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1. | | Title: California rivers and streams: the conflict between fluvial process and land useAuthor: Mount, Jeffrey F 1954- Published: University of California Press, 1995 Subjects: Environmental Studies | California and the West | Ecology | GeographyPublisher's Description: California Rivers and Streams provides a clear and informative overview of the physical and biological processes that shape California's rivers and watersheds. Jeffrey Mount introduces relevant basic principles of hydrology and geomorphology and applies them to an understanding of the differences in character of the state's many rivers. He then builds on this foundation by evaluating the impact on waterways of different land use practices - logging, mining, agriculture, flood control, urbanization, and water supply development.Water may be one of California's most valuable resources, but it is far from being one we control. In spite of channels, levees, lines and dams, the state's rivers still frequently flood, with devastating results. Almost all the rivers in California are dammed or diverted; with the booming population, there will be pressure for more intervention.Mount argues that Californians know little about how their rivers work and, more importantly, how and why land-use practices impact rivers. The forceful reconfiguration and redistribution of the rivers has already brought the state to a critical crossroads. California Rivers and Streams forces us to reevaluate our use of the state's rivers and offers a foundation for participating in the heated debates about their future. [brief]Similar Items | 2. | | Title: Fish: an enthusiast's guideAuthor: Moyle, Peter B Published: University of California Press, 1995 Subjects: Environmental Studies | Marine and Freshwater Sciences | Ecology | Sports | BiologyPublisher's Description: Engagingly written, with both learning and humor, Fish bridges the gap between purely pictorial books and scholarly texts, and provides a succinct summary of fish biology and conservation for students and fish enthusiasts. Similar Items | 3. | | Title: A river and its city: the nature of landscape in New OrleansAuthor: Kelman, Ari 1968- Published: University of California Press, 2003 Subjects: History | United States History | Environmental Studies | Technology and SocietyPublisher's Description: This engaging environmental history explores the rise, fall, and rebirth of one of the nation's most important urban public landscapes, and more significantly, the role public spaces play in shaping people's relationships with the natural world. Ari Kelman focuses on the battles fought over New Orleans's waterfront, examining the link between a river and its city and tracking the conflict between public and private control of the river. He describes the impact of floods, disease, and changing technologies on New Orleans's interactions with the Mississippi. Considering how the city grew distant - culturally and spatially - from the river, this book argues that urban areas provide a rich source for understanding people's connections with nature, and in turn, nature's impact on human history. [brief]Similar Items | 4. | | Title: A fascination for fish: adventures of an underwater pioneerAuthor: Powell, David C 1927- Published: University of California Press, 2001 Subjects: Natural History | Ichthyology | Oceanography | AutobiographyPublisher's Description: This engaging memoir presents one man's lifelong love of the ocean and gives a highly personal, behind-the-scenes look at California's magnificent and innovative aquariums. David Powell, for many years curator of the world-renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium, tells the story of his life as a pioneering aquarist. From handling great white sharks to transporting delicate fish on bumpy airplanes to night diving for fish in the Indian Ocean, <I>A Fascination for Fish </I>describes many of the mind-boggling challenges that make modern aquariums possible and offers an intriguing glimpse beneath the ocean's surface. Powell's career in diving and aquarium development goes back to the beginning of modern methods in both areas. From the early techniques he devised to get fish into aquariums alive and healthy to his later exploratory dive to a depth of eleven hundred feet in a two-person submarine, Powell's action-packed narrative inspires laughter, wonder, and philosophical reflection. <I>A Fascination for Fish </I>also includes many stories about Powell's diving adventures on the California coast, in the Sea of Cortez, and in many remote and exotic locations around the world. [brief]Similar Items | 5. | | Title: Capitalism from within: economy, society, and the state in a Japanese fishery Author: Howell, David Luke Published: University of California Press, 1995 Subjects: History | Asian History | Japan | Economics and BusinessPublisher's Description: Japan's stunning metamorphosis from