On April 22, 1889, the federal government opened the unassigned lands in central Oklahoma for settlement. Entrepreneurs, cattlemen, and farmers, all seeking new opportunities, anxiously staked their claim to town lots and 160-acre homesteads. From their tents on Norman's Main Street, businessmen started to sell their wares. Tents soon gave way to wooden shacks and, finally, two-story brick buildings. By the beginning of the 20th century, Norman was a bustling frontier town that quickly matured into a trade center, a county seat, and a university town. In the 1940s, Norman became the home of the Naval Air Technical Training Center, a naval base constructed to train navy pilots and ground support crews for World War II.

Recognised as one of the UK's most important photographers of the last forty years, Brian Griffin grew up near Birmingham amongst the factories of the Black Country. His parents were factory workers and from birth Griffin seemed set to follow in their footsteps. And so, on leaving school at the age 16, he began working in a factory, just like everyone else around him. A year later he moved to British Steel working as a trainee pipework engineering estimator in a job that involved costing systems for the nuclear power stations that were then being built. He remained there four years before escaping the tedium of the office by enrolling to study photography at Manchester College of Art. Griffin has exhibited and published widely. In 1989 he had a one-man show at the National Portrait Gallery, London. The same year The Guardian newspaper selected him as 'The Photographer of the Decade' and LIFE magazine used his photograph 'A Broken Frame' as the covershot for their feature 'Greatest Photographs of the Eighties'. During the 1990s Brian Griffin retired from photography and focused on directing advertising, pop videos and short films. He returned to photography in 2001, reestablishing himself once again at the pinacle of British Photography.

Jenny or Jenny Bull Falls, as the city was fondly referred to before the railroad roared into town, was born on the backs of speculators, lumbermen, and businessmen in the mid-1840s. Pursuing wide-eyed dreams in the vast pine forests of the north woods, Jenny's population was around 200 in 1870. The worn trails of the Ojibwe/Chippewa, the area's first occupants, were transformed into logging roads, and by the time the city's name was formally changed to Merrill in 1881, the population had grown to 2,000. Nicknamed the "City of Parks" in 1903, Merrill is situated on the convergence of the Wisconsin and Prairie Rivers and features four seasons of natural beauty within the city limits. The wonder of Merrill lies in a century of traditions and in the heritage and beauty of its numerous historic buildings and places.

When people think of Lockhart today, they think of barbecue. However, Lockhart's history and culture are much more. As Spanish land grants were awarded to Anglos to settle this virtually uninhabited territory, they came to what is now Lockhart because of the many springs, live oaks, rolling hills, and good soil. First were Native Americans, like the friendly Tonkawa tribe, and then in 1840, a few Anglo families settled on Plum Creek, six miles from today's town center. In August 1840, the legendary Battle of Plum Creek ended the Great Comanche Raid, clearing the way for further settlement. Farming and ranching led to a melting pot of ethnic entrepreneurs who opened related businesses around the square of the Caldwell County seat. Cattle and cotton became kings and, even today, remain leading agribusinesses. Dubbed the "Barbecue Capital of Texas" by the Texas Legislature, Lockhart can boast that over 1.2 million people visit annually to eat barbecue.

Louth Rediscovered is a photography book with the most concise collection of Louth heritage sites. County Louth is known for being the smallest county in Ireland, but did you know that it also has the largest number of heritage sites per capita outside of Dublin? Join landscape photographer Mark Duffy on a journey of rediscovery and explore some of the best locations to visit in County Louth. See Louth like you've never done before, through the eyes of a landscape photographer. Mark visits everything from stunning vistas across the Cooley Mountains to church ruins, castle ruins and even some living castles. Whether you're from Louth or looking for somewhere new to visit, Louth Rediscovered will guide you to the best locations but also show you some of the best times to visit these stunning places. Take a journey of rediscovery and Rediscover Louth.

This is a book that takes the reader on a detailed tour of many of the shores of Britain and Ireland and explains the reasons for their remarkably different scenery. Why, for example, do the rocky coastlines of Western Scotland and Ireland contrast so markedly with the sandy beaches of East Anglia? It describes how the complex coastline of North Wales evolved over some seven million years and also traces the ways in which the human impact has changed all our coastlines from prehistoric times to the present day. Crumbling cliffs, stark headlands, coral beaches, shingle spits, sand dunes and salt marshes - all are here, as are stories of Gaelic speakers, fisherman's tales, saints and shipwrecks. One of the book's most distinctive features tells how the author took part in one of the National Trust's most successful initiatives, termed Enterprise Neptune; how it was conceived and how it has led to the acquisition of more than 775 miles of shoreline to be conserved for the nation in perpetuity. The book also explores how famous artists, writers, poets and composers have been inspired by coastal scenery to produce some of their most important works. And what does the future hold? What changes can we expect along our shores? The concluding chapters examine the escalating threats resulting from increasing human occupation and development and from the impact of climate change. They outline some of the ways in which the National Trust is responding to these challenges and how it is planning to manage our coastal environment for many years to come.

Witness the beauty and allure of Chincoteague, Virginia's largest inhabited island in 167 beautiful, modern color photos and 58 vintage postcards. Featured are the Island Roxy Theater, Miss Molly's Inn, the Beebe Ranch, the Misty of Chincoteague statue, and the Assateague lighthouse. Also portrayed are the world-famous and much-loved ponies, native to the islands, that are captured during the annual pony swim from Assateague to Chincoteague and auctioned. The well researched and informative text provides an engaging history of Chincoteague and its ponies, told with the easy flair and style of a seasoned storyteller. This book is a must for everyone who loves horses and life beside the sea.

Simon Norfolk's book Afghanistan; chronotopia is now recognised as a classic of photography. It establised Norfolk's reputation as one of the leading photographers in the world and has been exhibited in more than 30 venues worldwide. For the first time since 2001, Simon Norfolk has returned to the country. This time he follows in the footsteps of the Irish photographer John Burke, a superb, yet virtually unknown, war photographer whose eloquent and beautiful photographs of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880) form a most extraordinary record. Using unwieldy wet-plate collodion negatives and huge wooden cameras Burke shot landscapes, battlefields, archaeological sites, street scenes, portraits of British officers and ethnological group portraits of Afghans in what amounts to a record of an Imperial encounter. The range of work is tremendously broad and yet suffused with a delicate humanism. These are also the first ever pictures made in Afghanistan. With this book, one hundred and thirty years too late, John Burke's time has at last come. Norfolk's new work looks at what happens when you add half a trillion US war dollars to an impoverished and broken country such as Afghanistan. Very loosely re-photographic in nature, the work is more of an 'Improvisation on a theme' by John Burke, and is presented as an artistic collaboration between Burke and Norfolk. It features photographs by Burke never before published as well as Norfolk's new pictures from Kabul and Helmand.