Concrete And Countryside

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Concrete and Countryside

Author : Carmelo Esterrich
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 0822983451
Total Pages : 184 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Concrete and Countryside by : Carmelo Esterrich

Download or read book Concrete and Countryside written by Carmelo Esterrich and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2018-07-13 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, Puerto Rico was swept by a wave of modernization, transforming the island from a predominantly rural society to an unquestionably urban one. A curious paradox ensued, however. While the island underwent rapid urbanization, and the rhetoric of economic development reigned over official discourses, the newly installed insular government, along with some academic circles and radio and television media, constructed, promoted, and sponsored a narrative of Puerto Rican culture based on rural subjects, practices, and spaces. By examining a wide range of cultural texts, but focusing on the film production of the Division of Community Education, the popular dance music of Cortijo y su combo, and the literary texts of Jose Luis Gonzalez and Rene Marques, Concrete and Countryside offers an in-depth analysis of how Puerto Ricans responded to this transformative period. It also shows how the arts used a battery of images of the urban and the rural to understand, negotiate, and critique the innumerable changes taking place on the island.

The Concrete Dragon

Author : Thomas J. Campanella
Publisher : Chronicle Books
ISBN 13 : 1568989482
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (689 download)

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Book Synopsis The Concrete Dragon by : Thomas J. Campanella

Download or read book The Concrete Dragon written by Thomas J. Campanella and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2012-03-20 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China is the most rapidly urbanizing nation in the world, with an urban population that may well reach one billion within a generation. Over the past 25 years, surging economic growth has propelled a construction boom unlike anything the world has ever seen, radically transforming both city and countryside in its wake. The speed and scale of China's urban revolution challenges nearly all our expectations about architecture, urbanism and city planning. China's ambition to be a major player on the global stage is written on the skylines of every major city. This is a nation on the rise, and it is building for the record books. China is now home to some of the world's tallest skyscrapers and biggest shopping malls; the longest bridges and largest airport; the most expansive theme parks and gated communities and even the world's largest skateboard park. And by 2020 China's national network of expressways will exceed in length even the American interstate highway system. China's construction industry, employing a workforce equal to the population of California, has been erecting billions of square feet of housing and office space every year. But such extensive development has also meant demolition on a scale unprecedented in the peacetime history of the world. Nearly all of Beijing's centuries-old cityscape has been bulldozed in recent years, and redevelopment in Shanghai has displaced more families than 30 years of urban renewal in the United States. China's cities are also rapidly sprawling across the landscape, churning precious farmland into a landscape of superblock housing estates and single-family subdivisions laced with highways and big-box malls. In a mere generation, China's cities have undergone a metamorphosis that took 150 years to complete in the United States. The Concrete Dragon: China's Urban Revolution and What it Means for the World sheds light on this extraordinary chapter in world urban history. The book surveys the driving forces behind the great Chinese building boom, traces the historical precedents and global flows of ideas and information that are fusing to create a bold new Chinese cityscape, and considers the social and environmental impacts of China's urban future. The Concrete Dragon provides a critical overview of contemporary Chinese urbanization in light of both China's past as well as earlier episodes of rapid urban development elsewhere in the world--especially that of the United States, a nation that itself once set global records for the speed and scale of its urban ambitions.

Concrete Economics

Author : Stephen S. Cohen
Publisher : Harvard Business Review Press
ISBN 13 : 1422189821
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (221 download)

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Book Synopsis Concrete Economics by : Stephen S. Cohen

Download or read book Concrete Economics written by Stephen S. Cohen and published by Harvard Business Review Press. This book was released on 2016-02-09 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “an excellent new book” — Paul Krugman, The New York Times History, not ideology, holds the key to growth. Brilliantly written and argued, Concrete Economics shows how government has repeatedly reshaped the American economy ever since Alexander Hamilton’s first, foundational redesign. This book does not rehash the sturdy and long-accepted arguments that to thrive, entrepreneurial economies need a broad range of freedoms. Instead, Steve Cohen and Brad DeLong remedy our national amnesia about how our economy has actually grown and the role government has played in redesigning and reinvigorating it throughout our history. The government not only sets the ground rules for entrepreneurial activity but directs the surges of energy that mark a vibrant economy. This is as true for present-day Silicon Valley as it was for New England manufacturing at the dawn of the nineteenth century. The authors’ argument is not one based on abstract ideas, arcane discoveries, or complex correlations. Instead it is based on the facts—facts that were once well known but that have been obscured in a fog of ideology—of how the US economy benefited from a pragmatic government approach to succeed so brilliantly. Understanding how our economy has grown in the past provides a blueprint for how we might again redesign and reinvigorate it today, for such a redesign is sorely needed.

