Victims of Progress

Book Description

This compelling account of the effect of technology and development on indigenous peoples throughout the world examines major issues of intervention: social engineering, economic development, self-determination, health and disease, and ecocide. Victims of Progressprovides a provocative context in which to think about civilization and its costs.

Customer Reviews:

Too boring to read.......2007-10-02

I had to buy and read this book for a class in school, and I can say, it is probably the most boring book that I have ever read. I cannot stand to read it, the information is good, but its just written in such a bland and biased way, the author sounds like a total hippie who thinks we should all still be living in tribes in the forest.

this book is something else............2004-02-25

i think - it is impossible to write a book with such a great subject more boring and annoying than Bodley did.....the telephone book seems more appealing to me.........

Other Worlds.......2003-09-11

This book is amazing in what it achieves - a thorough, comprehensive view of expansive, global civilization and its affects on local, indigenous, autonomous peoples around the world. Bodley clearly and succinctly summaries the last two and a half centuries of colonial and imperial expansion, the people who resisted and continue to resist that expansion, and the negative consequences of being incorporated (usually by force) into large, impersonal, irresponsible nation-states. A must read for anyone who wishes to step outside our consumer-frenzied, totalitarian culture of domination and see what other worlds were and are possible.

Ben Mcculloch and the Frontier Military Tradition (Civil War America)

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The Texas Rangers Military tranditions

Ben Mcculloch and the Frontier Military Tradition (Civil War America)
Thomas W. Cutrer
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Customer Reviews:

The Texas Rangers Military tranditions.......2000-03-30

This is an excellent book for anyone interested in the early years of the Texas Rangers when they were a para military force and the beginning of their transition to the modern law enforcement agency. McCulloch played a critical role in these events>

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I actually shook my fist at this book while reading it. More than once.
Automotively Optimistic
What It Is.....
Exceptionally well done
On the Edge

Edge City: Life on the New Frontier
Joel Garreau
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0385424345
Release Date: 1992-09-01

Book Description

First there was downtown. Then there were suburbs. Then there were malls. Then Americans launched the most sweeping change in 100 years in how they live, work, and play. The Edge City.

Customer Reviews:

I actually shook my fist at this book while reading it. More than once........2005-10-20

Edge City is obnoxious partially because it is full of lies, distortions, and contradictions, and partially because it espouses an irresponsible model of growth and settlement. I say "irresponsble" because while Garreau claims to be merely descriptive, he's actually prescriptive: he not only argues that ECs are inevitable, but insists that they're vital and wonderful and soup for the human soul. I admit, however, that what what initially raised and finally sustained my rancor is that it's another case of someone simply ignoring the research that has come before them, research of which they are clearly aware, and not bothering to show how their new theory sits with respect to that previous knowledge, or why their new explanations are superior to previous ones.

Garreau makes at least 4 references to Jane Jacobs and her seminal Life and Death of Great American Cities early on in his book - mostly throwaway references, one slightly critical. There's absolutely no engagement, though her work is highly relevant. In LDGAM, Jacobs argues that the basic tenents of urban zoning and planning, which she labels "City Beautiful", are flawed, and destined to create dead grey areas in cities. She advocates mixed zoning, so that the same neighborhood contains at least retail, offices, and residential units, and so that there's significant cross-use and foot traffic throughout the day and night. She also advocates measures in general that are calculated to make movement easier and more appealing for pedestrians, such as shorter blocks, and irregular streets mixed in with the main arterial thoroughfares. Her book is much richer than all of this; this is just a summary of the most relevant parts.

Garreau's Edge City opens up by lamenting the deadness of downtowns and their lack of cross-use, their tendency for single-zoning, etc. He goes on to suggest that his "Edge Cities" (suburbs that have rapidly sprung up over the past 30 years, and which contain a mix of commercial, retail, and residential areas) are not only a good solution to the "problems of cities", but in fact, the inevitable one as well. This would be fine if he talked explicity about why mixed-use zoning in cities doesn't work; why being able to walk across the street to buy milk, take a 20 minute bus to work, walk 10 minutes to a park, and be in the midst of thousands of easily accessible city amenities is so much worse than living in a suburb where you need a car to get anywhere, where you have a 20-minute drive to shopping of any kind, and a 45-minute drive to work. But he doesn't. He makes hand-wavey remarks that humans seek out open spaces and freedom, that a man over 30 who takes the bus every day is a failure, that man seeks to be close to nature, and that urban planners are effete intellectuals who have no idea how real people live. Etc. Again, any one of those propositions would be fine, but there's no data to back it up. The book as a whole is little more than a complicated mess of contradictory claims.

For example, in one chapter, Garreau describes Edge Cities as affordable, but in another he admits that as Edge Cities age, they become increasingly expensive, and "middle-income" people are reduced to paying through the nose to live in what Garreau himself describes as the suburban equivalent of tenement houses. When praising the loveliness and freedom of Edge Cities, Garreau more or less only concentrates on the richest citizens - his interviewees were business owners, vice-presidents, and lawyers, all pulling down upper-middle class salaries at the very least. One upscale couple remarks, "It's really our money that makes us free." (How droll!) Indeed, Edge Cities are great if you're a CEO or can afford a giant house on a 3-acre lot, and at least one car per driver to meet basic transit needs. (And social services are a lot better when you're in a neighborhood where everyone makes several hundred thousand a year: at last, you don't have to subsidize local poor people!) At least, Edge Cities are great while they're new. Garreau describes in several places old suburbs that crumbled and died after they got a little less shiny and new, and their corporate sponsors decided to pick up and build a different plot of virgin land.

