, Energy and Equity, and Medical Nemesis.
Author: April R. Summitt
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Published: 2013-04-15
Total Pages: 316
ISBN-13: 1607322110
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"To fully understand this river and its past, one must examine many separate pieces of history scattered throughout two nations--seven states within the United States and two within Mexico--and sort through a large amount of scientific data. One needs to be part hydrologist, geologist, economist, sociologist, anthropologist, and historian to fully understand the entire story. Despite this river's narrow size and meager flow, its tale is very large indeed." -From the conclusion The Colorado River is a vital resource to urban and agricultural communities across the Southwest, providing water to 30 million people. Contested Waters tells the river's story-a story of conquest, control, division, and depletion. Beginning in prehistory and continuing into the present day, Contested Waters focuses on three important and often overlooked aspects of the river's use: the role of western water law in its over-allocation, the complexity of power relationships surrounding the river, and the concept of sustainable use and how it has been either ignored or applied in recent times. It is organized in two parts, the first addresses the chronological history of the river and long-term issues, while the second examines in more detail four specific topics: metropolitan perceptions, American Indian water rights, US-Mexico relations over the river, and water marketing issues. Creating a complete picture of the evolution of this crucial yet over-utilized resource, this comprehensive summary will fascinate anyone interested in the Colorado River or the environmental history of the Southwest.
Author: K. Aaron Smith
Publisher: Broadview Press
Published: 2017-12-05
Total Pages: 354
ISBN-13: 155481362X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis Language, A River is an introduction to the history of English that recognizes multiple varieties of the language in both current and historical contexts. Developed over years of undergraduate teaching, the book helps students both to grasp traditional histories of English and to extend and complicate those histories. Exercises throughout provide opportunities for puzzling out concepts, committing terms and data to memory, and applying ideas. A comprehensive glossary and up-to-date bibliographies help to guide further study.
