Battling The Inland Sea

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Battling the Inland Sea

Author : Robert Kelley
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520214285
Total Pages : 426 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)

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Book Synopsis Battling the Inland Sea by : Robert Kelley

Download or read book Battling the Inland Sea written by Robert Kelley and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1998-02-02 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Of late historians have become increasingly interested in the vast re-ordering of the environment involved in the creation of America. Nowhere was this more true than in the Sacramento Valley where re-ordering edged into folly. Battling the Inland Sea is a powerful evocation of the losses and gains involved in battling the mighty Sacramento River. But more than this, it is an exploration of the national will as it sought to rearrange nature herself with such mixed results. Here is history dealing with the most elemental forces of land, water and engineering as they are shaped by public policy. Here is the profound drama of value and symbol which occurs when Americans come into conflict with forces over which they can exercise, as Robert Kelley shows, only the most transitory and pyrrhic victories."—Kevin Starr, author of the Americans and the California Dream "Robert Kelley's research into the origins of California's first great flood control system has already helped to inform the shaping of the state's water laws. Now he opens up the benefits of that work for the average reader in a wonderfully clear and engaging story that manages, among other things, to show that water development in the United States hasn't been just a matter of engineering but a cultural and intellectual achievement as well."—William Kahrl, author of Water and Power "A vividly written narrative of one of the major transformations of the physical world we inhabit. Robert Kelley draws upon his rich store of learning and insight to set the struggles over the Sacramento Valley into a broad context. His book contains important lessons for those who would understand the American economy, environment, politics, or culture."—Daniel W. Howe, author of The Political Culture of the American Whigs

Battling the Inland Sea

Author : Robert Kelley
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 9780520921214
Total Pages : 436 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (212 download)

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Book Synopsis Battling the Inland Sea by : Robert Kelley

Download or read book Battling the Inland Sea written by Robert Kelley and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its natural condition the Sacramento Valley was a flood-ravaged region where an inland sea a hundred miles long regularly formed during the rainy season, to drain slowly away by the summer months. Today the Valley is marvelously productive, with a great capital city at its center, but only after a seventy-year struggle to devise and build an intricate thousand miles of levees and drains. Robert Kelley sets that battle within the encompassing national political culture, which produced, through the Republican and Democratic parties, widely diverging ideas about how best to reclaim the Valley from flood. He draws on approaches developed in the field of policy analysis to examine the relationship between American political culture and environmental policy-making. We find that the prolonged controversy over the Sacramento Valley illuminates American decision-making, then and now.

Rivers by Design

Author : Karen M. O'Neill
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822387867
Total Pages : 303 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

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Book Synopsis Rivers by Design by : Karen M. O'Neill

Download or read book Rivers by Design written by Karen M. O'Neill and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2006-05-03 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States has one of the largest and costliest flood control systems in the world, even though only a small proportion of its land lies in floodplains. Rivers by Design traces the emergence of the mammoth U.S. flood management system, which is overseen by the federal government but implemented in conjunction with state governments and local contractors and levee districts. Karen M. O’Neill analyzes the social origins of the flood control program, showing how the system initially developed as a response to the demands of farmers and the business elite in outlying territories. The configuration of the current system continues to reflect decisions made in the nineteenth century and early twentieth. It favors economic development at the expense of environmental concerns. O’Neill focuses on the creation of flood control programs along the lower Mississippi River and the Sacramento River, the first two rivers to receive federal flood control aid. She describes how, in the early to mid-nineteenth century, planters, shippers, and merchants from both regions campaigned for federal assistance with flood control efforts. She explains how the federal government was slowly and reluctantly drawn into water management to the extent that, over time, nearly every river in the United States was reengineered. Her narrative culminates in the passage of the national Flood Control Act of 1936, which empowered the Army Corps of Engineers to build projects for all navigable rivers in conjunction with local authorities, effectively ending nationwide, comprehensive planning for the protection of water resources.

The Fall and Rise of the Wetlands of California's Great Central Valley

Author : Philip Garone
Publisher : University of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520355571
Total Pages : 440 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis The Fall and Rise of the Wetlands of California's Great Central Valley by : Philip Garone

Download or read book The Fall and Rise of the Wetlands of California's Great Central Valley written by Philip Garone and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first comprehensive environmental history of California’s Great Central Valley, where extensive freshwater and tidal wetlands once provided critical habitat for tens of millions of migratory waterfowl. Weaving together ecology, grassroots politics, and public policy, Philip Garone tells how California’s wetlands were nearly obliterated by vast irrigation and reclamation projects, but have been brought back from the brink of total destruction by the organized efforts of duck hunters, whistle-blowing scientists, and a broad coalition of conservationists. Garone examines the many demands that have been made on the Valley’s natural resources, especially by large-scale agriculture, and traces the unforeseen ecological consequences of our unrestrained manipulation of nature. He also investigates changing public and scientific attitudes that are now ushering in an era of unprecedented protection for wildlife and wetlands in California and the nation.

