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 West
Publisher'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]
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Title: Western times and water wars: state, culture, and rebellion in California
Author: 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 Studies
Publisher'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]
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Title: Water scarcity: impacts on western agriculture 
Author: Engelbert, Ernest A
Published: University of California Press,  1984
Subjects: Environmental Studies | Water | Agriculture
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Title: California rivers and streams: the conflict between fluvial process and land use
Author: Mount, Jeffrey F 1954-
Published: University of California Press,  1995
Subjects: Environmental Studies | California and the West | Ecology | Geography
Publisher'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]
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Title: A science of impurity: water analysis in nineteenth century Britain 
Author: Hamlin, Christopher 1951-
Published: University of California Press,  1990
Subjects: History | European History | History and Philosophy of Science
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Title: Water and American government: the Reclamation Bureau, national water policy, and the West, 1902-1935
Author: Pisani, Donald J
Published: University of California Press,  2002
Subjects: History | United States History | Water | Public Policy | Geography | California and the West | Californian and Western History
Publisher's Description: Donald Pisani's history of perhaps the boldest economic and social program ever undertaken in the United States--to reclaim and cultivate vast areas of previously unusable land across the country - shows in fascinating detail how ambitious government programs fall prey to the power of local interest groups and the federal system of governance itself. What began as the underwriting of a variety of projects to create family farms and farming communities had become by the 1930s a massive public works and regional development program, with an emphasis on the urban as much as on the rural West.   [brief]
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Title: Politics and theater: the crisis of legitimacy in restoration France, 1815-1830
Author: Kroen, Sheryl 1961-
Published: University of California Press,  2000
Subjects: History | European History | French Studies
Publisher's Description: Moliére's anticlerical comedy Tartuffe is the unique prism through which Sheryl Kroen views postrevolutionary France in the years of the Restoration. Following the lead of the French men and women who turned to this play in the 1820s to make sense of their world, Kroen exposes the crisis of legitimacy defining the regime in these years and demonstrates how the people of the time made steps toward a democratic resolution to this crisis. Moving from the town squares, where state and ecclesiastical officials orchestrated their public spectacles in favor of the monarchy, to the theaters, where the French used Tartuffe to mock the restored monarch and the church, this cultural history of the Restoration offers a rich and colorful portrait of a period in which critical legacies of the revolutionary period were played out and cemented. While most historians have characterized the Restoration as a period of reaction and reversal, Kroen offers convincing evidence that the Restoration was a critical bridge between the emerging practices of the Old Regime, the Revolution, and the post-1830 politics of protest. She re-creates the atmosphere of Restoration France and at the same time brings major nineteenth-century themes into focus: memory and commemoration, public and private spheres, politics and religion, anticlericalism, and the formation of democratic ideologies and practices.   [brief]
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Title: Early Gothic Saint-Denis: restorations and survivals 
Author: Blum, Pamela Z
Published: University of California Press,  1992
Subjects: Art | Architectural History | Art History | Medieval Studies | Archaeology
Publisher's Description: quality. Indeed, the well-preserved sculptural passages provide a key to the Early Gothic style as well as revealing the distinct imprints of three artists and their influences on each other. Blum's penetrating analyses of the restorative techniques and materials are accompanied by telling photograph-diagrams that distinguish the original work from that done later.Pamela Blum's investigation has relevance not only for students and scholars of medieval art but for curators and collectors as well. Anyone concerned with survivals from the past will appreciate her scrupulous detection in studying one of France's greatest monuments.   [brief]
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Title: A river and its city: the nature of landscape in New Orleans
Author: Kelman, Ari 1968-
Published: University of California Press,  2003
Subjects: History | United States History | Environmental Studies | Technology and Society
Publisher'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]
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Title: Steps under water: a novel
Author: Kozameh, Alicia
Published: University of California Press,  1996
Subjects: Literature | Latin American Studies | Gender Studies | Literature in Translation | Fiction
Publisher's Description: Steps Under Water is a novel drawn from Alicia Kozameh's experiences as a political prisoner in Argentina during the "Dirty War" of the 1970s.