In sum, the Edge City phenomenon Garreau describes and joyfully embraces as inevitable is no more and no less than a greedy, unsustainable land grab that will force us to build a lot of unecessary infrastructure (roads, sewers) to places that will just be abandoned in another 50 years.

Automotively Optimistic.......2005-03-31

Explores the new environments arising at the junctions of interstate highways on the edges of major American metropolises. These developments supplemented suburbia first with retail and then with office buildings to become during the 1980s new centers of intensity rivaling or surpassing the old downtowns.

Through a succession of chapters, each nominally dedicated to a single metropolitan area, Mr. Garreau examines the edge city in its relation to some key issues in American society (transportation, race, quasi-governmental institutions, etc.) and then proceeds to investigate the edge city's compatibility with the traditional concepts of civilization, community, soul, and finally "hallowed ground."

An engaging and informative discussion of the forces shaping the new communities under construction throughout America. I recommend Edge City strongly to anyone who wants a deeper understanding of why we build the way we do.

My recent re-reading of Edge City was prompted by my first reading of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs. First published in 1961, Ms. Jacobs' work is now a classic that I wish I had read years earlier.

In a chapter entitled "Erosion of cities or attrition of automobiles," Ms. Jacobs expresses extreme pessimism regarding the place of the automobile in a livable urban environment. She counsels deliberate "attrition" of automobiles as the only protection against "erosion" of the city by continual further accommodations to them. Her well reasoned analysis of the conflict between car and city left me convinced of the wisdom of her recommendations.

But I remembered vaguely that Mr. Garreau had by contrast seemed entirely optimistic about the quality of life in edge cities built from the ground up to accommodate automotive traffic. So I read Edge City again.

My memory was not mistaken. Mr. Garreau seems optimistic about nearly every aspect of the edge city, cars included, about which he declares: "The system of individual transportation we Americans have devised, of course, is the finest method of moving the most people and freight in the most directions at the most times ever devised by the mind of man. At its center is the automobile and the hard-surfaced, all-weather road (p. 108)."

Ms. Jacobs, on the other hand, emphasizes the inefficiencies of automobiles. They are generally under-occupied when in use. They require vast areas of land for roads and parking lots that go unused for much of the time. Negative feedback is a chief characteristic of systems built to accommodate them: they always use up all of the roads and parking, requiring enlargement of both, spreading the buildings even farther apart, with the result of inducing even more travel by car.

Oddly enough, Mr. Garreau admits all of these drawbacks in his book (Death and Life of Great American Cities is in his bibliography.). Nevertheless, he remains optimistic.

One explanation for this difference in attitude before the same facts rests on a difference between the two authors regarding the definition of the term "density." Both praise what Mr. Garreau calls "urbanity"-the variety and uniqueness of life in our most attractive urban environments. Both also agree that "density" is necessary to urbanity.

The problem is that Ms. Jacobs is a walker while Mr. Garreau is a driver. She wants to experience continuous urbanity (hence also density) over the paths she walks, starting from her own front door. Mr. Garreau is content to experience urbanity at a locus of density to which he drives over asphalt parking lots. Ms. Jacobs wants her urbanity along a city sidewalk, whereas Mr. Garreau will take his in a suburban mall. The automobile is destroyer of the former and enabler of the latter.

For Mr. Garreau, density may be discontinuous, presenting loci of dense human activity separated by lots full of the cars that bring the humans together. For Ms. Jacobs, density is continuous, uninterrupted by the freeways and parking lots that are indeed forbidding to pedestrians.

Another explanation for the difference in attitude is that Ms. Jacobs sees the car as one of many influences destroying the urbanity of the established older "center" city. Inversely, Mr. Garreau sees the automobile as the prerequisite for the construction of a new "edge" city that will in his view gradually develop the same urbanity-with the HELP of the automobile: "But the best bet is probably the one we are engaged in right now: building Edge City. It is a world that does not deny the automobile, but at the same time increases density, putting everything a person desires as close as possible to his house while reducing the number of different places he has to park in order to go about his affairs (p. 129)."

Personally, I am a walker, but I see his point, and I liked the book.

I should mention before closing that there are some interesting appendixes: (1) list of edge cities to be found in each major metropolitan area in the United States; (2) dictionary of important jargon used by developers of edge cities; and (3) list of the "laws" (primarily quantitative) determining the layout of edge city development ("Americans won't walk more than 600 feet," for example). There is also an extensive bibliography, partially annotated.

What It Is............2005-02-01

It is interesting to read this book again with the benefit of some history since it was first written. The Edge City has evolved and continues to evolve, but there is little doubt at this point that Garreau's basic premise was correct. We are on the edge because this is where it makes sense for so many of us to live. Just as the traditional city worked in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century, Edge City works today, and not just in the United States, but globally. I've seen Edge City in Toronto, Malmo Sweden and other places the author references and what strikes me is how similiar it is to Edge City in my own backyard, that is, The Woodlands, Texas.

Garreau is correct that Edge City is in transition. The Houston Galleria has gone from Edge City to traditional city in any sense of the definition. As housing is added and density increased, the area adapts. Always a destination, it is now home for increasing numbers of Houstonians. Mass transit is not far off. The Edge City is going mainstream, at least in the Galleria, and the end product is very attractive. The same can be said for The Woodlands. Yes, it is Disney-esque, but it is also funky in it's own way, and the end product will continue to evolve. The new pedestrian friendly village is already a hit, and water taxis and pathways make carless movement between major attractions a viable alternative to traditional suburban transit.

