Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Human Geography

"This Delta, This Land" is a comprehensive environmental history of the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta--the first one to place the Delta's economic and cultural history in an environmental context. The Delta, the floodplain between two great rivers in the northwestern corner of Mississippi, has changed enormously since the Civil War. Agriculture, lumbering, and flood-management schemes have transformed it beyond recognition--and beyond any prospects for a full recovery.

However, says Mikko Saikku, the 150 years following the Civil War brought greater environmental change than we generally...

"This Delta, This Land" is a comprehensive environmental history of the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta--the first one to place the Delta's economic and cultural history in an environmental context. The Delta, the floodplain between two great rivers in the northwestern corner of Mississippi, has changed enormously since the Civil War. Agriculture, lumbering, and flood-management schemes have transformed it beyond recognition--and beyond any prospects for a full recovery.

However, says Mikko Saikku, the 150 years following the Civil War brought greater environmental change than we generally...

Many students come to African history with a host of stereotypes that are not always easy to dislodge. One of the most common is that of Africa as safari grounds-as the land of expansive, unpopulated game reserves untouched by civilization and preserved in their original pristine state by the tireless efforts of contemporary conservationists. With prose that is elegant in its simplicity and analysis that is forceful and compelling, Jan Bender Shetler brings the landscape memory of the Serengeti to life. She demonstrates how the social identities of western Serengeti peoples are embedded in...

Many students come to African history with a host of stereotypes that are not always easy to dislodge. One of the most common is that of Africa as safari grounds-as the land of expansive, unpopulated game reserves untouched by civilization and preserved in their original pristine state by the tireless efforts of contemporary conservationists. With prose that is elegant in its simplicity and analysis that is forceful and compelling, Jan Bender Shetler brings the landscape memory of the Serengeti to life. She demonstrates how the social identities of western Serengeti peoples are embedded in...

From the theme resorts of Dubai to the jungles of Papua New Guinea, a disturbing but hilarious tour of the exotic east--and of the tour itself

Sick of producing the bromides of the professional travel writer, Lawrence Osborne decided to explore the psychological underpinnings of tourism itself. He took a six-month journey across the so-called Asian Highway--a swathe of Southeast Asia that, since the Victorian era, has seduced generations of tourists with its manufactured dreams of the exotic Orient. And like many a lost soul on this same route, he ended up in the harrowing...

Scattered throughout the Great Plains are many isolated areas of varying size and ecology, quite distinct from the surrounding grasslands. Such spaces can be uplands like the Black Hills, low hills like the Nebraska Sand Hills, or linear areas such as shallow river valleys and deeply incised canyons. While the notion of islands is not a new one among ecologists, its application in Plains archaeology is.

The contributors to this volume seek to illustrate the different ways that the spatial, structural, and temporal nature of islands conditioned the behavior and adaptation of past Plains...

I recommend this book highly to social scientists who are looking for a review or refresher course in urbanology, advanced undergraduate students, and introductory graduate students. As our American college student bodies become more culturally diverse, "The Humanity of Cities" provides a welcome respite from the usual culture-bound texts that give limited attention, for effect only, of the sterotypical Third World'.

"Contemporary Sociology"

Gulick's style is to develop each topic by presenting appropriate case studies. He manages to include an enormous range of studies, and he...

This book presents a cross-cultural approach to the study of urban space. Essays written by major contributors in contemporary urban studies provide a range of case studies from Asia, Latin America, North America, and Europe to address important questions about space and power, processes of change, aesthetics and attitudes toward space, and social divisions expressed through urban life. The essays fall into three interlocking sections: conceptual and linguistic approaches to urban space; visual and social examinations of world cities; and policy examinations of spatial analyses. Together...

This is the only collection of its kind to offer an inside view of life and work in contemporary nursing homes with the purpose of developing a theory of the culture of long term care. The anthropological research in nursing homes presented here produces a seldom seen native view of patients, staff, and the day-to-day workings of American nursing homes. The use of ethnographic methods penetrates the reality barriers found in industry descriptions, muck-raking discourse, and general societal aversion toward nursing homes. The tensions found between and within staff culture and patient...

The stories we tell about ourselves are guided by cultural patterns and enduring elements. The current interest in mythology has made evident how the classic hero's journey represents a theme not only common to all the world's myths, but also our own lives today. The Gift of Stories offers a clear concise basis for understanding the nature and potential of sharing our stories. It provides specific, practical, instructional details for telling our own stories and gives the necessary guidelines for assisting others in telling their life stories. Its basic framework enables individuals with...

Many forces threaten the viability of town centers. One of them is trade concentration in which family businesses are replaced by large, vertically integrated retail enterprises. Town centers, once locations of a rich variety of street stores in the hands of a local and independent merchant community, are being supplanted by monolithic and decentralized commercial zones. This process is documented in contemporary Germany for two towns, one grounded in a market economy and the other, until recently, socialistically based. In both cases, trade concentration is a prevailing force-- a pattern...