Elegant and beautiful, rich in history and supremely useful, birches have played an extraordinary yet largely unrecognized part in shaping both our natural environment and the material culture and beliefs of millions of people around the world. For thousands of years they have given people of the northern forests and beyond raw materials in the form of leaves, twigs, branches and bark, as well as wood and sap, not simply to survive but to flourish and express their identity in practical and spiritual ways. Tough, waterproof and flexible, birch bark has been used for everything from basketry and clothing to housing and transport, musical instruments and medicines, as well as a means to communicate and record sacred beliefs: some of our most ancient Buddhist texts and other historic documents are written on birch bark. Birches have not only shaped regional cultures - creating, for example, the Native American wigwam and the birch bark canoe - but continue to supply raw materials of global economic importance today. Birch explores the multiple uses of these versatile trees as well as the ancient beliefs and folklore with which they are associated. Richly illustrated, this book presents a fascinating overview of their cultural and ecological significance, from botany to literature and art, as Anna Lewington looks both at the history of birches and what the future may hold in store for them.

Presented in a style as stunning as the prints it celebrates, this survey of Hiroshige tells the fascinating story of the last great practitioner of ukiyo-e, or "pictures of the floating world." Hiroshige is considered to be the tradition's most poetic artist and his work had a marked influence on Western painting towards the end of the 19th century. Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Paul Ce zanne, and James Whistler were inspired by Hiroshige's serene depictions of the natural world. Arranged chronologically, this book illustrates through text and magnificent reproductions Hiroshige's youth and early career; his artistic development in the genre of landscape prints; his depictions of Edo and the provinces; the flower and bird prints; and his many popular books and paintings. It discusses the historic and cultural environment in which Hiroshige flourished and the many reasons his art continues to be revered and imitated. Filled with 300 color reproductions, and featuring a clamshell box and Japanese-style binding, this volume is destined to become the definitive examination of Hiroshige's oeuvre.

Landscapes of Extraction explores the art of mining, the transformative industry of the American West, competing in sublimity and striking color with the natural scenic landscape on its own terms. These landscapes of enterprise altered the natural environment on a spectacular scale, with open pit mines, coal tipples, and oil rigs. How artists portrayed the mining industry in the American West is explored in the book with four scholarly essays. Artworks were inspired by the multiple landscapes created by large-scale mining, specifically the mines themselves, the towns that grew up around them, and the miners and their families who lived and worked there. The industry shaped communities and landscapes throughout the West: Arizona, California, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. Landscapes of Extraction explores a powerful regional narrative that is a fundamental element of national identity played out on a vast geographical scale.