This is an excellent read, in no small part because Garreau resists the urge to lecture and condescend. He seems fascinated by the product and willing to admit that Edge City is what it is, and it might be a viable alternative even for those among us who view sprawl as wasteful and immoral. If you're interested in understanding the evolution of modern society, both good and bad, in terms of the places more and more of us are calling home....then this is a worthwhile read.

Exceptionally well done.......2004-09-13

This book explores what has become of the suburbs. Garreau's argues that certain suburbs have developed into a new kind of city, a city without a traditional downtown. He believes that such "edge cities", are the cities of the future. Garreau's criteria for an "edge city" are:
--5 million square feet or more of office space
--600,000 square feet or more of retail space
--more jobs than bedrooms
--perceived as one place by the population
--developed within the last 30 years

With these criteria in mind, Garreau sets off across the US to study our major edge cities. He explores edge cities in New Jersey, Texas, Southern California, and the areas around Boston, Detroit, Atlanta, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. In each area that he visits, Garreau takes up an edge city theme. For instance, in Detroit he discusses cars and the role they play in edge cities, and in Atlanta he discusses questions of race and class in edge cities.

At the end of the book is a list of US cities that qualified for edge city status in 1992. This is followed by a glossary of words used by edge city developers and a set of "laws" about how edge cities work. These "laws" are statistical observations about human behavior relevant for city planning, such as "the furthest distance an American will willing walk before getting into a car is 600 feet." Finally, there is an annotated list of suggested readings, endnotes, and an index.

Garreau is neither for nor against edge cities. He tries instead to understand how they work, and why they have popped up so rapidly across the country. He strives to be descriptive rather than prescriptive, coming across more like Jane Jacobs than Lewis Mumford, who argued so stridently for regional planning. Garreau points out that edge cities are being built by developers who are in the business to make money. In other words, they build what they believe will sell, and given the fact that the developments sell so well, a lot of Americans are making the conscious decision that they want to live in edge city developments. Through interviews with developers, employers, and residents, Garreau explores the factors that make edge cities so popular.

He writes "Maybe it worked like this. The force that drove the creation of Edge City was our search deep inside ourselves for a new balance of individualism and freedom. We wanted to build a world in which we could live in one place, work in another, and play in a third, in unlimited combination, as a way to nurture our human potential. This demanded transportation that would allow us to go where we wanted, when we wanted. That enshrined the individual transportation system, the automobile, in our lives. And that led us to build our market meeting places in the fashion of today's malls." Cars are key elements in this phenomenon. They make it possible for people to separate their workplaces from the residences, and they define the distances which are considered commutable. They make it possible for people to live spread out enough from each other that everyone can have a front yard, yet at the same time, for the development to be dense enough to support large employers and sophisticated shopping options.

Garreau doesn't devote much space to the problems created by such heavy dependence on personal autos. Would Americans ever be willing to trade in their cars for more sustainable transit options, such as bicycles? Unless the price of gas rises drastically, we probably won't find out. But it seems that it wouldn't be that hard to develop edge cities where people could get around by bicycle or foot. In Scandinavia, for instance, new developments are connected by bicycle/pedestrian walkways that are completely separate from motorways and have their own underpass system so that interactions with motorized traffic are kept to a minimum. Everyone from the youngest tot to the oldest senior citizen uses these paths. If bike travel were made easy and safe here, perhaps it might become more popular, easing the congestion on the roads. It might also help with our obesity epidemic.

One topic that Garreau seems to overlook is the question of the support workers for edge cities. In Garreau's edge city descriptions, the edge city residential properties are attractive and upscale, suitable for well-paid white color employees. The money these people have supports the edge city malls, shopping centers, and restaurants. But such highly skilled people aren't likely to actually work at the malls, where the jobs are minimum wage. All those shops and restaurants require ranks of minimum wage workers, and people earning the minimum wage can't afford to live in Edge City where the housing costs are so high. Instead, they live in run-down inner cities or outlying towns and commute long distances to their jobs at the malls. They may not reside in edge cities, but they still comprise a major component of the overall operations and their needs and habits should also be considered.

I lived in an edge city west of Boston for four years. I lived in a box, I worked in a box, and when I got home at night I was dead tired from the commute. The distances between shops and homes were so large that a car was absolutely required to get around. It was virtually impossible to meet others, and cultural activities were extremely limited. For the most part, the only public space in town was at the malls. The town spirit seemed to be missing along with the town center. The first chance we had to leave town, we bolted and have never looked back. If Garreau is right, and edge cities are the wave of the future because that's where Americans are choosing to live, I'm afraid for the future of America. Hopefully, as edge cities begin to mature, they will become more livable places.

On the Edge.......2004-04-19

This was the first book on cities and planning I ever read, and I was captivated through most of it. Filled with fascinating views on how real estate and commerce work together, this book ties together views of different metropoles as they develop their "Edge Cities," grown-up suburbs that are more than bedroom communities. These Edge Cities have overwhelmed the central city that gave birth to them, as suburbanites find them easier to commute to (at first), and certainly cleaner than the "real city." Gridlock and sprawl are the result as the Edge Cities go up everywhere.

And I still remember my eagerness in reading this terrific book, city after city, looking forward to the San Francisco chapter... and my crushing disappointment when Garreau discussed not Silicon Valley, the quintessential Edge City, but... Concord. Concord? How did he miss Silicon Valley, at the intersection of 85 and 280, or 101 and 880, or... (Garreau feels freeway junctions lead to Edge Cities)

Okay, other than my personal disappointment that he missed the real story, that the suburban metroplex is none other than San Jose/Santa Clara/Cupertino/Sunnyvale/Mountain View/Palo Alto/Redwood City this is still a great book. The endpapers show the contrast between Tyson's Corners postwar and in the nineties, and what a contrast it is.

