The Washoe Indians called it Tah-ve, an unfathomable liquid sapphire set in a 500 square-mile watershed of alpine snow and ice. Too deep and vast to freeze, Lake Tahoe's waters have, over time, reflected pristine forests, barren hillsides littered with slash and sawdust, managed restoration, and the glow of neon casino marquees. Its spectacular natural landscape, shared by both California and Nevada, is more designed than people realize. Humans transformed most of the old trees into mine shafts and cities. When the railroad, and later the automobile, domesticated the lake, putting it within recreational reach of the middle class, much of Lake Tahoe's shore became a managed wilderness. Its location along a political border created a unique merger of naturalist and gaming economies.

Lake Tahoe's legendary scenic beauty is witnessed annually by millions of visitors. While the lake's first sighting (in 1843) by a nonnative was made from a mountain peak, the lake's maritime history began a scant seven years later. Although most of the early steamers were designed for industrial use, the sight of a boat venturing out into the vast, deep blue expanse of Lake Tahoe attracted the attention of residents and visitors alike. After the inevitable decline of extractive industries, tourism became the main economic engine in Lake Tahoe. The steamer era and the evolution of wooden-boat racing are celebrated today by the romantic races of the two paddle wheelers and the annual Concours d'Elegance boat show.

Known for its stunning surroundings, South Lake Tahoe has changed dramatically since its industrial-logging beginnings to today's tourist destination and mountain setting of natural splendor.

In a brilliant duet, a photographer and geographer explore this desert realm the size of Delaware, a desolate landscape that nonetheless teems with life-forms that have endured for millennia.

- Presents the first career retrospective of Peter Goin's work, with contextualized close readings of images and rare insight into the artist's intent, decisions, and evolution - Written by a renowned literary ecocritic to provide broad, interdisciplinary appeal across subjects such as photography, ecocriticism and environmental humanities - Beautifully illustrated with 200 colour and black and white photographs

- Presents the first career retrospective of Peter Goin's work, with contextualized close readings of images and rare insight into the artist's intent, decisions, and evolution - Written by a renowned literary ecocritic to provide broad, interdisciplinary appeal across subjects such as photography, ecocriticism and environmental humanities - Beautifully illustrated with 200 colour and black and white photographs

Anyone who travels California's byways sees the many faces of agriculture. A huge entwined business, farming and ranching are the state's dominant land use. Yet few Californians understand what animals and crops are raised or how agriculture reflects our relationship with nature. This fascinating and gorgeously illustrated field guide gathers essential information about agriculture and its environmental context, and answers the perennial question posed by California travelers: "What is that, and why is it growing here?" Paul F. Starrs's lively text explores the full range of the state's agriculture, deftly balancing agribusiness triumphalism with the pride of boutique producers, sketching meanwhile the darker shadows that can envelop California farming. Documented with diverse maps and Peter Goin's insightful photographs, "A Field Guide to California Agriculture" captures the industry's energy and ingenuity and its wildly diverse iconography, from the mysteries of forbidden crops (like marijuana) to the majesties of scale in food production.

This book is a visual exploration of Ancestral Pueblo sites at Chacon Canyon and its extension throughout the San Juan Basin into the northern reaches of Mesa Verde. Pairing early photographs of the Chacoan world with contemporary rephotographic images, Goin sets out to examine how "ruins", which J B Jackson famously wrote bring a sense of time scale to the landscape, are constructed and interpreted according to cultural ideas held by archaeologists and preservationists bound by the limits of their disciplines and sense of cultural ownership. The book asks, "why save things, and what should be saved"? Lucy R Lippard's detailed text draws on the vast literature and ongoing research on the so-called "mysteries" of Chaco. Conflicting narratives stem from the differing ways time is measured in different cultures -- astronomically, historically, and environmentally. The stories that have come down from the many Native nations that are heirs to the Chaco and Mesa Verde worlds (Including Keres, Zuni, Tewa, Navajo and Ute) are juxtaposed, like the photographs, against the "scientific" views of those who control the sites and the literature today, raising the question of cultural ownership. Whose story is it to tell? To whom does the past belong? Time and Time Again offers a kaleidoscopic view, considering the multiple truths that are known and can be hypothesised about Chaco and Mesa Verde. The juxtaposition of historical photographs with contemporary images attempts to go beneath the surface to investigate the role of time in archaeological sites, especially those that have been "preserved" and reconstructed. The idea that two photographs can stop time without considering the intervening years is intriguing. The photographs -- primarily from the period of the late 19th century through the 1930s -- and rephotographed by Peter Goin provide two arbitrary points, paralleling the equally arbitrary choices made by historic preservationists working on ancient sites. The rephotograph shows what has happened but gives no hint about the interim or causes. Photography and tourism add another layer to the disjunctions between what is known and what is told. Another factor is an inquiry into how we measure time in these places -- astronomically, historically, as a narrative of natural change, and through stories told by generations of Hopi, Navajo, Keres and Tewa Pueblo people, who are variously heirs to the sites and the cultures. There is also the question of cultural "ownership". Whose story is it to tell? Whose ancestors built these structures and lived there? To whom does the past belong?