Rush for Riches

Author : J. S. Holliday
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520214021
Total Pages : 374 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)

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Book Synopsis Rush for Riches by : J. S. Holliday

Download or read book Rush for Riches written by J. S. Holliday and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history of the California Gold Rush from 1849 through 1884 when a court decision forced the shut down of the hydraulic mining operations, bringing decades of careless freedom to an end.

After the Gold Rush

Author : David Vaught
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 0801884977
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (18 download)

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Book Synopsis After the Gold Rush by : David Vaught

Download or read book After the Gold Rush written by David Vaught and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2007-02-28 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Their dramatic story exposes the underside of the American dream and the haunting consequences of trying to strike it rich.--Kevin Starr, University of Southern California, author of California: A History "Agricultural History"

River City and Valley Life

Author : Christopher J. Castaneda
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 0822979187
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis River City and Valley Life by : Christopher J. Castaneda

Download or read book River City and Valley Life written by Christopher J. Castaneda and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2013-12-09 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often referred to as “the Big Tomato,” Sacramento is a city whose makeup is significantly more complex than its agriculture-based sobriquet implies. In River City and Valley Life, seventeen contributors reveal the major transformations to the natural and built environment that have shaped Sacramento and its suburbs, residents, politics, and economics throughout its history. The site that would become Sacramento was settled in 1839, when Johann Augustus Sutter attempted to convert his Mexican land grant into New Helvetia (or “New Switzerland”). It was at Sutter’s sawmill fifty miles to the east that gold was first discovered, leading to the California Gold Rush of 1849. Nearly overnight, Sacramento became a boomtown, and cityhood followed in 1850. Ideally situated at the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers, the city was connected by waterway to San Francisco and the surrounding region. Combined with the area’s warm and sunny climate, the rivers provided the necessary water supply for agriculture to flourish. The devastation wrought by floods and cholera, however, took a huge toll on early populations and led to the construction of an extensive levee system that raised the downtown street level to combat flooding. Great fortune came when local entrepreneurs built the Central Pacific Railroad, and in 1869 it connected with the Union Pacific Railroad to form the first transcontinental passage. Sacramento soon became an industrial hub and major food-processing center. By 1879, it was named the state capital and seat of government. In the twentieth century, the Sacramento area benefitted from the federal government’s major investment in the construction and operation of three military bases and other regional public works projects. Rapid suburbanization followed along with the building of highways, bridges, schools, parks, hydroelectric dams, and the Rancho Seco nuclear power plant, which activists would later shut down. Today, several tribal gaming resorts attract patrons to the area, while “Old Sacramento” revitalizes the original downtown as it celebrates Sacramento’s pioneering past. This environmental history of Sacramento provides a compelling case study of urban and suburban development in California and the American West. As the contributors show, Sacramento has seen its landscape both ravaged and reborn. As blighted areas, rail yards, and riverfronts have been reclaimed, and parks and green spaces created and expanded, Sacramento’s identity continues to evolve. As it moves beyond its Gold Rush, Transcontinental Railroad, and government-town heritage, Sacramento remains a city and region deeply rooted in its natural environment.

Ruling the Waters

Author : Douglas R. Littlefield
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806166746
Total Pages : 405 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (61 download)

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Book Synopsis Ruling the Waters by : Douglas R. Littlefield