In Concrete

Author : Anne Garréta
Publisher : Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1646050568
Total Pages : 102 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (46 download)

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Book Synopsis In Concrete by : Anne Garréta

Download or read book In Concrete written by Anne Garréta and published by Deep Vellum Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Garréta’s first novel in a decade follows the mania that descends upon a family when the father finds himself in possession of a concrete mixer. As he seeks to modernize every aspect of their lives, disaster strikes when the younger sister is subsumed by concrete. Through puns, wordplay, and dizzying verbal effect, Garréta reinvents the novel form and blurs the line between spoken and written language in an attempt to confront the elasticity of communication.

Rural Renaissance

Author : John D. Ivanko
Publisher : New Society Publishers
ISBN 13 : 9781550923384
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (233 download)

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Book Synopsis Rural Renaissance by : John D. Ivanko

Download or read book Rural Renaissance written by John D. Ivanko and published by New Society Publishers. This book was released on 2009-05-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the ’60s it was called the "back to the land" movement, and in Helen and Scott Nearings’ day, it was "living the good life." Whatever the term, North Americans have always yearned for a simpler way. But how do you accomplish that today? Blending inspiration with practical how-to’s, Rural Renaissance captures the American dream of country living for contemporary times. Journey with the authors and experience their lessons, laughter and love for the land as they trade the urban concrete maze for a five-acre organic farm and bed and breakfast in southwestern Wisconsin. Rural living today is a lot more than farming. It’s about a creative, nature-based and more self-sufficient lifestyle that combines a love of squash, solar energy, skinny-dipping and serendipity . . . The many topics explored in Rural Renaissance include: "right livelihood" and the good life organic gardening and permaculture renewable energy and energy conservation wholesome organic food, safe water and a natural home simplicity, frugality and freedom green design and recycled materials community, friends and raising a family independence and interdependence wildlife conservation and land stewardship. An authentic tale of a couple whose pioneering spirit and connection to the land reaches out to both the local and global community to make their dream come true, Rural Renaissance will appeal to a wide range of Cultural Creatives, free agents, conservation entrepreneurs and both arm-chair and real-life homesteaders regardless of where they live. Lisa Kivirist and John Ivanko are innkeepers, organic growers, copartners in a marketing consulting company, and have previously published books. John is also a photographer. Former advertising agency fast-trackers, they are nationally recognized for their contemporary approach to homesteading, conservation and more sustainable living. They share their farm with their son, two llamas, and a flock of free-range chickens. Rural Renaissance also offers a foreword by Bill McKibben.

The Shadow Land

Author : Elizabeth Kostova
Publisher : Ballantine Books
ISBN 13 : 0345527887
Total Pages : 497 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (455 download)

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Book Synopsis The Shadow Land by : Elizabeth Kostova

Download or read book The Shadow Land written by Elizabeth Kostova and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the #1 bestselling author of The Historian comes a mesmerizing novel that spans the past and the present—and unearths the troubled history of a gorgeous but haunted country. A young American woman, Alexandra Boyd, has traveled to Sofia, Bulgaria, hoping that life abroad will salve the wounds left by the loss of her beloved brother. Soon after arriving in this elegant East European city, however, she helps an elderly couple into a taxi—and realizes too late that she has accidentally kept one of their bags. Inside she finds an ornately carved wooden box engraved with a name: Stoyan Lazarov. Raising the hinged lid, she discovers that she is holding an urn filled with human ashes. As Alexandra sets out to locate the family and return this precious item, she will first have to uncover the secrets of a talented musician who was shattered by political oppression—and she will find out all too quickly that this knowledge is fraught with its own danger. Elizabeth Kostova’s new novel is a tale of immense scope that delves into the horrors of a century and traverses the culture and landscape of this mysterious country. Suspenseful and beautifully written, it explores the power of stories, the pull of the past, and the hope and meaning that can sometimes be found in the aftermath of loss. Praise for The Shadow Land “A compelling and complex mystery, strong storytelling, and lyrical writing combine for an engrossing read.”—Publishers Weekly “In The Shadow Land, Elizabeth Kostova, a master storyteller, brings vividly to life an unfamiliar country—Bulgaria—and a painful history that feels particularly relevant now. You won’t want to put down this remarkable book.”—Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs “In this brilliant work, what appears at first a minor mystery quickly becomes emblematic of a whole country’s hidden history. Lyrical and compelling, The Shadow Land proves a profound meditation on how evil is inflicted, endured, and, through courage and compassion, defeated. Elizabeth Kostova’s third novel clearly establishes her as one of America’s finest writers.”—Ron Rash, author of The Risen