an isolated feudal regime to a major industrial power over the course of the nineteeth and early twentieth centuries has long fascinated and vexed historians. In this study, David L. Howell looks beyond the institutional and technological changes that followed Jap . . . [more]Similar Items | 6. | | Title: Environment and experience: settlement culture in nineteenth-century Oregon Author: Boag, Peter G Published: University of California Press, 1992 Subjects: History | United States History | Californian and Western History | Environmental StudiesPublisher's Description: The pioneer battling with a hostile environment - whether it be arid land, drought, dust storms, dense forests, or harsh winters - is a staple of western American history. In this innovative, multi-disciplinary work, Peter Boag takes issue with the image of the settler against the frontier, arguing that settlers viewed their new surroundings positively and attempted to create communities in harmony with the landscape. Using Oregon's Calapooia Valley as a case study, Boag presents a history of both land and people that shows the process of change as settlers populated the land and turned it to their own uses.By combining local sources, ranging from letters and diaries to early maps and local histories, and drawing upon the methods of geography, natural history, and literary analysis, Boag has created a richly detailed grass-roots portrait of a frontier community. Most significantly, he analyzes the connections among environmental, cultural, and social changes in ways that illuminate the frontier experience throughout the American west. [brief]Similar Items | 7. | | Title: Balancing water: restoring the Klamath BasinAuthor: Blake, Tupper Ansel Published: University of California Press, 2000 Subjects: Environmental Studies | Photography | WaterPublisher's Description: The Klamath Basin is a land of teeming wildlife, expansive marshes, blue-ribbon trout streams, tremendous stretches of forests, and large ranches in southern Oregon and northern California. Known to waterfowl, songbirds, and shorebirds, the Klamath Basin's marshlands are a mecca for birds along the Pacific Flyway. This gorgeously illustrated book is a paean to the beauty of the Klamath Basin and at the same time a sophisticated environmental case study of an endangered region whose story parallels that of watershed development throughout the west. A collaboration between two photographers and a writer, Balancing Water tells the story in words and pictures of the complex relationship between the human and natural history of this region. Spectacular images by Tupper Ansel Blake depict resident species of the area, migratory birds, and dramatic landscapes. Madeleine Graham Blake has contributed portraits of local residents, while archival photographs document the history of the area. William Kittredge's essay on the conjunction of conflicting interests in this wildlands paradise is by turns lyrically personal and brimming with historical and scientific facts. He traces the water flowing through the Klamath Basin, the human history of the watershed, and the land-use conflicts that all touch on the availability of water. Ranchers, loggers, town settlers, Native Americans, tourists, and environmentalists are all represented in the narrative, and their diverse perspectives form a complicated web like that of the interactions among organisms in the ecosystem. Kittredge finds hope in the endangered Klamath Basin, both in successful restoration projects recently begun there, and in the community involvement he sees as necessary for watershed restoration and biodiversity preservation. Emphasizing that we must take care of both human economies and the natural environment, he shows how the two are ultimately interconnected. The Klamath Basin can be a model for watershed restoration elsewhere in the west, as we search for creative ways of solving our intertwined ecological and social problems. [brief]Similar Items | 8. | | Title: Volcanology and geothermal energy Author: Wohletz, Kenneth Published: University of California Press, 1992 Subjects: Science | Physical Sciences | Earth SciencesPublisher's Description: Most high-temperature geothermal resources develop in volcanic regions, but very few have been successfully explored and developed despite the ever-growing need for renewable energy resources. This is particularly true of the many developing countries that exist in volcanic regions with potential geothermal resources. Because exploration techniques, which must be adapted from the oil industry, are expensive and uncertain, economic growth in these countries remains contingent on the availability and cost of oil.Bridging the gap between academic geologists and drilling engineers, Volcanology and Geothermal Energy is a practical and thorough guide to planning and operating a successful exploration project. It describes the potential geothermal reservoirs associated with volcanoes