Download or read book Ruling the Waters written by Douglas R. Littlefield and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2020-03-19 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Europeans first arrived at what is now California’s San Joaquin Valley, they found a vast landscape of wetlands, small ponds, riparian forests, and grasslands surrounding three large swampland lakes. What greets a visitor to the region today is a dramatically different view of mile after mile of row crops, vineyards, orchards, and grazing acreage—some of the most fertile and productive agricultural land in the world. This remarkable transformation, with its enduring consequences, is at the center of Ruling the Waters, a legal, social, and environmental history of how western water law shaped, and was shaped by, the subjugation of the largest freshwater wetlands wildlife habitat in the West. At the heart of efforts to wrest arable land from the region was the Kern River, which rises in the Sierra Nevada and carries snowmelt to what was once a great network of lakes, sloughs, and marshes at the southern end of California’s Central Valley. In Ruling the Waters Douglas R. Littlefield describes how, over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pioneers and entrepreneurs diverted water out of this network of waterways to extract gold in the mountains and irrigate farms lower down the river, and how the law was made to accommodate these practices. Struggles over the Kern River’s water established one of the most important concepts in water law in some parts of the United States—that prior appropriation, dependent on the chronological order of diversions from waterways, could legally coexist with riparian rights, which restrict water usage to landownership directly next to a river or stream. Littlefield traces this concept to the 1886 California Supreme Court case of Lux v. Haggin—which pitted the giant farming and cattle company of Miller & Lux against a prominent land baron, James B. Haggin—and shows how the lawsuit profoundly shaped future waters issues, which in turn influenced water laws in other western states that were grappling with similar questions. Far from a dry legal history, Ruling the Waters tells a story with world-wide historical environmental ramifications, a tale of competing personalities and values and visions that forever changed both the economy and the ecology of the American West.

Hazardous Metropolis

Author : Jared Orsi
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520238508
Total Pages : 316 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)

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Book Synopsis Hazardous Metropolis by : Jared Orsi

Download or read book Hazardous Metropolis written by Jared Orsi and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-01-05 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An fascinating history of flood control efforts in Los Angeles from the 1870s to the present, showing how engineering has continually failed to contain nature. This book teaches us to think of cities as ecosystems.

California Exposures: Envisioning Myth and History

Author : Richard White
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393243079
Total Pages : 475 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis California Exposures: Envisioning Myth and History by : Richard White

Download or read book California Exposures: Envisioning Myth and History written by Richard White and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2021 California Book Award (Californiana category) A brilliant California history, in word and image, from an award-winning historian and a documentary photographer. “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” This indelible quote from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance applies especially well to California, where legend has so thoroughly become fact that it is visible in everyday landscapes. Our foremost historian of the West, Richard White, never content to “print the legend,” collaborates here with his son, a talented photographer, in excavating the layers of legend built into California’s landscapes. Together they expose the bedrock of the past, and the history they uncover is astonishing. Jesse White’s evocative photographs illustrate the sites of Richard’s historical investigations. A vista of Drakes Estero conjures the darkly amusing story of the Drake Navigators Guild and its dubious efforts to establish an Anglo-Saxon heritage for California. The restored Spanish missions of Los Angeles frame another origin story in which California’s native inhabitants, civilized through contact with friars, gift their territories to white settlers. But the history is not so placid. A quiet riverside park in the Tulare Lake Basin belies scenes of horror from when settlers in the 1850s transformed native homelands into American property. Near the lake bed stands a small marker commemorating the Mussel Slough massacre, the culmination of a violent struggle over land titles between local farmers and the Southern Pacific Railroad in the 1870s. Tulare is today a fertile agricultural county, but its population is poor and unhealthy. The California Dream lives elsewhere. The lake itself disappeared when tributary rivers were rerouted to deliver government-subsidized water to big agriculture and cities. But climate change ensures that it will be back—the only question is when.

The Great Thirst

Author : Norris Hundley Jr.
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 9780520925298
Total Pages : 830 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (252 download)

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Book Synopsis The Great Thirst by : Norris Hundley Jr.

Download or read book The Great Thirst written by Norris Hundley Jr. and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-15 with total page 830 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of "the great thirst" is brought up to date in this revised edition of Norris Hundley's outstanding history, with additional photographs and incisive descriptions of the major water-policy issues facing California now: accelerating urbanization of farmland and open spaces, persisting despoliation of water supplies, and demands for equity in water allocation for an exploding population. People the world over confront these problems, and Hundley examines them with clarity and eloquence in the unruly laboratory of California. The obsession with water has shaped California to a remarkable extent, literally as well as politically and culturally. Hundley tells how aboriginal Americans and then early Spanish and Mexican immigrants contrived to use and share the available water and how American settlers, arriving in ever-increasing numbers after the Gold Rush, transformed California into the home of the nation's preeminent water seekers. The desire to use, profit from, manipulate, and control water drives the people and events in this fascinating narrative until, by the end of the twentieth century, a large, colorful cast of characters and communities has wheeled and dealed, built, diverted, and connived its way to an entirely different statewide waterscape.