The Roots of Rural Capitalism

Author : Christopher Clark
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501741640
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis The Roots of Rural Capitalism by : Christopher Clark

Download or read book The Roots of Rural Capitalism written by Christopher Clark and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-30 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the late colonial period and the Civil War, the countryside of the American northeast was largely transformed. Rural New England changed from a society of independent farmers relatively isolated from international markets into a capitalist economy closely linked to the national market, an economy in which much farming and manufacturing output was produced by wage labor. Using the Connecticut Valley as an example, The Roots of Rural Capitalism demonstrates how this important change came about. Christopher Clark joins the active debate on the "transition to capitalism" with a fresh interpretation that integrates the insights of previous studies with the results of his detailed research. Largely rejecting the assumption of recent scholars that economic change can be explained principally in terms of markets, he constructs a broader social history of the rural economy and traces the complex interactions of social structure, household strategies, gender relations, and cultural values that propelled the countryside from one economic system to another. Above all, he shows that people of rural Massachusetts were not passive victims of changes forced upon them, but actively created a new economic world as they tried to secure their livelihoods under changing demographic and economic circumstances. The emergence of rural capitalism, Clark maintains, was not the result of a single "transition"; rather, it was an accretion of new institutions and practices that occurred over two generations, and in two broad chronological phases. It is his singular contribution to demonstrate the coexistence of a family-based household economy (persisting well into the nineteenth century) and the market-oriented system of production and exchange that is generally held to have emerged full-blown by the eighteenth century. He is adept at describing the clash of values sustaining both economies, and the ways in which the rural household-based economy, through a process he calls "involution," ultimately gave way to a new order. His analysis of the distinctive role of rural women in this transition constitutes a strong new element in the study of gender as a factor in the economic, social, and cultural shifts of the period. Sophisticated in argument and engaging in presentation, this book will be recognized as a major contribution to the history of capitalism and society in nineteenth-century America.

From Cows to Concrete

Author : Rachel Surls
Publisher : Angel City Press
ISBN 13 : 9781626400313
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (3 download)

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Book Synopsis From Cows to Concrete by : Rachel Surls

Download or read book From Cows to Concrete written by Rachel Surls and published by Angel City Press. This book was released on 2016-05-14 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What? Los Angeles was the original wine country of California, leading the state's wine production for more than a century? Los Angeles County was the agricultural center of North America until the 1950s? And where today's freeways soar, cows calmly chewed their cud? How could that be? Los Angeles, the capital of asphalt and Klieg lights, was once a paradise filled with grapevines and bovines, so abundant with Nature's gifts that no one could imagine a more pastoral place? Los Angeles County was the center of an agricultural empire. Today, it is the nation's most populous urban metropolis. What happened? Where did the green go? As Americans connect with gardens, farmers markets, and urban farms, most are unaware that each of these activities have deep roots in Los Angeles, and that the healthy food they savor literally had its roots in L.A. This book is for all who treasure the country's agrarian history.

Dogs and Demons

Author : Alex Kerr
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
ISBN 13 : 1466804505
Total Pages : 479 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (668 download)

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Book Synopsis Dogs and Demons by : Alex Kerr

Download or read book Dogs and Demons written by Alex Kerr and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2002-02-10 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The crises--and failures--of modernization in Japan, as seen up close by a resident expert Japan is a nation in crisis, and the crisis goes far beyond its well-known economic plight. In Dogs and Demons, Alex Kerr chronicles the crisis on a broad scale, from the failure of Japan's banks and pension funds to the decline of its once magnificent modern cinema. The book takes up for the first time in the Western press subjects such as the nation's endangered environment--its seashores lined with concrete, its roads leading to nowhere in the mountains. It describes Japan's "monument frenzy," the destruction of old cities such as Kyoto and construction of drab new cities, and the attendant collapse of the tourist industry. All these unhealthy developments are, Kerr argues, the devastating boomerang effect of an educational and bureaucratic system designed to produce manufactured goods--and little else. A mere upturn in economic growth will not quickly remedy these severe internal problems, which Kerr calls a "failure of modernism." He assails the foreign experts who, often dependent on Japanese government and business support, fail to address these issues. Meanwhile, what of the Japanese people themselves? Kerr, a resident of Japan for thirty-five years, writes of them with humor and passion, for "passion," he says, "is part of the story. Millions of Japanese feel as heartbroken at what is going on as I do. My Japanese friends tell me, 'Please write this--for us.'"