and volcanic regions and uses recent advances in volcanology to offer many examples of how geological field data give evidence of the location, nature, and size of a geothermal resource. [brief]Similar Items | 9. | | Title: California riparian systems: ecology, conservation, and productive management Author: Warner, Richard E Published: University of California Press, 1984 Subjects: Environmental Studies | California and the WestPublisher's Description: This volume presents 135 of the papers presented at the 1981 California Riparian Systems Conference. The papers address all aspects of riparian systems: habitat, wildlife, land management, land use policy planning, conservation and water resource management. Similar Items | 10. | | Title: Gender in Amazonia and Melanesia: an exploration of the comparative method Author: Gregor, Thomas Published: University of California Press, 2001 Subjects: Anthropology | Gender Studies | GeographyPublisher's Description: One of the great riddles of cultural history is the remarkable parallel that exists between the peoples of Amazonia and those of Melanesia. Although the two regions are separated by half a world in distance and at least 40,000 years of history, their cultures nonetheless reveal striking similarities in the areas of sex and gender. In both Amazonia and Melanesia, male-female differences infuse social organization and self-conception. They are the core of religion, symbolism, and cosmology, and they permeate ideas about body imagery, procreation, growth, men's cults, and rituals of initiation. The contributors to this innovative volume illuminate the various ways in which sex and gender are elaborated, obsessed over, and internalized, shaping subjective experiences common to entire cultural regions, and beyond. Through comparison of the life ways of Melanesia and Amazonia the authors expand the study of gender, as well as the comparative method in anthropology, in new and rewarding directions. [brief]Similar Items | 11. | | Title: Entangled edens: visions of the AmazonAuthor: Slater, Candace Published: University of California Press, 2001 Subjects: Environmental Studies | Literature | Folklore and Mythology | Natural History | Latin American Studies | History of SciencePublisher's Description: Candace Slater takes us on a journey into the Amazon that will forever change our ideas about one of the most written-about, filmed, and fought-over areas in the world. In this book she deftly traces a rich and marvelous legacy of stories and images of the Amazon that reflects the influence of widely different groups of people--conquistadors, corporate executives, subsistence farmers --over the centuries. A careful, passionate consideration of one of the most powerful environmental icons of our time, Entangled Edens makes clear that we cannot defend the Amazon's dazzling array of plants and animals without comprehending its equally astonishing human and cultural diversity. Early explorers describe encounters with fearsome warrior women and tell of golden cities complete with twenty-four-carat kings. Contemporary miners talk about a living, breathing gold. TV documentaries decry deforestation and mercury poisoning. How do these disparate visions of the Amazon relate to one another? As she fits the pieces of the puzzle together, Slater shows how today's widespread portrayal of the region as a fragile rain forest on the brink of annihilation is every bit as likely as earlier depictions to obscure important aspects of this immense and complicated region. In this book, Slater draws on her fifteen years of experience collecting stories and oral histories among many different groups of people in the Amazon. Throughout Entangled Edens, the voices of contemporary Amazonians mingle with the analyses of such writers as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Theodore Roosevelt, and nineteenth-century naturalist Henry Walter Bates. Slater convinces us that these stories and ideas, together with an understanding of their origins and ongoing impact, are as critical as scientific analyses in the fight to preserve the rain forest. [brief]Similar Items | 12. | | Title: The waning of the communist state: economic origins of political decline in China and Hungary Author: Walder, Andrew George Published: University of California Press, 1995 Subjects: Politics | Sociology | European History | Asian History | China | European Studies | Economics and BusinessPublisher's Description: This collection of essays offers a compelling explanation for the decline of communism in the two countries that went the furthest with economic reforms - China and Hungary. Articulating a vision of change that serves as a counterpoint to the prevailing emphasis on citizen resistance and protest, the contributors focus instead on the declining organizational integrity of the centralized party-state. The essays illuminate a "quiet revolution from within" that beset the two regimes after they