Book Description
Irrigation came to the arid West in a wave of optimism about the power of water to make the desert bloom. Mark Fiege's fascinating and innovative study of irrigation in southern Idaho's Snake River valley describes a complex interplay of human and natural systems. Using vast quantities of labor, irrigators built dams, excavated canals, laid out farms, and brought millions of acres into cultivation. But at each step, nature rebounded and compromised the intended agricultural order. The result was a new and richly textured landscape made of layer upon layer of technology and intractable natural forces-one that engineers and farmers did not control with the precision they had anticipated. Irrigated Eden vividly portrays how human actions inadvertently helped to create a strange and sometimes baffling ecology.
Customer Reviews:
A Balanced Account on the Controversial Subject of desert Irrigation.......2006-01-31
People interested in the history of western agriculture should read this. I found it very interesting to compare the Southern Idaho irrigation projects he describes with what was happening along the mid-Columbia with private small irrigation projects during that period, through my own family, described in "Orchards of Eden" White Bluffs on the Columbia, 1907-1943" Also good to compare with the Autobiography of a woman who actually lived that life of irrigated wheat farming in Idaho during that period, "Sagebrush People" probably out of print now, too bad. Dr. Donald Worster's book "Rivers of Empire" is highly critical of what was done to the natural world in the effort to green the desert, and I tend to sympathize with what he says, while Fiege takes the postion that irrigation has learned to live in harmony with nature. But what happened to those small farmers in the meantime? The good life got swept away in corporate farming I am afraid.
Great reading for genisis of Idaho Snake River Water Use!.......1999-09-27
Irrigated Eden
In summary water along the Snake River in Idaho is unpredictable, not quantifiable, fickle and limited. Even in the 1920s when there were no uses competing with ariculture it had to be rationed. The surface water, ground water and aquifer commingle freely and as such should be jointly monitored and managed with "honest" diligence. When it comes to the water there is no such thing as partitioned individual water rights anywhere along the Sanke River in Idaho because we are all inextricably woven together in one tub and an action by one entity will affect everyone else in the tub. What one man passes another man drinks.Mark Fiege has done an excellent job of quantifying both the temporal and philosophical circumstances surrounding the acquisition and use of water for agriculture along the Snake River in Idaho up until about 1920. This book is a great place for one to begin to understand the genesis of water acquisition and husbandry for agriculture in Sountern Idaho. The first two thirds of the book and the notes are the best features of the book. The last third tends to drift away into a philosophical stretch without any real conclusions. Mark should now write a book that brings the use of water along the Sanke River in Southern Idaho up to the present time and weave together all of the contemporary competing uses for that water. Based on his research Mark should take the next step and make some recommendations for the future husbandry of our water. Mark has only done the first half of the job because the story is exponentially dynamic and just beginning. Finnish the story.
Book Description
In his best-selling Art and Fear, David Bayles (with Ted Orland) closely examined personal and autobiographical episodes in search of general truths about artmaking. Bayles now turns that same attention to his native West.
When European Americans "discovered" the American West, they fell in love with the resplendent landscape. The love affair and its congenital flaws persists to this day.
Bayles writes: ". . . the question is why my people bungled our occupation of the West so badly when no one really wanted to, when there was every chance to get it right, when voices of caution were constantly raised, when what needed to be done was frequently obvious, and when, occasionally, we did get it right (think: National Parks)."
Notes on a Shared Landscape engages the issues that make the West the West-widely ranging over the autobiographical and the cultural, the ecological and the epistemological, the cow and the potato. This is an intensely personal book, and though the Western library is huge, there is not another book like it. Much of the text unfolds in Yellowstone, where Bayles writes:
In the Lamar valley of the Yellowstone, beaver gnaw the trunks of cottonwoods, elk browse their leaves. The shadows are long, even in summer. Even so, it is just another place. In it, just as elsewhere, we see the marks of our own hands faintly because we don't have to know very much about the land we live in, because we are equally a part of and apart from nature, and because there is hardly any moment when humans are more delusional than when self recognition is required.
Customer Reviews:
Very good as far as it goes, but would have loved something with more depth.......2006-02-04
This is a book of short personal essays on the American West by David Bayles.
