Bakker’s classic of ecological science now includes three new chapters on Southern California which make the book more useful than ever. Striking new photographs illustrate the diversity of life, climate, and geological formation. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985. Bakker’s classic of ecological science now includes three new chapters on Southern California which make the book more useful than ever. Striking new photographs illustrate the diversity of life, climate, and geological formation. This title is
Eight hundred miles long, Baja California is the remotest region of the Sonoran desert, a land of volcanic cliffs, glistening beaches, fantastical boojum trees, and some of the greatest primitive murals in the Western Hemisphere. In this book, Berger recounts tales from his three decades in this extraordinary place, enriching his account with the peninsula's history, its politics, and its probable future--rendering a striking panorama of this land so close to the United States, so famous and so little known.
Far off the coast of California looms a harsh rock known as the island of San Nicholas. Dolphins flash in the blue waters around it, sea otter play in the vast kep beds, and sea elephants loll on the stony beaches. Here, in the early 1800s, according to history, an Indian girl spent eighteen years alone, and this beautifully written novel is her story. It is a romantic adventure filled with drama and heartache, for not only was mere subsistence on so desolate a spot a near miracle, but Karana had to contend with the ferocious pack of wild dogs that had killed her younger brother, constantly guard against the Aleutian sea otter hunters, and maintain a precarious food supply. More than this, it is an adventure of the spirit that will haunt the reader long after the book has been put down. Karana's quiet courage, her Indian self-reliance and acceptance of fate, transform what to many would have been a devastating ordeal into an uplifting experience. From loneliness and terror come strength and serenity in this Newbery Medal-winning classic.
Summoned by Queen Calafia to the island of California, twenty-six animals of the state of California introduce themselves, their homeland, and the people who dwell there.
"Polk weaves threads from history, literature, mythology, cartography, and geography into a tapestry attesting the durability of the myth."-A. J. R. Russell-Wood, Choice. To early explorers and geographers California represented a terrestrial paradise. It was Atlantis, Arcadia, Avalon, El Dorado, the Garden of Eden, the Land of Milk and Honey, the Pleasure Dome of Kublai Khan. It was always a magnet for dreamers. In this fascinating book Dora Beale Polk examines the dreams and myths that influenced the discovery and exploration of California. Throughout, Polk treats the long-held concept of California as an island, going back to medieval lore that filled an unknown ocean with rich, mysterious ideal islands. Columbus carried the lore to the New World, expecting to find islands teeming with gold, pearls, fabulous creatures, and Amazon women. Cortis was led by the "romance of the islands." Balboa, Cabrillo, Drake, Ascensisn, Kino, and many others entered into the making of the island myth. The discoveries and explorations of all the major figures are traced and their reports analyzed as they relate to California's geography and to the dreams overlaying it. Dora Beale Polk is a professor of English at California State University at Long Beach. She has published popular suspense novels and poetry as well as scholarly works.
Bakker's classic of ecological science now includes three new chapters on Southern California which make the book more useful than ever. Striking new photographs illustrate the diversity of life, climate, and geological formation.
To travel south along the coast from Greater Los Angeles is a totally different experience than the travel north from there. Certainly, the coastline is beautiful in both directions, but where the northern reaches are given to older, more self-contained communities, rapidly giving way to a totally rural environment, the southern coast is a mecca for yuppies. This is where the large shopping malls can be found, the nouvelle cuisine, the jam-packed yacht harbors, the trendy art colonies, the all-glass churches, the manicured golf courses. This, perhaps, is the stereotypical southern California, a place where young men and women wear a perpetual tan, where surfboards and swim fins are two of the most common household appliances, and where every day affords the opportunity for new adventures. This guide explores the region in depth, with an emphasis on outdoor activities, from golf and birdwatching to wine tours, watersports and hiking. We start with Anaheim, then move south to Long Beach, Whittier, Catalina Island, Costa Mesa, Laguna Beach, New Port Beach, Huntington Beach and San Juan Capistrano. Touring chapters take you to all the well-known sights, and then lead you off to unusual attractions that will amuse and delight you. Accommodation sections cover all, from camping to B & Bs to historical houses. Restaurants and cafes are chosen for their charm and impressive cuisine. Often, doing something that you've done a dozen times before, but doing it in a different place, at a different time or with a different person can make all the difference. Under the right circumstances, even the routine can become an adventure. Everything in life is an adventure. At least, it is the first time you experience it. Every sight, every sound, every scent, every taste, every sensation is an adventure that once. Why? Because it is a discovery. And every new discovery is an adventure. So the authors dedicate this book to discovery: to experiencing new places, new people, new activities, new sensations, but above all, to discovering new dimensions within ourselves.