Book Description

Eight going on nine, Rose Wilder is beginning to settle into her new life in Missouri, the Land of the Big Red Apple. Her father is building their farmhouse and she dreams of the day they'll have their own bright crop to harvest. But before that can happen, she has a fierce ice storm to contend with and her first real Christmas in the Ozarks to enjoy.

Customer Reviews:

Maggie's Review.......2005-05-18

In the Land of the Big Red Apple is adventurous and suspenseful. Rose and her Mama and Papa moved to Missouri and left her Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Mary, Aunt Carry, and Aunt Grace in De Smet because of a drought. Rose's best friend was Alva. Alva hated town girls. Rose's Papa had a hired hand. His name was Abe. Abe lived in a rented shack with his little brother Swiny. Abe and Swiny's mother and father had died. They met Abe when Papa caught Swiny stealing some of Mama's eggs. The next morning Abe came by to apologize. Then they harvested the last harvest. Then Mama and Rose baked and cooked for Thanksgiving. They invited the Coolys over for supper. The last thing Mama put on their plates was three kernels of corn to remind them of the Pilgrims. Then they said grace. After they ate Rose told Paul and George about a cave, but she wasn't allowed to go in it. Paul said, "They wouldn't know if we do so let's go." They went inside the cave and got really muddy. They got in big trouble when they got back. It was time to go back to school. Rose saw Blanche, her school friend. Rose's Papa came and picked Rose up from school. Papa said, "Why Rose you're lips are blue and you're shivering." When Rose got home he said, "Go sit by the fire." Soon it was Rose's birthday! Mama kept looking out the window but wouldn't let Rose. When it was time for chores her Mama wouldn't let her do her chores. When Papa came inside he said, "Go outside and have a look." There was a donkey outside with a new saddle! A little while after Rose's birthday was a terrible ice storm! It was hard getting around. You had to put cloth on your shoes. Their orchard barely made it. Abe was sparking with Effie, Alva's older sitter. Then Abe asked Effie if she would marry him. Will Effie marry Abe? I recommend this book, because it shows you what it was like when Rose was a little girl compared to now.

I love it!.......2004-01-12

In the Land of the Big Red Apple is a GREAT book! Rose begins to adjust to her new home in Missouri at Rocky Ridge Farm. She gets a new donkey named Spookendyke for her ninth birthday, a huge ice storm hits, she gets to celebrate her first real Christmas in the Ozarks, and her parents bulid a new house.

I have the whole series..........2003-05-16

I love THE LAURA INGALLS YEARS and the ROSE YEARS. In the later ROSE books, Rose is a little more fiesty and romantical...it builds up as the series goes along, so this is more for pre-teens and teens later on. Otherwise it is very wholesome and fun; Rose is interesting, and has many ideas about the world! I have all the LAURA YEARS books except THE FIRST FOUR YEARS and all the ROSE books except ON THE BANKS OF THE BAYOU (my fave) and BACHELOR GIRL (haven't read that yet).
...

I found this series to be very disappointing..........2002-12-31

I found this entire series of books to be disappointing. The writing was average but what really bothered me most is how the stories lacked the sweet innocence of the original series. On doing some research I discovered that parts of the books were based on Rose's diaries. Unfortunately, she was not a happy soul and these books suffer from her same pessimism. The listed author for this book (MacBride) died before the last few books were published. The books were still published under his name and HarperCollins claimed that he wrote the manuscript before dying yet one of the last books in this series contains several chapters (almost verbatim) from a story that Rose wrote herself for an adult audience. The story is totally out of character with the series. Rose and her friend sneak out for several nights to meet a traveling salesman. He eventually makes a pass at her...

This series is okay as light reading for adolescents but if you are looking for a piece of americana, and/or a wholesome book for your child or self this is not the best choice. It grossly fails to live up to the original series of books. The Caroline series is a better choice.

Rose is cool.......2002-09-10

The girl was quite a firecracker. Again, just as charming as Little House, but the storytelling is a bit more complex and more reflective of who Rose was. This series truly equals the charm and storytelling of Laura's story. Kudos to those who thought to bring this series to print.

How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier

Average customer rating:

Exceedingly Well Written

How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier
Stuart Banner
Manufacturer: Belknap Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0674018710

Book Description

Between the early seventeenth century and the early twentieth, nearly all the land in the United States was transferred from American Indians to whites. This dramatic transformation has been understood in two very different ways--as a series of consensual transactions, but also as a process of violent conquest. Both views cannot be correct. How did Indians actually lose their land?

Stuart Banner provides the first comprehensive answer. He argues that neither simple coercion nor simple consent reflects the complicated legal history of land transfers. Instead, time, place, and the balance of power between Indians and settlers decided the outcome of land struggles. As whites' power grew, they were able to establish the legal institutions and the rules by which land transactions would be made and enforced.

This story of America's colonization remains a story of power, but a more complex kind of power than historians have acknowledged. It is a story in which military force was less important than the power to shape the legal framework within which land would be owned. As a result, white Americans--from eastern cities to the western frontiers--could believe they were buying land from the Indians the same way they bought land from one another. How the Indians Lost Their Land dramatically reveals how subtle changes in the law can determine the fate of a nation, and our understanding of the past.

