Between Barkley and Kentucky Lakes--two great, artificial bodies of water in western Tennessee and western Kentucky--lies a wooded land that looks from above like the flattened thumb of a green giant. Once a land of marginal farms and small settlements, this 240-square-mile peninsula, known as the Land Between the Lakes, has been a national recreation area for the last half-century. Its rolling, wooded hills and open bottomlands give the place charm but little majesty. The place swallows up its few campgrounds and visitors they attracts, creating a vacuous tranquility. In this volume, Foresta explores how this forgotten and bypassed region became a national recreation area. He uses its history to retrieve our old attitudes toward nature, progress, and personal development. He also uses its history to retrieve a vision of the future that rallied idealists, intellectuals, and even public officials to its banner.
In the early 1960s, the Tennessee Valley Authority set out to create a great park for posterity at the Land Between the Lakes. The park was to host the vast stretches of leisure that wealthy, secure, and more equal Americans of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries would have at their disposal. It would be a place where such Americans could turn that leisure into happiness, psychic well-being, and strength of character. The TVA cleared the land of its inhabitants to create the park, removing people from their homes and severing their roots, thus effacing the history of the place. It then set about reshaping the land in the image of an anticipated future. But when that future never arrived, managers struggled to fit the place to the America that actually came into being. In the end they failed, leaving the Land Between the Lakes enveloped in a haunting sense of emptiness.
A deft blend of environmental history, geography, politics, and cultural history, " Land Between the Lakes" demonstrates both the idealism of mid-twentieth-century planners and how quickly such idealism can fall out of alignment with the flow of history. In so doing it explores a forgotten vision of the future that was in many ways more appealing than the present that came into being in its place.

In Going to Extremes writer, presenter and Oxford geography don Nick Middleton visits Oymyakon in Siberia, where the average winter temperature is -47 degrees and 40% of the population have lost their fingers to frostbite while changing the car wheel. Next he travels to Arica Chile where there have been fourteen consecutive years without a drop of rain and so fog is people's only source of water. Going from the driest to the wettest, he visits Mawsynram in India which annually competes for the title with its neighbour Cherrapunji. However, Nick discovers even here, that during the dry season, there is water shortage and one entrepreneur has started selling it bottled. Finally his journey takes him to Dalol in Ethiopia known as the 'hell hole of creation' where the temperature remains at 94 degrees year round. Here Nick will join miners who work all day with no shade, limited water and no protective clothing. The book and series consider how and why people lives in these harsh environments. How does Nick's body react to these contrasting extremes? He looks at the geographical and meteorological conditions. He meets local characters and discovers the history of these settlements to find out how they ever became populated. He looks at the way both the population, and the flora and fauna, have adapted physically to the climate, and also considers the psychological impact of living under such conditions.

This book was first published in 2004. Wind erosion and deposition are important factors in cold climates because of the open space and scarce vegetation. Aeolian processes connected with sand drift in polar environments are similar to those in deserts but in cold environments, frost and snow also play an important role. The Arctic is characterised by strangely eroded rocks, wind-formed lakes, sand dunes and loess deposits that owe their formation to aeolian processes controlled by frost and snow cover. Wind as a Geomorphic Agent in Cold Climates presents a detailed description and explanation of these wind-generated polar landforms. It includes numerous illustrations that will assist the reader in identifying and interpreting these features; both modern-day and those preserved in the geological record. This book provides an important introduction to this area of geocryology and will form a useful reference for graduate students and researchers in a variety of fields, including geomorphology, geology and environmental science.

Robert Pashley (1805 59) spent 1833 4 exploring Greece and Turkey as a Trinity College, Cambridge Travelling Fellow and contributor to a British survey of the Mediterranean, yet it was the island of Crete that most captivated his attention; his travels there became the subject of this two-volume account, published in 1837. The following year, Pashley's notes, collected artefacts and books were destroyed in a fire, so this work is all that remains from his expedition to the island. Crete at various points in its history had been ruled by Romans, Byzantines, Venetians and Ottomans. At the time of Pashley's arrival it was under Egyptian administration and there were palpable tensions between Christians and Muslims. In Volume 1, Pashley begins his journey in the western town of Chania, and his lively narrative weaves contemporary observations about Cretans with a discussion of the island's rich history.

Robert Pashley (1805 59) spent 1833 4 exploring Greece and Turkey as a Trinity College, Cambridge Travelling Fellow and contributor to a British survey of the Mediterranean, yet it was the island of Crete that most captivated his attention; his travels there became the subject of this two-volume account, published in 1837. The following year, Pashley's notes, collected artefacts and books were destroyed in a fire, so this work is all that remains from his expedition to the island. Crete at various points in its history had been ruled by Romans, Byzantines, Venetians and Ottomans. At the time of Pashley's arrival it was under Egyptian administration and there were palpable tensions between Christians and Muslims. In Volume 2, Pashley ends his travels in the south-western Samaria region. This volume also includes an appendix of Venetian manuscripts, and economic and demographic statistics from 1834.