chose to reform their economies and make concessions to the private sector.The nine contributors, three each from the disciplines of sociology, political science, and anthropology, examine key trends that appeared in both countries. The chapters trace political consequences of economic reform that range from the decline of the central state's fiscal dominance to the revitalization of long-suppressed ethnic loyalties. [brief]Similar Items | 13. | | Title: Western times and water wars: state, culture, and rebellion in CaliforniaAuthor: Walton, John 1937- Published: University of California Press, 1991 Subjects: History | Politics | California and the West | United States History | Californian and Western History | Social Theory | Environmental StudiesPublisher's Description: Western Times and Water Wars chronicles more than a hundred years of tumultuous events in the history of California's Owens Valley. From the pioneer conquest of the native inhabitants to the infamous destruction of the valley's agrarian economy by water-hungry Los Angeles, this legendary setting is . . . [more]Similar Items | 14. | | Title: The invention and decline of Israeliness: state, society, and the militaryAuthor: Kimmerling, Baruch Published: University of California Press, 2001 Subjects: Politics | Jewish Studies | Sociology | JudaismPublisher's Description: This thought-provoking book, the first of its kind in the English language, reexamines the fifty-year-old nation of Israel in terms of its origins as a haven for a persecuted people and its evolution into a multi- cultural society. Arguing that the mono-cultural regime built during the 1950s is over, Baruch Kimmerling suggests that the Israeli state has divided into seven major cultures. These seven groups, he contends, have been challenging one other for control over resource distribution and the identity of the polity. Kimmerling, one of the most prominent social scientists and political analysts of Israel today, relies on a large body of sociological work on the state, civil society, and ethnicity to present an overview of the construction and deconstruction of the secular-Zionist national identity. He shows how Israeliness is becoming a prefix for other identities as well as a legal and political concept of citizen rights granted by the state, though not necessarily equally to different segments of society. [brief]Similar Items | 15. | | Title: Early modern JapanAuthor: Totman, Conrad D Published: University of California Press, 1993 Subjects: History | Asian Studies | Asian History | JapanPublisher's Description: This thoughtfully organized survey of Japan's early modern period (1568-1868) is a remarkable blend of political, economic, intellectual, literary, and cultural history. The only truly comprehensive study in English of the Tokugawa period, it also introduces a new ecological perspective, covering na . . . [more]Similar Items | 16. | | Title: Storm over Mono: the Mono Lake battle and the California water future Author: Hart, John 1948- Published: University of California Press, 1996 Subjects: Environmental Studies | Environmental Studies | Natural History | California and the WestPublisher's Description: A dramatic environmental saga unfolds in John Hart's compelling story of the fight to save Mono Lake. This ancient inland sea, in the eastern Sierra near Yosemite National Park, is among the oldest in North America. But over the past fifty years, as its feeder streams were steadily drained to supply water to ever-growing, ever-thirsty Los Angeles, the lake's water volume eventually was reduced by half. Mono Lake's bizarre but productive ecosystem began to collapse: salinity greatly increased, nesting and migrating birds were threatened, and fierce alkali dust storms became a common occurrence.Then, in the mid-1970s, a handful of people, most of them students with minimal financial resources, began a campaign to save the dying lake. They took on not only Los Angeles but the entire state government and a whole way of thinking about water. Their fight seemed doomed in the beginning, but long years of grassroots education and effort finally paid off. In 1994, the California Water Resources Control Board ruled that Los Angeles's use of Mono Lake's waters be restricted. Over time, the lake will return to a healthy condition.John Hart integrates natural, social, and political history into a story that is a source of hope for anyone concerned about the environment. Storm over Mono demonstrates the important role of science in public policy debates and validates the concept of the public trust, the idea that certain things belong to us all, not metaphorically but in simple legal fact.Complementing Hart's narrative are 32 stunning color photographs by a dozen leading nature photographers, along with numerous black-and-white photographs, illustrations, and maps. [brief]Similar Items | 17. | | Title: Law and disorder on the Narova River: the Kreenholm strike of 