Darwin Comes to Town

Author : Menno Schilthuizen
Publisher : Picador
ISBN 13 : 1250127831
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis Darwin Comes to Town by : Menno Schilthuizen

Download or read book Darwin Comes to Town written by Menno Schilthuizen and published by Picador. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Carrion crows in the Japanese city of Sendai have learned to use passing traffic to crack nuts. *Lizards in Puerto Rico are evolving feet that better grip surfaces like concrete. *Europe’s urban blackbirds sing at a higher pitch than their rural cousins, to be heardover the din of traffic. How is this happening? Menno Schilthuizen is one of a growing number of “urban ecologists” studying how our manmade environments are accelerating and changing the evolution of the animals and plants around us. In Darwin Comes to Town, he takes us around the world for an up-close look at just how stunningly flexible and swift-moving natural selection can be. With human populations growing, we’re having an increasing impact on global ecosystems, and nowhere do these impacts overlap as much as they do in cities. The urban environment is about as extreme as it gets, and the wild animals and plants that live side-by-side with us need to adapt to a whole suite of challenging conditions: they must manage in the city’s hotter climate (the “urban heat island”); they need to be able to live either in the semidesert of the tall, rocky, and cavernous structures we call buildings or in the pocket-like oases of city parks (which pose their own dangers, including smog and free-rangingdogs and cats); traffic causes continuous noise, a mist of fine dust particles, and barriers to movement for any animal that cannot fly or burrow; food sources are mainly human-derived. And yet, as Schilthuizen shows, the wildlife sharing these spaces with us is not just surviving, but evolving ways of thriving. Darwin Comes toTown draws on eye-popping examples of adaptation to share a stunning vision of urban evolution in which humans and wildlife co-exist in a unique harmony. It reveals that evolution can happen far more rapidly than Darwin dreamed, while providing a glimmer of hope that our race toward over population might not take the rest of nature down with us.

Countryside

Author : Rem Koolhaas
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9783836584395
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (843 download)

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Book Synopsis Countryside by : Rem Koolhaas

Download or read book Countryside written by Rem Koolhaas and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From animals to robotization, climate change to migration, Rem Koolhaas presents a new collaborative project exploring how countryside everywhere is transforming beyond recognition. The pocketbook gathers in-depth essays spanning from Fukushima to the Netherlands, Siberia to Uganda - an urgent dispatch from this long-neglected realm, revealing its radical potential for changing everything about how we live

French Country Cottage

Author : Courtney Allison
Publisher : Gibbs Smith
ISBN 13 : 1423648935
Total Pages : 396 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (236 download)

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Book Synopsis French Country Cottage by : Courtney Allison

Download or read book French Country Cottage written by Courtney Allison and published by Gibbs Smith. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover design inspiration as a photographer and blogger details the story of her renovation of a 1940s cottage in the California countryside. A little, abandoned vacation house that could, set in the center of rolling fields and trees becomes the cottage home of her dreams. A French country–style cottage filled with original elements and an exquisite mix of rustic and refined. The years of renovation allowed Courtney to create a lifestyle that is fueled by inspiration and beauty, a touch of whimsy, and an abundance of everyday elegance. The journey has been shared on her popular blog French Country Cottage, and now, through the publication of her first book, her readers will experience a reveal of more of her home and property and the inspirations behind her beloved style. Courtney's inspiring photography reveals every nuance of her style and home including a muted color palette, old brassy door knobs, chippy paint, antiques, her greenhouse and garden, and an abundance of entertaining and holiday decorating style. Blurring the lines between indoor and outdoor and embracing well-worn as well loved, French Country Cottage is a style that celebrates simplicity, indulges in romance, cherishes pieces with history and believes a chandelier and fresh flowers belong in every room.