Customer Reviews:

Exceedingly Well Written.......2006-06-10

Stuart Banner has taken a complex, 400+ year history of American Indian Land Acquisition and has abstracted the legal basis and the prevailing sociocultural worldviews of settlers, governments and aborigines to produce a work that we, today, can use to understand "How the Indians Lost Their Lands." This is a must read for anyone who has any official involvement with Native American Indians, or anyone who is interested in their, and our, history.

Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise ofDemocracy

Average customer rating:

Measure for Measure
The shaping of America
This book really measures up!
This book answers a lot of questions!
An interesting history

Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise ofDemocracy
Linklater Andro
Manufacturer: Plume
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0452284597
Release Date: 2003-09-30

Book Description

In 1790, America was in enormous debt, having depleted what little money and supplies the country had during its victorious fight for independence. Before the nation's greatest asset, the land west of the Ohio River, could be sold it had to be measured out and mapped. And before that could be done, a uniform set of measurements had to be chosen for the new republic out of the morass of roughly 100,000 different units that were in use in daily life.

Measuring America tells the fascinating story of how we ultimately gained the American Customary System-the last traditional system in the world-and how one man's surveying chain indelibly imprinted its dimensions on the land, on cities, and on our culture from coast to coast.

Customer Reviews:

Measure for Measure.......2006-05-20

This book will probably interest people already curious about the subject but will be a harder sell to the average educated reader perusing library shelves and on-line catalogs for an appealing general history.

Yet Measuring America is indeed a good general history, decently (if discursively) written, with good arguments made throughout. (David McCullough blurbs that he "was caught up from the first page.") Perhaps the subtitle's claim that land surveys "fulfilled the promise of democracy" is a bit over the top, but Linklater does correctly associate increased private ownership of real estate with the rise of democracy and the dramatic increase in population of the Thirteen Colonies that allowed them to outstrip New France and New Spain. Linklater also shares some clever thoughts about the strengths and weaknesses of farms and city blocks turned into squares and rectangles.

Actually, Measuring America deals as much with weights and smaller linear measures as with the rectangular survey that turned the Midwest into grids stretching to the horizon from twenty thousand feet. Some of the most interesting chapters treat the possible window of opportunity during the early national years that might have permitted the United States to adopt a decimal measuring system superior to metric, which then might have taken the place of the latter as an international standard.

The shaping of America.......2005-08-09

This book tells an important chapter of America's early history; specifically how the land west of the original 13 colonies was measured, carved up, and sold off. Involved in this process was the contest between those who favored a decimal system for America's weights and measures and those who favored the non-decimal English system. The former was pushed by Thomas Jefferson as more systematic, efficient, and highly organized. Unfortunately, the French Revolution and its ensuing systemic, efficient and highly organized executions helped to kill this and many other French-inspired ideas. Instead, the traditional method of feet and inches took hold.

The book describes the mapping of the other states besides the original 13 and how this process showed a precision and efficiency that was unique to America. A look at the US map shows that the original 13 states have highly irregular borders. But as one looks west, state borders become straighter, cleaner, and smoother. Essentially, the original 13 states had their border decided after people moved in and created towns, farms, and villages. This process was reversed to various degrees in the other states, where borders were layed out first to maximize the ease by which the land could be subdivided for sale. Such a process helped America spread westward with ease, speed, and minimal legal hassles and conflicts between neighbors.

The book covers all the major figures involved in this process, from Presidents and other government officials making the decisions, to the cartographers in the wild who drew out the lines in the forests, praries, and fields. All told, this is a good book to read with a text easy enough for most high school students. It should be required reading in high school history classes.

This book really measures up!.......2005-01-17

The subtitle of this highly readable book is a bit purple -- "How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy" -- but what the author has to say makes a good case. It's also an amazingly action-packed adventure story. Any genealogist learns early the practical ins and outs of frontier settlement and the titles, grants, and other documents that land claims inevitably produce. In this country, there are two distinct methods of recording those claims: "metes and bounds" in the original colonies and some of their western lands (such as Kentucky) and in Texas, which describe the boundaries of one's land in terms of the points at which it adjoins or "meets" a neighbor's land, and the rectangular survey system developed for use in the public land states created from the nation's later territorial acquisitions. The latter is far more rational and allows a claim to be filed based on geographical location without having actually set foot on the land -- but it also requires preliminary measurement by a party of government surveyors. Linklater lays out in much detail, and with colorful anecdotes, how the first surveys were decided upon and carried out (more or less) in the Northwest Territory, and later in the Plains states and the West. He describes how, thanks to the efforts of Thomas Jefferson, the U.S. nearly adopted a rational metric system early in its history (which in France and Prussia was an instrument of centralized government policy), and how that goal was waylaid by clinging to Edmund Gunter's English chain/furlong system, which had the virtue of being easily understood by semi-literate surveyors with minimal mathematical skills. He relates the part played by rapacious land speculators (most of them members of the old aristocracy of New York, Massachusetts, and the Carolina low country), by frontier town-builders enamored of rectangular blocks (and why Manhattan has narrow, skimpy blocks compared to Philadelphia or Chicago), and how the railroads used the land-survey system to open up the continent while amassing enormous wealth. Though this volume is intended for the popular market, it also includes endnotes and a good bibliography.

This book answers a lot of questions!.......2004-01-24

This book draws together a broad range of history concerning measures, measurements and the people who make them. Then it tells the story of how these interactions have affected American history, politics, geography, home ownership and many other things.

Did you every wonder why the US didn't adopt the metric system when it was first proposed by France? Well (like many other things) the story I was taught in school was short, dull and misleading.

The real story is full of action and adventure.