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Title: Mesozoic birds: above the heads of dinosaurs
Author: Chiappe, Luis M
Published: University of California Press,  2002
Subjects: Organismal Biology | Ornithology | Paleontology | Evolution
Publisher's Description: Our knowledge of the origin and early evolution of birds has exploded in the past ten to fifteen years. In the 1990s alone, scientists became aware of approximately three times more species of early birds than were previously known, marking the first 85 million years of avian development as a period of remarkable species diversity. Assembling work by an international group of renowned scientists, Mesozoic Birds: Above the Heads of Dinosaurs is the most authoritative and up-to-date source on early avian evolution currently available. This unique resource provides a comprehensive examination of the known fossil record and is also an unparalleled guide to the fast-paced developments in current research. Mesozoic Birds: Above the Heads of Dinosaurs covers a wide range of topics, including discussions of avian origins, the fossil record of feathers and footprints, bone histology, and locomotor evolution. Controversial taxa such as Protoavis, Caudipteryx, and Mononykus receive special treatment. But the heart of the volume presents the anatomy, relationships, and paleobiology of the undisputed Mesozoic aviary. Some of the book's most exciting features are the new definitive descriptions and illustrations of taxa that previously have received only brief notice, such as the alvarezsaurid Shuvuuia; the enantiornithines Sinornis; Eoalulavis, Vorona, and Patagopteryx; and the hesperornithiform Enaliornis. The origin of birds and their relationship to dinosaurs continue to be hotly debated among paleontologists, ornithologists, and evolutionary biologists. This cutting-edge reference will become an essential resource for those interested in this debate and in the many other fascinating topics relating to the evolution of the earliest known birds.   [brief]
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Title: Birds of the Salton Sea: status, biogeography, and ecology
Author: Patten, Michael A
Published: University of California Press,  2003
Subjects: Organismal Biology | Ecology | Ornithology | Animals | California and the West
Publisher's Description: The Salton Sea, California's largest inland lake, supports a spectacular bird population that is among the most concentrated and most diverse in the world. Sadly, this crucial stopover along the Pacific Flyway for migratory and wintering shorebirds, landbirds, and waterfowl is dangerously close to collapse from several environmental threats. This book is the first thoroughly detailed book to describe the birds of Salton Sea, more than 450 species and subspecies in all. A major contribution to our knowledge about the birds of western North America, it will also be an important tool in the struggle to save this highly endangered area. Synthesizing data from many sources, including observations from their long-term work in the area, the authors' species accounts discuss each bird's abundance, seasonal status, movement patterns, biogeographic affinities, habitat associations, and more. This valuable reference also includes general information on the region's fascinating history and biogeography, making it an unparalleled resource for the birding community, for wildlife managers, and for conservation biologists concerned with one of the most threatened ecosystems in western North America.   [brief]
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Title: Hazardous metropolis: flooding and urban ecology in Los Angeles
Author: Orsi, Jared 1970-
Published: University of California Press,  2004
Subjects: History | California and the West | Urban Studies | Water | Urban Studies
Publisher's Description: Although better known for its sunny skies, Los Angeles suffers devastating flooding. This book explores a fascinating and little-known chapter in the city's history - the spectacular failures to control floods that occurred throughout the twentieth century. Despite the city's 114 debris dams, 5 flood control basins, and nearly 500 miles of paved river channels, Southern Californians have discovered that technologically engineered solutions to flooding are just as disaster-prone as natural waterways. Jared Orsi's lively history unravels the strange and often hazardous ways that engineering, politics, and nature have come together in Los Angeles to determine the flow of water. He advances a new paradigm - the urban ecosystem - for understanding the city's complex and unpredictable waterways and other issues that are sure to play a large role in future planning. As he traces the flow of water from sky to sea, Orsi brings together many disparate and intriguing pieces of the story, including local and national politics, the little-known San Gabriel Dam fiasco, the phenomenal growth of Los Angeles, and, finally, the influence of environmentalism. Orsi provocatively widens his vision toward other cities for which Los Angeles may offer a lesson - both of things gone wrong and a glimpse of how they might be improved.   [brief]
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Title: William Mulholland and the rise of Los Angeles