Many of them start in the form of a Socratic question, such as "what is the West," "where would you find the heart of the West," and so forth.
In these particular essays, Bayles continues the Socratic theme by demolishing, overturning or in some way reframing the motive idea that lay behind the original question.
In other essays, he slaughters sacred cows, or points out to the reader that many people in the West have not yet become that discerning about the West.
Again, as noted, the essays are very good as far as they go. But they don't always wrestle with their issues deeply enough. It also seems that the essays, as nebulous as they are, could still be organized and grouped in some way, with "meta-essays" for each section.
Check This Out!.......2005-07-14
Notes on a Shared Landscape is a singular and important book, unlike anything I have experienced before. It's a seamless blend of personal and global, with an almost conversational, yet sophisticated writing style. It's about the Western United States only in the sense that the West was recently settled by Euro-Americans, and because the Author grew up there. But it's really about the interaction of humans and land everywhere, and is pertinent to everyone.
Book Description
This well-illustrated volume presents for the first time a fascinating and comprehensive view of the cultural evolution of the American landscape. Written by a team of leading scholars, the essays examine key historical forces in the settlement and human shaping of the land over the past 10,000 years, with an emphasis on the past three centuries. Through carefully chosen illustration, the book shows the reader how to "read" in today's landscape the record of this transformation. The major historical forces that shaped the American cultural landscape are viewed from the varied perspective of ethnic and cultural movements, environmetnal challenge and response, and urbanization. The contributors discuss a rich selection of themes including: the diverse influence of colonial powers on early settlement; the emergence of regional types of landscape; the impact of ideology on landscape; and the contributions of technological change to landscape development.
Book Description
The authors in this collection show how the creation of a collective memory of highly visible objects and landscapes is an ongoing struggle, their meanings always being constructed, changed, and challenged. The sites and symbols the authors address are nationally recognized and include a balance of places that illuminate class, ethnic, racial, and historical experiences. Focusing on material culture, they explore the tensions that exist among various groups--elite landowners, the National Park Service, preservationists, minority groups--who compete for control over the interpretation of American public history.
Book Description
For generations, New Yorkers have joked about "The City's" interminable tearing down and building up. The city that the whole world watches seems to be endlessly remaking itself. When the locals and the rest of the world say "New York," they mean Manhattan, a crowded island of commercial districts and residential neighborhoods, skyscrapers and tenements, fabulously rich and abjectly poor cheek by jowl. Of course, it was not always so; New York's metamorphosis from compact port to modern metropolis occurred during the mid-nineteenth century. Empire City tells the story of the dreams that inspired the changes in the landscape and the problems that eluded solution.
Author David Scobey paints a remarkable panorama of New York's uneven development, a city-building process careening between obsessive calculation and speculative excess. Envisioning a new kind of national civilization, "bourgeois urbanists" attempted to make New York the nation's pre-eminent city. Ultimately, they created a mosaic of grand improvements, dynamic change, and environmental disorder. Empire City sets the stories of the city's most celebrated landmarks—Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, the downtown commercial center—within the context of this new ideal of landscape design and a politics of planned city building. Perhaps such an ambitious project for guiding growth, overcoming spatial problems, and uplifting the public was bound to fail; still, it grips the imagination.
Average customer rating:
- A concise overview of why Akron is
- A beautifully written book..a must have for Akronites!
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Written on the Hills: The Making of the Akron Landscape (Ohio History & Culture Series)
Frances McGovern
Manufacturer: University of Akron Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Landscape
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
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General
| United States
| Americas
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| State & Local
| United States
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Ohio
| State & Local
| United States
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| Gardening & Horticulture
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ASIN: 1884836224 |
Customer Reviews:
A concise overview of why Akron is.......2000-07-29
This book describes in detail the "why"s behind Akron's crooked streets and abandoned canals. A complete overview of the growth of this industrial midwest city from before its founding up to 1996.
A beautifully written book..a must have for Akronites!.......1997-05-02
I was enthralled with this book. It brings together geography, history, and the people of Akron.
I truly enjoyed it!
Average customer rating:
- Fully Disappointed!
- Excellent Book.....Must Read!!
- Very imformative and fast reading!!!!