The action involves a secret last meeting of Louis XVI with his scientific advisors the night he attempted escape, a man with a passion for collecting rare flowers, a hurricane in the Caribbean, a treacherous French governor, pirates, an Indian massacre of US Army troops on the frontier, and the struggles between Thomas Jefferson and real estate speculators!

An interesting history.......2003-12-30

I really enjoyed this book. This is one example of the kind of history that can be informative and yet hold the reader's attention, though I admit it is a subject that has interested me a lot anyway.

The book's primary thrust is the history leading to the fact that we do not normally use the metric system in the U. S. I must say that it makes a good case for an idea that I'd never run across before: that this is primarily because the French, in devising the definition of the meter, departed from an idea that many people, including Thomas Jefferson, thought would give the most internationally reproducible standard. Reading this book, it really seems he has his facts right, and his argument is convincing.

I found that the book clarified a number of points that I have wondered about.

One negative thing is that his appendix in the end has some (probably typographical) errors: one table shows 101, 102, etc. for what slould really be 10 with exponents 1, 2, etc.) and in several other tables, "grains" becomes "gains."

Average customer rating:

Fascinating & Unique

Good introduction to early California history

Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California, 1535-1846 (California Legacy Book) (California Legacy Book)

Manufacturer: Heyday Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
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Testimonios: Early California through the Eyes of Women, 18151848

The History of Alta California: A Memoir of Mexican California

Decline of the Californios: A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californias, 1846-1890

ASIN: 1890771481

Book Description

Spanish and Mexican California is generally depicted through the journals of sea captains and other visitors. This groundbreaking collection offers another perspective: early California seen through the eyes of those who explored it, colonized it, and settled it in the age before the gold rush. Over sixty selections from letters, journals, official reports and proclamations, interrogations, and interviews--many presented in English for the first time--lay before us a surprisingly varied and dynamic portrait of an era generally dismissed as static, pastoral, or backward. Conflicts between missionaries and soldiers, Indians and non-Indians, Hispanic settlers and Anglo newcomers, friends and neighbors, spill out of the pages, bringing the ferment of daily life into sharp focus. Here we find not sleepy towns, quaint missions, or comic opera military outposts, but rather an ever-shifting world of struggle and opportunity, aspiration and tragedy, pride and loss.

The first-person accounts are tied together with extensive introductions and commentaries by two well-known scholars, giving us an intimate portrait and placing the exploration and settlement of Alta California within the history of Baja California and the conquest of the New World.

This ambitious and accessible book, with more than thirty illustrations, maps, and paintings, will influence greatly how we envision the history and legacy of Hispanic California and is sure to become the cornerstone for a new generation of early California studies.

Customer Reviews:

Fascinating & Unique.......2007-06-27

Stashed away in the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, in the Huntington Library in San Marino, and in a dozen other places are the original letters, diaries, reports, articles, and other accounts of Spanish and Mexican California. Such primary documents are simply inaccessible to the lay reader.

However, what Rose Marie Bebe and Robert Senkewicz -- both professors at Santa Clara University -- have done is to select various primary materials, draw excerpts, translate them to English, and then add introductory commentary to set each item in its historical context. The result provides a direct view into California's Spanish and Mexican heritage through the words of those who lived those times.

While each selection covers no more than a few pages, here are passages from Colombus, de las Casas, Cortes, Cabrillo, Vizcaino, Portola, Serra, Fages, Osio, Pico and many others whose names may be familiar from general surveys of California history. Also included, where possible, are accounts from the indigenous people and a selection from the Russians who hunted for furs along the northern coast. Of particular interest is "1785: Trials of a Frontier Woman" which contains a petition from Dona Callis in protest against her husband.

The compact disposition of each document allows for two advantages: the text never drags and the book is able to cover a comprehensive range of topics (more than seventy original documents are presented). This is a marvelous reader of carefully edited materials. The authors have done the hard work; their scholarship is for us to enjoy.

Good introduction to early California history.......2002-07-02

This book covers the era when California (also known as Alta California) was a possession of Spain and Mexico. It is essentially a collection of first hand accounts from various people of this era.

Since most, if not all, of these accounts were originally in Spanish, they require translation, and that is the book's one weakness: almost all the accounts read like they were written by the same person; some of the character of the individual writers is lost.

Nonetheless, this is a good book, both readable and fast-moving. It is interesting that while we know a lot about the Revolutionary era and the founding of the United States, the topics in this book - which take place on the same continent at around the same time - are almost unknown. That, in itself, makes this book a good read.

Average customer rating:

Beautifully written!

awesome

Very exciting

West to a Land of plenty (876)

Not the Best in the Series

West to a Land of Plenty: The Diary of Teresa Angelino Viscardi, New York to Idaho Territory, 1883 (Dear America)
Jim Murphy
Manufacturer: Scholastic Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0590738887

Customer Reviews:

Beautifully written!.......2007-01-14

One of the best dear america books yet! There was really a special way this beautiful novel touched how I felt, especially the realisticly childish, yet wonderful way, that this author wrote this young Italian girl's diary. When disaster hits Theresa's traveling family, I felt as of this actually happened to me. My other favorite dear america books were: voyage on the great titanic, for a nice, long, and detailed read, one eye laughing, the other weeping is for a nice, sad, story, and dreams in the golden country for lots of info on Jewish culture, and a great read. across the wide and lonesome prarie and the great railroad race are also GRRRReat reads!!!!!
My name is Nykkie, and i am 11 yrs. old, so get out there and read dear america, a FUN way to learn history!

awesome.......2007-01-11

I found the Dear America series when I was in the fifth grade. Although I stopped reading them a long time ago, I still love them and think of them a lot. They are the PERFECT books for young girls, especially if they like history like I do. The journals makes them personal and the characters are relatable even though they lived long before us. My favorite thing about the Dear America series is that it takes famous moments in history (the Titanic, Oregon Trail, Pearl Harbor), but they also do times and events that aren't so well known to young girls like facoty girls or coal mines. I also love the epilogues, they complete the story.