Author: Mulholland, Catherine 1923-
Published: University of California Press,  2000
Subjects: History | California and the West | Californian and Western History | Autobiographies and Biographies
Publisher's Description: William Mulholland presided over the creation of a water system that forever changed the course of southern California's history. Mulholland, a self-taught engineer, was the chief architect of the Owens Valley Aqueduct - a project ranking in magnitude and daring with the Panama Canal - that brought water to semi-arid Los Angeles from the lush Owens Valley. The story of Los Angeles's quest for water is both famous and notorious: it has been the subject of the classic yet historically distorted movie Chinatown, as well as many other accounts. This first full-length biography of Mulholland challenges many of the prevailing versions of his life story and sheds new light on the history of Los Angeles and its relationship with its most prized resource: water. Catherine Mulholland, the engineer's granddaughter, provides insights into this story that family familiarity affords, and adds to our historical understanding with extensive primary research in sources such as Mulholland's recently uncovered office files, newspapers, and Department of Water and Power archives. She scrutinizes Mulholland's life - from his childhood in Ireland to his triumphant completion of the Owens Valley Aqueduct to the tragedy that ended his career. This vivid portrait of a rich chapter in the history of Los Angeles is enhanced with a generous selection of previously unpublished photographs. Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction Book of 2000   [brief]
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Title: Lines in the water: nature and culture at Lake Titicaca
Author: Orlove, Benjamin S
Published: University of California Press,  2002
Subjects: Anthropology | Environmental Studies | Latin American Studies | Conservation
Publisher's Description: This beautifully written book weaves reflections on anthropological fieldwork together with evocative meditations on a spectacular landscape as it takes us to the remote indigenous villages on the shore of Lake Titicaca, high in the Peruvian Andes. Ben Orlove brings alive the fishermen, reed cutters, boat builders, and families of this isolated region, and describes the role that Lake Titicaca has played in their culture. He describes the landscapes and rhythms of life in the Andean highlands as he considers the intrusions of modern technology and economic demands in the region. Lines in the Water tells a local version of events that are taking place around the world, but with an unusual outcome: people here have found ways to maintain their cultural autonomy and to protect their fragile mountain environment. The Peruvian highlanders have confronted the pressures of modern culture with remarkable vitality. They use improved boats and gear and sell fish to new markets but have fiercely opposed efforts to strip them of their indigenous traditions. They have retained their customary practice of limiting the amount of fishing and have continued to pass cultural knowledge from one generation to the next--practices that have prevented the ecological crises that have followed commercialization of small-scale fisheries around the world. This book--at once a memoir and an ethnography--is a personal and compelling account of a research experience as well as an elegantly written treatise on themes of global importance. Above all, Orlove reminds us that human relations with the environment, though constantly changing, can be sustainable.   [brief]
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Title: Whitewashed adobe: the rise of Los Angeles and the remaking of its Mexican past
Author: Deverell, William Francis
Published: University of California Press,  2004
Subjects: History | Californian and Western History | Chicano Studies | American Studies | Urban Studies
Publisher's Description: Chronicling the rise of Los Angeles through shifting ideas of race and ethnicity, William Deverell offers a unique perspective on how the city grew and changed. Whitewashed Adobe considers six different developments in the history of the city - including the cementing of the Los Angeles River, the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1924, and the evolution of America's largest brickyard in the 1920s. In an absorbing narrative supported by a number of previously unpublished period photographs, Deverell shows how a city that was once part of Mexico itself came of age through appropriating - and even obliterating - the region's connections to Mexican places and people. Deverell portrays Los Angeles during the 1850s as a city seething with racial enmity due to the recent war with Mexico. He explains how, within a generation, the city's business interests, looking for a commercially viable way to establish urban identity, borrowed Mexican cultural traditions and put on a carnival called La Fiesta de Los Angeles. He analyzes the subtle ways in which ethnicity came to bear on efforts to corral the unpredictable Los Angeles River and shows how the resident Mexican population was put to work fashioning the modern metropolis. He discusses how Los Angeles responded to the nation's last major outbreak of bubonic plague and concludes by considering the Mission Play, a famed drama tied to regional assumptions about history, progress, and ethnicity. Taking all of these elements into consideration, Whitewashed Adobe uncovers an urban identity - and the power structure that fostered it - with far-reaching implications for contemporary Los Angeles.   [brief]