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American Winescapes: The Cultural Landscapes of America's Wine Country (Geographies of Imagination)
Gary L. Peters
Manufacturer: Westview Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
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Spirits
| Drinks & Beverages
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Similar Items:
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The World's Greatest Wine Estates: A Modern Perspective
ASIN: 081332856X |
Customer Reviews:
Fully Disappointed!.......2007-02-27
Not at all what I was looking for. There are several books out there that cover wine and its origins better than this one.
Excellent Book.....Must Read!!.......2000-08-04
I found this book to be very readable and inforamative. It covers many different types of grapes, winemaking, wine regions around the country, and a variety of other things that I found interesting. It doesn't get bogged down in jargon, doesn't tell you what wine to drink with what, rather it lets you see how wine regions are shaped and why they are so appealing. I would definitely recommend this book to you!!
Very imformative and fast reading!!!!.......1998-11-13
I found this book to be very informative and extremely fast reading. I am not one to fully immerse myself into a book, but I found myself becoming more interested in the subject, page-by-page. If anyone is a novice like myself in the field of wines, I highly recommend this book. It will bring you up to speed in no-time!
Average customer rating:
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The View From Vermont: Tourism and the Making of an American Rural Landscape
Blake Harrison
Manufacturer: University of Vermont Press/UPNE
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
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Hospitality, Travel & Tourism
| Industries & Professions
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Vermont
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ASIN: 1584655917 |
Book Description
With its small native population, proximity to major metropolitan areas, and bucolic rural beauty, Vermont was fated to be a tourist mecca, forever associated in the popular imagination with maple syrup, fall colors, and ski bunnies. Tourism, for good and ill, has always been the decisive factor in the conception of rural Vermont. What is surprising, however, is the degree to which we have accepted this notion of rural Vermont as a somehow timeless entity. Blake Harrison's rich and rewarding study instead presents the construction of Vermont's landscape as a complex and ever-changing dynamic informed by progressive, modernist, and reformist thought, competing views of economic expansion, rural and urban prejudice and social exclusion, and (more recently) by land use planning and environmentalism. This broad-based study includes the early history of Vermont tourism, the concomitant abandonment of farms with the rise of the summer home, the creation of an "unspoiled" Vermont (from billboards, at least), the impact of Vermont's ski industry on tradition-bound tourism, and later efforts to legislate growth and protect an increasingly static ideal of a rural Vermont.
While grounded within a specific Vermont view, Harrison has much to contribute to broader studies of rural places, tourism, and landscapes in American culture. His analysis of how physical landscapes affect and are affected by our imagined landscape, and the insight afforded by his juxtaposition of leisure and labor, will deeply inform our understanding of rural tourist landscapes for years to come. This is a truly interdisciplinary work that will satisfy and challenge historians and geographers alike.
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Creating Colorado: The Making of a Western American Landscape, 1860-1940
William Wyckoff
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
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Similar Items:
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People of the Red Earth
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Cripple Creek Days
ASIN: 0300071183 |
Book Description
Chronicling the extraordinary transformation of Colorado from the frontier era of gold mining and pioneer sodbusting to contemporary ski resorts and sprawling suburbs, William Wyckoff brings a historical geographer`s unique perspective to this state`s history and meaning. Colorado has created a new human geography, Wyckoff shows in this important analysis of Colorado`s formative years.
Book Description
It's the best of the classic and contemporary styles, and a beautiful exploration of a lovely, shimmering needlework technique. Embroiderers will find endless inspiration in the many innovative ways teacher and expert Tracy Franklin combines gold with other metal-threadwork. Dip into reference ideas taken from notebooks, cuttings and new and old embroideries. Lavish color photographs and dozens of line diagrams help teach the basics, from design to simple padding of gold and metal threads. Master two basic techniques of laid work and cut purl work: these form the fundamentals for doing a design correctly. Follow the illustrations and instructions on different stitch types, including how to apply gold and metal threads in inventively intricate ways. The incredible color, detail, and good design are absolutely exciting!
Book Description
Before the Renaissance and Reformation, holy images were treated not as
"art" but as objects of veneration which possessed the tangible presence
of the Holy. In this magisterial book, Hans Belting traces the long
history of the sacral image and its changing role in European culture.