After the Grizzly

Author : Peter S. Alagona
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520275063
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)

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Book Synopsis After the Grizzly by : Peter S. Alagona

Download or read book After the Grizzly written by Peter S. Alagona and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2013-05-28 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the history of threats to species and habitat in California, from the time of the Gold Rush to the present. The author shows how, over the course of more than a century, scientists and conservationists came to view the fates of endangered species as dependent on the ecological conditions and human activities in the places where those species lived. The story begins with the tale of the the state's extinct mascot, the California grizzly, and the conservation movements and laws that followed its disappearance. The second half of the book focuses on four high-profile endangered species: the California condor, the desert tortoise, the San Joaquin kit fox, and the Delta smelt. The author offers an account of how Americans developed a civil system in which imperiled species serve as proxies for broader conflicts about the politics of place. The book concludes that the challenge for conservationists in the twenty-first century will be to expand habitat conservation beyond protected wildlands to build more diverse and sustainable landscapes.

Water Always Wins

Author : Erica Gies
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022671960X
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis Water Always Wins by : Erica Gies

Download or read book Water Always Wins written by Erica Gies and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-06-13 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Descending into chaos -- Water in geologic time: how ancient rivers can help ease droughts -- From megadams to microbes: water's relationship with tiny forms of life -- Beavers: the original water engineers -- Reclaiming historic water knowledge in modern India -- Planting water: how water shaped culture in ancient Peru -- Let floodplains be floodplains: antidote to the industrial era -- For future humans: protecting water towers in Kenya -- Future coastal, where fresh water meets salt -- Our shared future: living with water.

Storm Over Mono

Author : John Hart
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 9780520203686
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (36 download)

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Book Synopsis Storm Over Mono by : John Hart

Download or read book Storm Over Mono written by John Hart and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dramatic environmental saga unfolds in Hart's compelling story of the fight to save Mono Lake, and ancient inland sea in located in the eastern Sierra Yosemite National Park. Hart integrates natural, social, and political history into a story that is a source of hope for anyone concerned about the environment. Complementing Hart's narrative are stunning photos takes by many leading nature photographers, including David Sanger, Galen Rowell, and Betty Randall. 61 illustrations. 31 color plates.

Battle at Sea

Author : R.G. Grant
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0756657016
Total Pages : 362 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (566 download)

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Book Synopsis Battle at Sea by : R.G. Grant

Download or read book Battle at Sea written by R.G. Grant and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-01-03 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Battle at Sea looks at every aspect of the story of warfare on, above, and under the sea, including classic naval engagements daring raids carried out on ships in harbor, and landing operations such as D-Day, where control of the sea was essential to transport land forces to new battlefronts. Special features within the book include: graphic and dramatic battle catalogs relating the stories of the men, ships, and organizations behind history’s greatest naval conflicts; spectacular 3D digital artworks following the crucial stages of key battles, step by step; profiles of naval crew — the captain, officers, gunners, quartermaster, surgeon, cooks, and boatswains — exploring their changing roles throughout history; eyewitness accounts recreatingthe experience of the opposing forces in key battles, whether preparing for conflict, in the heat of battle, or dealing with the aftermath of an engagement; photographic tours revealing the intricate details of surviving or reconstructed warships—from an Ancient Greek trireme to a nuclear-powered submarine; features on weapons and technology highlighting developments in naval warfare, from boarding equipment to sonar, cannons to missiles, and propulsion through steam to nuclear power. Battle at Sea is organized into five chapters that are arranged in chronological order. Ancient Wars covers the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the great naval battles between warring Chinese dynasties; Medieval Battles charts the era from the fall of Rome to 1500CE; Gun, Sail, and Empire chronicles the European powers setting out on voyages of exploration and colonization; Iron Wars ends with World War II; Technology and Terrorism outlines how naval forces played a crucial role in the balance of terror during the Cold War and still have avital part to play in the uncertainties of the modern world.

1001 Battles That Changed the Course of History

Author : R. G. Grant
Publisher : Chartwell Books
ISBN 13 : 0785835539
Total Pages : 963 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (858 download)

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Book Synopsis 1001 Battles That Changed the Course of History by : R. G. Grant

Download or read book 1001 Battles That Changed the Course of History written by R. G. Grant and published by Chartwell Books. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 963 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This historical account of humanity's 5000 year history of recorded conflict looks at ancient wars, modern conflict, and everything in-between.

The Living Great Lakes

Author : Jerry Dennis
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9780312331030
Total Pages : 326 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (31 download)

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Book Synopsis The Living Great Lakes by : Jerry Dennis

Download or read book The Living Great Lakes written by Jerry Dennis and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2004-06 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author provides an account of his experiences as a crew member on a tall-masted schooner during a six-week voyage through the Great Lakes, and discusses his other explorations of the lakes, looking at their history, geology, and environmental disaster and rescue.