The story of Teresa Angelino Viscardi is no acception. This and Coal Miner's Bride were and are my favorites of the series. It isn't just another "Oregon Trail" story. The charcaters face danger and yet there is happiness as well. I highly recommend this book and the entire Dear America series to any young girl.

Very exciting.......2006-06-13

Very exciting story about a girl and her Italian-American family's train ride to the Idaho Territory. I enjoyed reading about Teresa and her large family. They seemed very realizic especially the nosy little sister.

West to a Land of plenty (876) .......2006-03-09

Leave behind your possessions, home, friends, and family. Has that ever been asked of you? The reality of her situation is realized by Teresa Viscardi. When her father and uncle decide that it is best for their families to leave their homes in New York's Little Italy, they travel to Idaho to start their new lives. Jim Murphy who wrote West to a Land of Plenty incorporates colorful characters like Teresa's sister, mother, father, and grandmother. They all help each other on the way to their new homes. While on the road to Idaho, Teresa and her family not only meet new people, but also face sickness and death. They learn to cope with loss in many different ways. This book is really interesting because it is in the form of a diary and if you love historical fiction, definitely put this book on your to read list. I highly recommend West to a Land of Plenty.

Not the Best in the Series.......2005-10-09

Dear America is a great series of historical fiction books. I love historical fiction because you can learn history without even knowing it. All the Dear Americas are good, but some may want to pass this addition up.
Teresa Viscardi and her Italian immigrant family of her father, mother, sister, grandmother, uncle, aunt, and cousin. They previously lived in New York City, but Teresa's father decides they should move out west to Idaho along with many others to found a utopia to be named "Opportunity." Teresa likes New York, and complains about leaving. Teresa also often complains of how much her family agitates her, especially her pesky little sister Netta, who makes corrections and gives her opinion on Teresa's grammar in the diary. But then, tragedy strikes the entire family on the trail, and Teresa realizes how invaluable family really is.
Although some of the book was interesting, the action often lagged and the writing style was droning on and on monotonously. Teresa was likable, yet you sometimes felt distant from her. Plus I hated the epilogue.
West to a Land of Plenty was a passable entry in Dear America, yet I suggest you try two other similar, better books in the Dear America series about westward expansion; Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie, and All the Stars in the Sky.

Average customer rating:

Good but many inaccuracies
The History of How America Expanded From the Eyes of Its Surveyors
Working On The Chain Gang
How Surveyors Defined the Lives of Americans
Why are the best books about the US written by Foreigners?

Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy
Andro Linklater
Manufacturer: Walker & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

History of Technology | Technology | Science | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0802713963

Book Description

Measuring America is the fascinating, provocative, and eye-opening story of why America has ended up with its unique system of weights and measures—the American Customary System, unlike any other in the world—and how this has profoundly shaped our country and culture. In the process, Measuring America reveals the colossal power contained inside the acres and miles, ounces and pounds, that we use every day without ever realizing their significance.

The most urgent problem facing the newly independent United States was how to pay for the war that won the country its freedom; America’s debt was enormous. Its greatest asset was the land west of the Ohio River, but for this huge territory to be sold, it had first to be surveyed—that is, measured out and mapped. And before that could be done, a uniform set of measurements had to be chosen for the new republic. English, Scottish, German, Dutch, Scandinavian, and other settlers had all brought their own systems with them (more than 100,000 different units are reckoned to have been in daily use), and in his first address to Congress, George Washington put the establishment of a single system of weights and measures immediately after a national defense and a currency as the United States’ most urgent priority.

The debate on this vital measure took place at a critical moment in the history of ideas, when the traditional, subjective view of the world was being increasingly challenged by objective, scientific reasoning. Thomas Jefferson—supported by Washington, Adams, Madison, Monroe, even Hamilton—championed the new idea of a scientific 10-based system derived from some universal constant such as time or the size of the earth. Such an alliance should have ensured a decimal America, but ranged against them was the invisible genius of Edmund Gunter, the seventeenth-century English mathematician whose twenty-two-yard surveying chain, introduced in 1607, had revolutionized land ownership in Britain and was still used by every surveyor in America—including Thomas Hutchins and his successors in charge of the land survey on the Ohio frontier.

How we ultimately gained the American Customary System—the last traditional system in the world—and how Gunter’s chain indelibly imprinted its dimensions on the land, on cities, and on our culture from coast to coast is both an exciting human and intellectual drama and one of the great untold stories in American history. At a time when the metric system may finally be unstoppable, Andro Linklater has captured the essential nature of measurement just as the Founding Fathers understood it. Sagely argued and beautifully written, Measuring America offers readers nothing less than the opportunity to see America’s history—and our democracy—in a brilliant new light.

Customer Reviews:

Good but many inaccuracies.......2005-10-06

Linklater's book is a very easy read but is obviously done, not by a historian, but a journalist interested in history. Many historical inaccuracies appear in the book that would not have appeared if there had been anyone checking for accuracy. Linklater states that there were three original signers of the Declaration of Independence (there were 5), a major mistake that should have been caught. Another is the fact that he doesn't know one Native Indian tribe from the other and misquotes his sources, when he bothers to note them. Writing a book on both history and science requires that the individual writing such a book should at least have someone double checking his or her accuracy. There is no or little documentation of where he gets his sources. His sources are mentioned by page number at the end of the book and you have to guess which quote or information is being referenced. No end notes or footnotes exist. As a historian, I have no idea whether or not the scientific end of this book is just as flawed or not, but does make it slightly suspect.