Likeness and Presence looks at the beliefs, superstitions, hopes,
and fears that come into play as people handle and respond to sacred
images, and presents a compelling interpretation of the place of the
image in Western history.
"A rarity within its genre—an art-historical analysis of iconography
which is itself iconoclastic. . . . One of the most intellectually
exciting and historically grounded interpretations of Christian
iconography." —Graham Howes, Times Literary Supplement
"Likeness and Presence offers the best source to survey the facts of
what European Christians put in their churches. . . . An impressively
detailed contextual analysis of medieval objects." —Robin Cormack,
New York Times Book Review
"I cannot begin to describe the richness or the imaginative grandeur of
Hans Belting's book. . . . It is a work that anyone interested in art,
or in the history of thought about art, should regard as urgent reading.
It is a tremendous achievement."—Arthur C. Danto, New Republic
Customer Reviews:
a remarkable authorized work .......2007-05-23
I find this book of Hans Belting an authorized work and a remarkable profound study in its field. I think this book is very inspiring to understand what images make on us.
I am very grateful for your help. It was very easy to purchase through your service. Many many thanks
Pedro
Book Description
A Metropolitan Museum of Art Publication Now available in paperback, this splendid book is dedicated to the art of the middle Byzantine period (843-1261), demonstrating its wide influence through a celebration of its most beautiful and meaningful works of art.
The magnificent religious and secular objects created in Byzantium had a profound impact on neighboring Christian and Islamic states and on the Latin West. In this volume more than 50 contributing scholars explore not only the works of Byzantium proper but also those from beyond its borders, providing new insights into the cultures of Eastern Europe.
The essays are accompanied by stunning full-color reproductions of more than 400 objects as well as photographs of architectural sites and comparative illustrations.
667 illustrations, 542 in full color, map, 9 x 12"
HELEN C. EVANS is associate curator of Early Christian and Byzantine Art in the Department of Medieval Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
WILLIAM D. WIXOM is former Michel David-Weill Chairman of the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters at The Metropolitan Museum.
Customer Reviews:
A great book!.......2000-05-25
One of the greatest sources of information on Byzantium!
Customer Reviews:
A Classic Art Study, Enjoy the Art, not the Christology!.......2006-03-19
"Not since the world was made was there ever seen or won so great a treasure, or so noble or so rich, ... had there been so much wealth as was found in Constantinople." Robert of Clari, a French crusader, in 1204
A Classic Art Study:
Talbot Rice, an authority on Byzantine Art, who traveled and worked in east Mediterranean countries, and visited Cappadocia and Cilicia, wrote a compelling study, and edited a masterly presentation of almost 250 pieces of art in icons, mosaics, frescoes, Coptic textiles, ivories, jeweled gospel covers, and gave an exposition of the beautiful architecture of the era, which characterizes Orthodox Worship to date.
This study is a rare attestation to the roots of iconography in Coptic mural paintings at the ancient monasteries at Bagawat (5th century), Deir Abu Hennis and Bawit, and those of Suryan monastery. But most beautiful is the Coptic icon of Christ and St. Menas (now in the Louvre)
Byzantine Art:
Byzantine always admired art reflected the splendor and prestige of its court and church, which were often intertwined in Byzantine society and culture. Byzantine art set standards for craftsmanship, and its architecture reflected the Eastern Orthodox worship traditions which thrived in the Eastern part of the post Constantine Roman Empire. The the time frame of Byzantine art consists of a first golden age, started after establishment in 330 the second golden age of Byzantine art, and the late period, ended with the Ottomans in 1453.
Sacred Art:
The Eastern Churches adopted an earnest reflected tone to worship in contrast to the colossal cathedrals of the West. This focus is reflected in Byzantine art, and in architecture as featured in the unique dome style, exemplary in the Hagia Sophia. The figures in those arts appear flat, two dimensional with minimal use of shadowing, to give any three dimensional impression. Figures are almost always presented from the front with somber faces and solemn looks amplified with staring eyes. Faces were rather narrow and dark, with trendy use of a reflecting gold background. Very little attempt, if any, was made for realism in the painting, while mosaic depictions are more impressionists, the Ravenna collection is especially cheerful and beautiful.