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Title: Death Valley & the Amargosa: a land of illusion
Author: Lingenfelter, Richard E
Published: University of California Press,  1988
Subjects: History | California and the West | United States History
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Title: Industrial cowboys: Miller & Lux and the transformation of the Far West, 1850-1920
Author: Igler, David 1964-
Published: University of California Press,  2001
Subjects: History | United States History | Californian and Western History | Environmental Studies | California and the West | Agriculture | Economics and Business
Publisher's Description: Few industrial enterprises left a more enduring imprint on the American West than Miller & Lux, a vast meatpacking conglomerate started by two San Francisco butchers in 1858. Industrial Cowboys examines how Henry Miller and Charles Lux, two German immigrants, consolidated the West's most extensive land and water rights, swayed legislatures and courts, monopolized western beef markets, and imposed their corporate will on California's natural environment. Told with clarity and originality, this story uses one fascinating case study to illuminate the industrial development and environmental transformation of the American West during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The process by which two neighborhood butchers turned themselves into landed industrialists depended to an extraordinary degree on the acquisition, manipulation, and exploitation of natural resources. David Igler examines the broader impact that industrialism--as exemplified by Miller & Lux--had on landscapes and waterscapes, and on human as well as plant and animal life in the West. He also provides a rich discussion of the social relations engineered by Miller & Lux, from the dispossession of Californio rancheros to the ethnic segmentation of the firm's massive labor force. The book also covers such topics as land acquisition and reclamation, water politics, San Francisco's unique business environment, and the city's relation to its surrounding hinterlands. Above all, Igler highlights essential issues that resonate for us today: who holds the right and who has the power to engineer the landscape for market production?   [brief]
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Title: Ecology of the Southern California Bight: a synthesis and interpretation
Author: Dailey, Murray D
Published: University of California Press,  1994
Subjects: Science | Environmental Studies | Ecology | Biology
Publisher's Description: Here is a benchmark study of one significant stretch of the Pacific Ocean, the Southern California Bight. Extending from Point Conception to the Mexican border and out to the 200-mile limit, these waters have never before been investigated in such detail, from so many points of view, by such an eminent group of scientists. The twenty-five expert contributors summarize everything known about the physical, chemical, geological, and biological characteristics of the area in individual chapters; the volume concludes with a synthesis of the information presented. In addition, chapters are devoted to the influence of humans on the marine environment and to the various laws and governmental agencies concerned with protecting it. Because Southern California is so heavily populated and because the ocean is a major recreational area for its people, the information in this unique volume will be invaluable for the region's planners and decisionmakers as well as for all those who study the globe's marine resources and ecology.   [brief]
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Title: Earth's insights: a survey of ecological ethics from the Mediterranean basin to the Australian outback
Author: Callicott, J. Baird
Published: University of California Press,  1997
Subjects: Philosophy | Anthropology | Ethics | Ecology
Publisher's Description: The environmental crisis is global in scope, yet contemporary environmental ethics is centered predominantly in Western philosophy and religion. Earth's Insights widens the scope of environmental ethics to include the ecological teachings embedded in non-Western worldviews. J. Baird Callicott ranges broadly, exploring the sacred texts of Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Zen Buddhism, as well as the oral traditions of Polynesia, North and South America, and Australia. He also documents the attempts of various peoples to put their environmental ethics into practice. Finally, he wrestles with a question of vital importance to all people sharing the fate of this small planet: How can the world's many and diverse environmental philosophies be brought together in a complementary and consistent whole?   [brief]
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