However, Linklater gives an excellent representation of the times, the people involved and the places in surveying and laying out the Trans-Appalachian West. His character portraits are interesting to read, giving people like Washington, Jefferson, and less known persons such as Masseneh Cutler and Ferdinand Hassler a human look to the reader. The writing is in narrative format and not difficult. In fact, it's probably the only book that will actually have the non-scientific reader understanding what all the various confusing measurements mean! Linklater is a good author, he just needs to have someone go over his facts a bit more strenously and get a better format for his research and his book.

The History of How America Expanded From the Eyes of Its Surveyors.......2005-09-21

This is a phenominal read for any thinking person with a general knowledge of American History and an interest in technology, politics, and science. It is the story of the measurement of the continental US - starting with the application of the instruments and techniques of Europe to the mountains, forests, swamps and plains of the American Repubic - and of the development of American technology and standards to meet the needs - and the story of this land measurement overlaying and contending with the existing land measurement systems of the other colonizers. It is a story of personal heroism of the explorers and surveryors in marking out a continent and transforming the wilderness into cities and farms, the story of greed and claim jumping, the story of how the law learned to cope with all of the issues. Seldom is a book interesting both as to science and technology and history and people at the same time, but this work is fascinating on every page. I've never seen anything like it other than Boorstein's The Discoverers.

Working On The Chain Gang.......2005-06-21

In his book Measuring America, Andro Linklater does a very good job at surveying the history of land surveys in Europe and the United States and the reason why the length 22 yards is so darn important. Starting in England with the end of feudalism and the beginning of private land ownership, Linklater eventually crosses the Atlantic and focuses on surveying and private land ownership in the expanding United States of America. The author shows that the Gunter's chain, a 22 yard surveying instrument, is the only constant measure through hundreds of years of Western Civilization and has left its mark all across America as the basis of our public land surveys. I know this all too well - the high school where I teach sits on a 40 acre square [well, there is the little piece across the street added later for the farm, but the original campus is 40 acres] or 440 yards by 440 yards [20 chains by 20 chains]. This area is also a ¼ of a ¼ of a section in the US public land survey and is squared off with sides running exactly north-south and east-west. It makes it easier to teach about maps and directions, but imposing squares on an undulating landscape has always seemed against our better knowledge of ecological principles. I think my biggest gain from reading Measuring America was learning of a reason to feel better about all the squares - Linklater makes the case that the squares are more democratic. I wish Linklater had tied all his important points together more tightly and hence the 4 star rating. Measuring America is quite an education and well worth the read.

How Surveyors Defined the Lives of Americans.......2004-01-10

The new United States ran up a huge debt during the War for Independence. In the days before income taxes, the government turned to selling off federal lands to pay it down. But until lands were surveyed, they couldn't be sold. The need for funds was urgent, so surveys had to be completed quickly. The expedient solution was to use grids based on the 66-foot Gunter's Chain, ignoring natural features such as mountains and rivers. Today, the layouts of Cleveland, Chicago, Salt Lake City and Portland, Oregon--in fact most cities west of the Ohio River--owe the orientation and spacing of their street grids to an army of surveyors dragging their standardized chains behind them. The social impacts of this process are unexpected: Rampant land speculation and manipulation for one; Social isolation of Midwestern farming families for another.

Along the way, we learn about the struggle to resolve confusion over measures: In 18th-Century England, bushels could be of eight different sizes, each filled in either of two ways--heaped up or struck off level. Standardization was needed, but the opportunity to decimalize was missed, leaving the United States as the only non-metric country today. The default surveyors' standard used was the chain--because of tradition, not by conscious choice. Our 640-acre sections and our quarter-acre suburban lots are all based on this 400-year-old measure.

This wonderfully detailed book is about much more than measurement. It explains the novel idea that property can be bought and sold--a concept that came to Europe much later. It demonstrates how much of the vitality of the young United States came from opportunities provided to its citizens through acquiring land.

Informative, interesting, very readable and highly recommended.

Why are the best books about the US written by Foreigners?.......2003-06-01

This book was quite interesting for me, a Surveyor, to read. It explored the sociology of measurement, as well as the history of the standardation of measurements in the world, particularly the US. It had a heavy focus on land division, and how the US public lands system was formed. I have recommended it to every Surveyor that I know who is interested in history.

If I recall, the author got his inspiration from flying over the mid-west and wondering why everything was squared off.

Average customer rating:
The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630-1860
Annette Kolodny
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
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Similar Items:

The Lay of the Land: Metaphor As Experience and History in American Life and Letters

Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth (Harvard Paperback, Hp 21)

A New Home, Who'll Follow? or Glimpses of Western Life (American Women Writers Series)

Saying It's So: A Cultural History of the Black Sox Scandal (Sport and Society)

Latinos, Inc.: The Marketing and Making of a People

ASIN: 0807841110

Book Description

To discover how women constructed their own mythology of the West, Kolodny examines the evidence of three generations of women's writing about the frontier. She finds that, although the American frontiersman imagined the wilderness as virgin land, an unspoiled Eve to be taken, the pioneer woman at his side dreamed more modestly of a garden to be cultivated. Both intellectual and cultural history, this volume continues Kolodny's study of frontier mythology begun in The Lay of the Land.

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