Originally published during the early part of the twentieth century, the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature were designed to provide concise introductions to a broad range of topics. They were written by experts for the general reader and combined a comprehensive approach to knowledge with an emphasis on accessibility. T. G. Bonney's The Work of Rain and Rivers was first published in 1912 and reprinted in 1928. It offers a brief yet clear account of the way that rain and rivers act to change the landscape.

Islands represent unique opportunities to examine human interaction with the natural environment. They capture the human imagination as remote, vulnerable and exotic, yet there is comparatively little understanding of their basic geology, geography, or the impact of island colonization by plants, animals and humans. This detailed study of island environments focuses on nine island groups, including Hawaii, New Zealand and the British Isles, exploring their differing geology, geography, climate and soils, as well as the varying effects of human actions. It illustrates the natural and anthropogenic disturbances common to island groups, all of which face an uncertain future clouded by extinctions of endemic flora and fauna, growing populations of invasive species, and burgeoning resident and tourist populations. Examining the natural and human history of each island group from early settlement onwards, the book provides a critique of the concept of sustainable growth and offers realistic guidelines for future island management.

The author of the standard early twentieth-century textbook on fossil plants, A. C. Seward (1863 1941) was Professor of Botany at Cambridge, Master of Downing College and Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University. This account of his first research trip to Greenland is an evocative portrait of the country, its immense and sublime landscape, its people, and life on the Danish scientific station. This little book, written in an engaging conversational tone, conveys Seward's enthusiasm for Greenland. It includes an explanation for non-specialists of some of Seward's findings relating to fossil plants found there, which provide evidence that the country had a much milder climate in previous geological periods. Seward's own photographs are a fascinating record of the traditional life of the Inuit population as it then survived, as well as the rugged scenery of icebergs and glaciers.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. Robert Hues (1553 1632) was an English mathematician and geographer who published this work in 1594 to explain the use of the new terrestrial and celestial globes devised by Emery Molyneux in 1592. These were the first English manufactured globes and were popular with both navigators and students. The five parts of this book describe these globes and explain their use in calculating fundamental navigational points, providing valuable insights into their appearance and practical application in early sixteenth-century navigation.

Rock Weathering and Landform Evolution brings together a series of important studies on rock weathering by leading researchers, and illustrates the diversity of approaches and techniques that are currently being used by geomorphologists to study weathering processes and responses. The book commences with a number of research studies and review chapters on weathering processes and weathered products. This is followed by several discussions of the weathering of cut or dressed rock in urban and coastal environments. Contributors then examine the application of weathering and weathering rates to the dating of deposits or rock surfaces. The final section of the book comprises studies of the relationship between weathering and landforms in a variety of climatic environments. The contributions included in this book cover a wide range of topics and demonstrate the many advances that are being made by researchers investigating rock weathering. Some of the studies deal with state-of-the-art technology, others the very traditional geomorphological skills of observation and deductive reasoning, backed up as necessary by statistical analysis. This volume is the first collection of papers on weathering published for many years, and provides a wealth of information not just to geomorphologists but also to geologists, engineers, architects and archaeologists.

Many advances have been made in our understanding of tropical geomorphology in recent decades, but the field remains relatively neglected. With current widespread concern about the damage to tropical ecosystems, it is time for a new study of geomorphology in the tropics. The author endeavours to provide a tropical perspective on geomorphology, rather than a compartmentalised "tropical" geomorphology. The importance of weathering and the materials of the weathered mantle in determining the outcome of erosional processes is emphasised. The impact of Quaternary climate changes in creating superficial forms and deposits is stressed as being fundamental in the tropics as in other parts of the world. Nevertheless, the tropical landscape exhibits forms and deposits that have evolved over long time-periods in the absence of frost and ice, justifying an evolutionary approach to the long-term development of landscape. The book is important to a broad spectrum of earth science interests including geotechnical and engineering studies, and soil science, as well as to students of geomorphology. People working in the tropics will encounter the processes and products of tropical denudation systems, and the fragile nature of many of the surface materials discussed in this volume demands a deeper understanding of their behaviour. No other book currently attempts this task and this study fills a serious gap in the literature of geomorphology.

