James C. Malin (1893-1979) was a pioneering historian of the Midwest, trained in ecology, agronomy, and social science methodology. His holistic view of human and natural history produced brilliant and still controversial interpretations. This collection makes accessible a broad selection from among his eighteen books and nearly one hundred articles.
The Changing Mile, originally published in 1965, was a benchmark in ecological studies, demonstrating the prevalence of change in a seemingly changeless place. Photographs made throughout the Sonoran Desert region in the late 1800s and early 1900s were juxtaposed with photographs of the same locations taken many decades later. The nearly one hundred pairs of images revealed that climate has played a strong role in initiating many changes in the region. This new book updates the classic by adding recent photographs to the original pairs, providing another three decades of data and showing even more clearly the extent of change across the landscape. During these same three decades, abundant information about climatic variability, land use, and plant ecology has accumulated, making it possible to determine causes of change with more confidence. Using nearly two hundred additional triplicate sets of unpublished photographs, The Changing Mile Revisited utilizes repeat photographs selected from almost three hundred stations located in southern Arizona, in the Pinacate region of Mexico, and along the coast of the Gulf of California. Coarse photogrammetric analysis of this enlarged photographic set shows the varied response of the region's major plant species to the forces of change. The images show vegetation across the entire region at sites ranging in elevation from sea level to a mile above sea level. Some sites are truly arid, while others are located above the desert in grassland and woodland. Common names are used for most plants and animals (with Latin equivalents in endnotes) to make the book more accessible to non-technical readers. The original Changing Mile was based upon a unique set of data that allowed the authors to evaluate the extent and magnitude of vegetation change in a large geographic region. By extending the original landmark study, The Changing Mile Revisited will remain an indispensable reference for all concerned with the fragile desert environment.
This biography of the early 20th-century newspaper giant who became news after killing his wife “has the pace and detail of an engrossing historical novel” (Boston Herald). As city editor of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York Evening World, Charles E. Chapin was the quintessential newsroom tyrant: he drove reporters relentlessly, setting the pace for evening press journalism with blockbuster stories from the Harry K. Thaw trial to the sinking of the Titanic. At the pinnacle of his fame in 1918, Chapin was deeply depressed and facing financial ruin. He decided to kill himself and his wife Nellie. But after shooting Nellie in her sleep, he failed to take his own life. The trial made one hell of a story for the Evening World’s competitors, and Chapin was sentenced to life in Ossining, New York’s, infamous Sing Sing Prison. In The Rose Man of Sing Sing, James McGrath Morris tracks Chapin’s journey from Chicago street reporter to celebrity New York powerbroker to infamous murderer. But Chapin’s story is not without redemption: in prison, he started a newspaper fighting for prisoner rights, wrote a best-selling autobiography, had two long-distance love affairs, and transformed barren prison plots into world-famous rose gardens. The first biography of one of the founding figures of modern American journalism, and a vibrant chronicle of the cutthroat culture of scoops and scandals, The Rose Man of Sing Sing is also a hidden history of New York at its most colorful and passionate.
History of Nebraska was originally created to mark the territorial centennial of Nebraska, and revised to coincide with the statehood centennial. This one-volume history quickly became the standard text for the college student and reference for the general reader, unmatched for three generations. This third edition, which has been thoroughly revised and rewritten while preserving the spirit and intelligence of the original, affirms and extends that record. Incorporating the results of thirty years of scholarship and research, the third edition of History of Nebraska gives fuller attention to such topics as the Native American experience in Nebraska and the accomplishments and circumstances of the state’s women and minorities. It also provides a historical analysis of the state’s dramatic changes in the past thirty years.
Filled with fresh interpretations and information, puncturing old myths and challenging new ones, Battle Cry of Freedom will unquestionably become the standard one-volume history of the Civil War. James McPherson's fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War--the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry--and then moves into a masterful chronicle of the war itself--the battles, the strategic maneuvering on both sides, the politics, and the personalities. Particularly notable are McPherson's new views on such matters as the slavery expansion issue in the 1850s, the origins of the Republican Party, the causes of secession, internal dissent and anti-war opposition in the North and the South, and the reasons for the Union's victory. The book's title refers to the sentiments that informed both the Northern and Southern views of the conflict: the South seceded in the name of that freedom of self-determination and self-government for which their fathers had fought in 1776, while the North stood fast in defense of the Union founded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. Eventually, the North had to grapple with the underlying cause of the war--slavery--and adopt a policy of emancipation as a second war aim. This "new birth of freedom," as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America's bloodiest conflict. This authoritative volume makes sense of that vast and confusing "second American Revolution" we call the Civil War, a war that transformed a nation and expanded our heritage of liberty.