In, 'Art a World History' Jo Marceau, concludes that, "Byzantine art displayed the same constancy: in the fifth and sixth centuries, it developed a formal expression that was manifested in thousands of works of art that came to be regarded as sacred and immutable."
Iconoclasm, Art Destruction:
The development of the style of Byzantine Art was achieved during the Fifth and Sixth centuries. During the Eighth and Ninth Centuries, the writing of icons (painting of saints' images) was prohibited by Emperor Leo III in 726, and then after by the iconoclasts who believed iconography was a form of idolatry and that all icons should be destroyed. This spilt the empire into two parties and came to be known as the Iconoclastic Crisis. Icon painting and mosaics were restored again in the Ninth century and thrived until the fall of the Empire to the Turkmen. Sculpture was limited only to then small ivory book covers.
David Talbot Rice:
Talbot Rice was University of Edinburgh Fine arts professor, and an eminent Byzantinist. He joined the Oxford Field Museum excavation at Kish, Iraq, after graduation in 1925. He first visited Mount Athos with Byzantinist Robert Byron in 1926. In 1932, Rice was appointed a lecturer, at the University of London.
Rice married Tamara Abelson, a Russian-born Oxford archaeologist. In 1935 Rice published his 'Byzantine Art,' still used primer on the topic. G. Roberton edited in 1975, "Studies in Memory of David Talbot Rice"
A Durable Survey.......2005-05-21
Rice's introduction to Byzantine art is particularly useful in that it does not limit itself to the arts of Constantinople only. It focuses first on the Late Antique period (primarily in Egypt), and then goes on to provide worthwhile overviews of artistic developments in Constantinople, Byzantine Italy and the Balkans. And, although he provides little more than a cursory explanation of the complex causes of change in the Byzantine aesthetic, the author's enthusiasm for his subject is evident in his clear, jargon-free descriptions of individual works. Despite being originally published almost 40 years ago, this study still effectively conveys the breadth of Byzantium's artistic influence better than most.
Average customer rating:
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Art of the Byzantine Era
Manufacturer: NY: Praeger, 1966
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GZACKW |
Average customer rating:
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ART OF THE BYZANTINE ERA.
Manufacturer: Thames and Hudson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HICV9S |
Average customer rating:
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Kittycat's Motor is Running
Bil Keane
Manufacturer: Fawcett
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
General
| Comic Strips
| Comics & Graphic Novels
| Subjects
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General
| Comics & Graphic Novels
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General
| Graphic Novels
| Comics & Graphic Novels
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General
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| Entertainment
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ASIN: 0449124223
Release Date: 1985-10-12 |
Customer Reviews:
the sublime of cliche.......2004-03-27
I weep for Jeffy. The language, however base and stomach cramp inducing, does the job of transporting the reader to the suburban hell that only Keane can imagine. The amount of ennui overflowing from this wasp-ish family of innocents staggers. If you cannot see their pain, you are blind. I am Jocasta, my eyes bleed for the family circus.
Average customer rating:
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Kittycat's Motor Is Running!
Manufacturer: Fawcett Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Humor
| Entertainment
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| Cats, Dogs & Animals
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| Computers & Internet
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| Jokes & Riddles
| Lawyers & Criminals
| Limericks & Humorous Verse
| Love, Sex & Marriage
| Parenting & Families
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| Religion
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| Satire, Classic
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| Science & Scientists
| Self-Help & Psychology
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| Urban Legends
ASIN: 9993108340 |
Books:
- Jungle Luxe : Indigenous-Style Hotel and Remote Resort Design Around the World
- LARE Review, Section C Vignettes: Planning And Site Design
- Le Corbusier : Complete Works in Eight Volumes
- Le Corbusier: Houses
- Letters from the Avant-Garde: Modern Graphic Design (Kiosk Books)
- Living in Countryside: 25th Anniversary Edition
- Made in U.S.A.: An Americanization in Modern Art, the '50s and '60s
- Mediterranean Color: Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Greece
- Minimalist Houses, Maisons Minimalistes, Minimalistische Hauser (Evergreen Interiors)
- Miro Lithographs (Dover Art Library)
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