This textbook provides a modern, quantitative and process-oriented approach to equip students with the tools to understand geomorphology. Insight into the interpretation of landscapes is developed from basic principles and simple models, and by stepping through the equations that capture the essence of the mechanics and chemistry of landscapes. Boxed worked examples and real-world applications bring the subject to life for students, allowing them to apply the theory to their own experience. The book covers cutting edge topics, including the revolutionary cosmogenic nuclide dating methods and modeling, highlights links to other Earth sciences through up-to-date summaries of current research, and illustrates the importance of geomorphology in understanding environmental changes. Setting up problems as a conservation of mass, ice, soil, or heat, this book arms students with tools to fully explore processes, understand landscapes, and to participate in this rapidly evolving field.

This book looks at the twists and turns in the making of the scenic highway. The most visited site in the National Park system, the 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway winds along the ridges of the Appalachian mountains in Virginia and North Carolina. According to most accounts, the Parkway was a New Deal 'Godsend for the needy', built without conflict or opposition by landscape architects and planners who traced their vision along a scenic, isolated southern landscape. The historical archives relating to this massive public project, however, tell a different and much more complicated story, which Anne Mitchell Whisnant relates in this revealing history of the beloved roadway.

The fragile Antarctic environment consists of a closely linked system of the lithosphere, atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. Changes in this system have influenced global climate, oceanography and sea level for most of Cenozoic time. The geological history of this region therefore provides a special record of important interactions among the various components of the Earth System. Antarctic Marine Geology is the first comprehensive single-authored book to introduce students and researchers to the geological history of the region and the unique processes that occur there. Research literature on the region is widely disseminated, and until now no single reference has existed that provides such a summary. The book is intended as a reference for all scientists working in Antarctica, and will also serve as a textbook for graduate courses in Antarctic marine geology.

Hillslopes occupy most the landscape. Studies of process mechanisms and rates have become sufficiently numerous to allow a systematic study of slopes. Only by making a synthesis of quantitative process studies and relating them to the development of slope forms can the shape of the landscape be understood and the separate effects of lithology and climate assessed. In the introductory part of this book, the choice of appropriate system and scale is discussed, and models for uplift and erosion evaluated. Attention is thus focused on the dynamic equilibrium of the slope profile and its erosional development over time. Part I then examines the forces encouraging hillslope movement and the resistances opposing movement. Part 2 considers processes of rock instability, soil instability, wash, solution and soil creep. Each is discussed in terms of its mechanism and rate of operation, and the slope provides it produces. Part 3 outlines how this systematic approach may be applied to areas of different climate and the extent to which there is an assemblage of processes characteristic of each area. In part 4, the process evidence and models are combined into theoretical sequences of slope profile development, and the effect of contour curvature in modifying these profiles on spurts and in hollows is examined.

The Appalachian Mountains are home to many myths and stereotypes, but they are also the focus of intense academic interest. This bibliography of books, articles, monographs, and dissertations features more than 4,700 entries, divided into twenty-four subject areas such as activism and protest; Appalachian Studies; arts and crafts; community culture and folk life; education; environment; ethnicity, race and identity; health and medicine; media and stereotypes; recreation and tourism; religion; and women and gender. The region is defined as including all, or portions, of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Two indexes - one of authors, compilers, editors and interviewers, the other of subjects - conclude the bibliography.

These three volumes present an original exploration of all aspects of water--social, cultural, political, religious, historical, economic and technological--from ancient times until the present day. Among the varied themes, the contributors examine the changing histories of water as a private or common good, the politics of water at local, urban, national and international level, water in cities, great river plans, dams, river biographies, and cultural constructions of water--images of water in religion, myth, literature and art. With empirical and ethnographic case studies from around the world the three volumes together represent one of the most complete and up to date accounts of the central role of water in the history and development of humanity.

Mapper of Mountains follows the career of Dominion Land Surveyor Morrison Parsons Bridgland, who provided the first detailed maps of many regions of the Canadian Rockies. Between 1902 and 1930, this unheralded alpinist perfected phototopographical techniques to compile a series of mountaintop photographs during summers of field work, and spent his winters collating them to provide the Canadian government and tourists and mountain climbers with accurate topographical maps. Bridgland was also a great climber and co-founder of the Alpine Club of Canada. Mapper of Mountains tells the story of the Rocky Mountain Repeat Photography Project, which studies the changes sustained in the Rockies, repeating the field work accomplished by Bridgland almost a century ago.