Covering figures, events, policies, and organizations, this comprehensive reference tool enhances readers' appreciation of the role economics has played in U.S. history since 1776. A study of the U.S. economy is important to understanding U.S. politics, society, and culture. To make that study easier, this dictionary offers concise essays on more than 1,200 economics-related topics. Entries cover a broad array of pivotal information on historical events, legislation, economic terms, labor unions, inventions, interest groups, elections, court cases, economic policies and philosophies, economic institutions, and global processes. Economics-focused biographies and company profiles are featured as sidebars, and the work also includes both a chronology of major events in U.S. economic history and a selective bibliography. Encompassing U.S. history since 1776 with an emphasis on recent decades, entries range from topics related to the early economic formation of the republic to those that explore economic aspects of information technology in the 21st century. The work is written to be clearly understood by upper-level high school students, but offers sufficient depth to appeal to undergraduates. In addition, the general public will be attracted by informative discussions of everything from clean energy to what keeps interest rates low.
WikiLeaks is the most challenging journalistic phenomenon to have emerged in the digital era. It has provoked anger and enthusiasm in equal measure, from across the political and journalistic spectrum. WikiLeaks poses a series of questions to the status quo in politics, journalism and to the ways we understand political communication. It has compromised the foreign policy operations of the most powerful state in the world, broken stories comparable to great historic scoops like the Pentagon Papers, and caused the mighty international news organizations to collaborate with this tiny editorial outfit. Yet it may also be on the verge of extinction. This is the first book to examine WikiLeaks fully and critically and its place in the contemporary news environment. The authors combine inside knowledge with the latest media research and analysis to argue that the significance of Wikileaks is that it is part of the shift in the nature of news to a network system that is contestable and unstable. Welcome to Wiki World and a new age of uncertainty.
Each night, we are able to gaze up at the night sky and look at the thousands of stars that stretch to the end of our individual horizons. But the stars we see are only those that make up our own Milky Way galaxy—but one of hundreds of billions in the whole of the universe, each separated by inconceivably huge tracts of empty space. In this book, astronomer James Geach tells the rich stories of both the evolution of galaxies and our ability to observe them, offering a fascinating history of how we’ve come to realize humanity’s tiny place in the vast universe. Taking us on a compelling tour of the state-of-the-art science involved in mapping the infinite, Geach offers a first-hand account of both the science itself and how it is done, describing what we currently know as well as that which we still do not. He goes back one hundred years to when scientists first proved the existence of other galaxies, tracking our continued improvement in the ability to collect and interpret the light that stars in faraway galaxies have emitted through space and time. He discusses examples of this rapidly accelerating research, from the initial discovery that the faint “spiral nebulae” were actually separate star systems located far beyond the Milky Way to the latest observations of the nature of galaxies and how they have evolved. He also delves into the theoretical framework and simulations that describe our current “world model” of the universe. With one hundred superb color illustrations, Galaxy is an illuminating guide to the choreography of the cosmos and how we came to know our place within it that will appeal to any stargazer who has wondered what was beyond their sight.
Race and Politics offers an analysis of the controversies that followed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The question of whether the still unsettled Kansas Territory should be slave or free divided the nation into hostile and ultimately irreconcilable camps, creating conditions that only civil war could resolve. Theøauthor demonstrates, however, that the fundamental issue was not slavery as such but race: whether the country, its egalitarian slogans notwithstanding, could tolerate the expansion of African Americans, slave or free. "Rawley in his introduction, a semi-apologia, questions the need for another book on the Civil War. He answers his own question, giving two reasons: first, to reveal how the Kansas upheaval became a main political preoccupation of the country before the war; second, to emphasize how deeply prejudice pervaded the entire populace, both Northern and Southern. In filling in the structure of these two justifications, Rawley achieves his goal in an admirable way."?Gene M. Gressley, Library Journal. "Based to a considerable degree upon an examination of voluminous manuscript sources. New data relating to inner-political maneuvers, on the part of the Democrats, Whigs, and Republicans are brought forward."?Annals of the American Academy.
This unique survey of the environmental history of the grasslands in the United States explores the ecological, social, and economic networks enmeshing humans in this biome over the last 10,000 years. "Treeless, level, and semi-arid." Walter Prescott Webb's famous description of the Great Plains is really only part of their story. From their creation at the end of the Ice Age to the ongoing problems of depopulation, soil erosion, polluted streams, and depleted groundwater aquifers, human interaction with the prairies has often been controversial. Part of ABC-CLIO's Nature and Human Societies series, The Grasslands of the United States: An Environmental History explores the historical and ecological dimensions of human interaction with North America's grasslands. Examining issues as diverse as whether the arrival of the Paleo-Indians led to the extinction of the mammoth and the consequences of industrialization and genetically modified crops, this invaluable reference synthesizes literature from a wide range of authoritative sources to provide a fascinating guide to the environment of this biome.
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