1872Author: Zelnik, Reginald E Published: University of California Press, 1995 Subjects: History | Labor Studies | European History | European StudiesPublisher's Description: Reginald Zelnik uses a single episode - a militant strike at the Kreenholm factory, Europe's largest textile plant - to explore the broad historical moment. In examining this crucial event of Russian history he sheds fresh light on local power relations, high politics in St. Petersburg, controversies over the rule of law, and the origins of the Russian labor movement. Zelnik sees this pivotal moment in Russian labor history as the beginning step in the series of conflicts that eventually led to the upheavals of the early twentieth century. [brief]Similar Items | 18. | | Title: Battling the inland sea: American political culture, public policy, and the Sacramento Valley, 1850-1986Author: Kelley, Robert Lloyd 1925- Published: University of California Press, 1998 Subjects: History | Californian and Western History | PoliticsPublisher's Description: In its natural condition the Sacramento Valley was a flood-ravaged region where an inland sea a hundred miles long regularly formed during the rainy season, to drain slowly away by the summer months. Today the Valley is marvelously productive, with a great capital city at its center, but only after a seventy-year struggle to devise and build an intricate thousand miles of levees and drains. Robert Kelley sets that battle within the encompassing national political culture, which produced, through the Republican and Democratic parties, widely diverging ideas about how best to reclaim the Valley from flood. He draws on approaches developed in the field of policy analysis to examine the relationship between American political culture and environmental policy-making. We find that the prolonged controversy over the Sacramento Valley illuminates American decision-making, then and now. [brief]Similar Items | 19. | | Title: Natural history of the White-Inyo Range, eastern California Author: Hall, Clarence A Published: University of California Press, 1991 Subjects: Environmental Studies | Ecology | Earth Sciences | California and the West | Natural HistoryPublisher's Description: The White-Inyo Range - rising sharply from the eastern edge of Owens Valley - is one of the most extraordinary landscapes in the world. High, dry, and amazingly diverse, it boasts an expansive alpine tundra and features the oldest living species on earth - the 4,000-year-old Bristlecone Pines. This colorful and authoritative volume assembles a wealth of information of deep interest to the hikers and scientists attracted to White-Inyo's altitude and isolation.The nearly two dozen contributors to the volume are leading experts on the flora and fauna, the geology, geomorphology, meteorology, anthropology, and archaeology of the area. The book offers descriptions of more than 650 kinds of living organisms, from the handful of fish to the abundance of reptile, amphibian, bird and plant species. (It provides descriptions of hundreds of flowering plants.) It contains an 8-color geologic map and a roadside guide that enables the visitor to make sense of the area's complex geological history. Readers will also learn about air currents that make the range a delight for sailplane pilots and create strange cloud formations. And a special chapter tells what is known of the Native Americans who moved up and down the mountain slopes in response to seasonal changes.For anyone who wishes to visit this astonishing area or to do research there, this volume will be a unique, comprehensive resource. [brief]Similar Items | 20. | | Title: Oil age Eskimos Author: Jorgensen, Joseph G 1934- Published: University of California Press, 1990 Subjects: Anthropology | Ecology | Economics and BusinessPublisher's Description: In a book made especially timely by the disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill in March 1989, Joseph Jorgensen analyzes the impact of Alaskan oil extraction on Eskimo society. The author investigated three communities representing three environments: Gambell (St. Lawrence Island, Bering Sea), Wainwright (North Slope, Chukchi Sea), and Unalakleet (Norton Sound). The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, which facilitated oil operations, dramatically altered the economic, social, and political organization of these villages and others like them. Although they have experienced little direct economic benefit from the oil economy, they have assumed many environmental risks posed by the industry. Jorgensen provides a detailed reminder that the Native villagers still depend on the harvest of naturally-occurring resources of the land and sea - birds, eggs, fish, plants, land mammals and sea mammals. Oil Age Eskimos should be read by all those interested in Native American societies and the policies that affect those societies. [brief]Similar Items |
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