This book is unique in providing a comprehensive, up-to-date synthesis of what is known about soil biodiversity and the factors that regulate its distribution, as well as the functional significance of below-ground biodiversity for ecosystem form and function. It describes the vast diversity of biota that live in the soil environment - the most complex habitat on earth - and discusses the factors that act as determinants of this diversity across different spacial and temporal scales. The Biology of Soil also considers how biotic interactions in soil influence the important soil processes of decomposition and nutrient cycling. It demonstrates how interactions and feedbacks between diverse plant and soil communities act as important drivers of ecosystem form and function. The importance of these relationships for understanding how ecosystems respond to global change phenomena, including climate change, is discussed in depth. Much is still to be learned about the soil biota and their roles in ecosystems, and the author highlights some of the many challenges that face ecologists in the exploration of soil. Richard Bardgett has wide experience in soil and terrestrial ecology, and his background of research in many ecosystems is reflected in this book which is the most comprehensive, up-to-date volume currently available in soil ecology. It provides an introduction to the biology of soil, and it also discussed the most recent developments in this progressive field of ecology. The importance of soil biotic interactions or community and ecosystem ecology is illustrated through the use of numerous examples and case studies. The Biology of Soil provides an excellent, easy to read introduction toanyone working in the field of soil ecology and related disciplines, and will be ideal for students taking undergraduate and postgraduate courses in soil ecology, plant-soil relationships, ecosystem ecology, and land management.

Catherine Boone examines political regionalism in Africa and how it affects forms of government, and prospects for democracy and development. Boone's study is set within the context of larger theories of political development in agrarian societies. It features a series of compelling case studies that focus on regions within Senegal, Ghana, and Côte d'Ivoire and ranges from 1930 to the present. The book will be of interest to readers concerned with comparative politics, Africa, development, regionalism and federalism, and ethnic politics.

For those addressing ecological and natural resource management problems this volume presents a set of coherent, cross-referenced perspectives on incorporating the spatial representation and analytical power of GIS with agent-based modeling of evolutionary and non-linear processes and phenomena. Many recent advances in software algorithms for incorporating geographic data in modeling social and ecological behaviors and also the success in applying such algorithms have not been adequately written about This book fills that gap and provides much needed information on applications for the research community as well as those in the management of natural resources.

For those addressing ecological and natural resource management problems this volume presents a set of coherent, cross-referenced perspectives on incorporating the spatial representation and analytical power of GIS with agent-based modeling of evolutionary and non-linear processes and phenomena. Many recent advances in software algorithms for incorporating geographic data in modeling social and ecological behaviors and also the success in applying such algorithms have not been adequately represented in the present literature. This book fills that gap and provides much needed information on applications for the research community as well as those in the management of natural resources.

How did El Nino change weather patterns and affect crops around the world? What are humans doing to help or hinder the health of the world's oceans? And what hurricane event happended for the first time since 1893? Whether you're a student writing a report, or a professional in need of some quick answers, you'll find what you're looking for in the "Earth Almanc." Covering the state of the four major geophysical topics associated with the Earth: the atmosphere, oceans, fresh water, and land, this new edition presents an incredible amount of usable information about the changes in our planet during 1999. Details of whole earth events and human-made and natural disasters are chronicled along with the necessary background information and statistics for understanding the science involved. Hot topics such as global warming, ozone depletion, and El Nino.

Goldstein explores specific major geophysical events and then continues with information on the latest scientific developments in fields such as geology, oceanography, and meteorology. Readers will also discover hot topics entries that are unique to this almanac--namely information on human-made events (pollution, carbon dioxide, oil spills urbanization, and water conflicts). Current and complete with more than 300 photos, charts, and statistical graphs, no other reference book compares to this one-stop resource. Topics covered include

Air Pollution

Cryosphere: The Ice

El Nino

Fresh Water

Geological Processes

Global Warming

Land Use

Ocean Fundamentals

Structure of the Atmosphere

Whole-Earth Events

As a continent of extreme, rare and complex environments, Australia has produced a startling group of ecological pioneers. Australian thinkers and innovators have made some truly original contributions to ecological thought. This study traces the emergence of ecological awareness in Australia. By constructing a social history with chapters focusing on different fields in the arts, sciences, politics and public life, Martin Mulligan and Stuart Hill are able to bring to life the work of significant individuals.

This book raises in a straightforward fashion the faith-related questions that the victims/survivors of natural disasters have as a result of this experience. Is the disaster an "act of God?" Did God cause the disaster? If God is all powerful, why did God allow it to happen? The author then goes on to argue that God is active in our questions, confusions, and doubts, as well as in those who help - either individually or as communities of faith. He discusses the dynamics of the caregiver/care receiver relationship from the perspective of the care receiver to provide insights into how natural disaster victims can face an uncertain future with hope and faith. A final chapter for caregivers provides help for the emotional and spiritual health of those who assist others in times of disaster. Appendices provide practical, close-to-the-ground tools.