Making Dystopia

Author : James Stevens Curl
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0191068160
Total Pages : 592 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Making Dystopia by : James Stevens Curl

Download or read book Making Dystopia written by James Stevens Curl and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-23 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Making Dystopia, distinguished architectural historian James Stevens Curl tells the story of the advent of architectural Modernism in the aftermath of the First World War, its protagonists, and its astonishing, almost global acceptance after 1945. He argues forcefully that the triumph of architectural Modernism in the second half of the twentieth century led to massive destruction, the creation of alien urban landscapes, and a huge waste of resources. Moreover, the coming of Modernism was not an inevitable, seamless evolution, as many have insisted, but a massive, unparalled disruption that demanded a clean slate and the elimination of all ornament, decoration, and choice. Tracing the effects of the Modernist revolution in architecture to the present, Stevens Curl argues that, with each passing year, so-called 'iconic' architecture by supposed 'star' architects has become more and more bizarre, unsettling, and expensive, ignoring established contexts and proving to be stratospherically remote from the aspirations and needs of humanity. In the elite world of contemporary architecture, form increasingly follows finance, and in a society in which the 'haves' have more and more, and the 'have-nots' are ever more marginalized, he warns that contemporary architecture continues to stack up huge potential problems for the future, as housing costs spiral out of control, resources are squandered on architectural bling, and society fractures. This courageous, passionate, deeply researched, and profoundly argued book should be read by everyone concerned with what is around us. Its combative critique of the entire Modernist architectural project and its apologists will be highly controversial to many. But it contains salutary warnings that we ignore at our peril. And it asks awkward questions to which answers are long overdue.

Bastard Countryside

Author : Robin Friend
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781912719044
Total Pages : 104 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis Bastard Countryside by : Robin Friend

Download or read book Bastard Countryside written by Robin Friend and published by . This book was released on 2018-12-10 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Bastard Countryside collects together 15 years worth of exploration within the British landscape, dwelling on what Victor Hugo called the ‘bastard countryside’: “somewhat ugly but bizarre, made up of two different natures”. Friend’s large-format colour images scrutinise these inbetween, unkempt, and often surreal marginal areas of the country, highlighting frictions between the pastoral sublime and the discarded, often polluted reality of the present.Starting from a classical landscape tradition, Friend’s meticulous 5x4 photographs are given heightened effect through exaggerations of colour and composition, embodying a friction between British pastoral ideals and present reality. In particular, Friend follows moments in which the expected narrative of the landscape is rudely interrupted: often through leakage, pollution, or the wreckage and containment of nature.In his accompanying essay, writer Robert Macfarlane describes Bastard Countryside as “a vision par excellence of our synthetic ‘modern nature’– produced by assemblage and entanglement rather than purity and distinction”. Contained within Friend’s photographs are “hard questions [...] about what kinds of landscape one might wish either to pass through or to live in; about what versions of ‘modern nature’ might be worth fighting for, and why.” -- Publisher's website.

Wanderlust

Author : Rebecca Solnit
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101199555
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Wanderlust by : Rebecca Solnit

Download or read book Wanderlust written by Rebecca Solnit and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2001-06-01 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A passionate, thought-provoking exploration of walking as a political and cultural activity, from the author of Orwell's Roses Drawing together many histories--of anatomical evolution and city design, of treadmills and labyrinths, of walking clubs and sexual mores--Rebecca Solnit creates a fascinating portrait of the range of possibilities presented by walking. Arguing that the history of walking includes walking for pleasure as well as for political, aesthetic, and social meaning, Solnit focuses on the walkers whose everyday and extreme acts have shaped our culture, from philosophers to poets to mountaineers. She profiles some of the most significant walkers in history and fiction--from Wordsworth to Gary Snyder, from Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennet to Andre Breton's Nadja--finding a profound relationship between walking and thinking and walking and culture. Solnit argues for the necessity of preserving the time and space in which to walk in our ever more car-dependent and accelerated world.

Concrete Jungle

Author : Niles Eldredge
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520958306
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (29 download)

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Book Synopsis Concrete Jungle by : Niles Eldredge

Download or read book Concrete Jungle written by Niles Eldredge and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2014-10-23 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If they are to survive, cities need healthy chunks of the world’s ecosystems to persist; yet cities, like parasites, grow and prosper by local destruction of these very ecosystems. In this absorbing and wide-ranging book, Eldredge and Horenstein use New York City as a microcosm to explore both the positive and the negative sides of the relationship between cities, the environment, and the future of global biodiversity. They illuminate the mass of contradictions that cities present in embodying the best and the worst of human existence. The authors demonstrate that, though cities have voracious appetites for resources such as food and water, they also represent the last hope for conserving healthy remnants of the world’s ecosystems and species. With their concentration of human beings, cities bring together centers of learning, research, government, finance, and media—institutions that increasingly play active roles in solving environmental problems. Some of the topics covered in Concrete Jungle: --The geological history of the New York region, including remnant glacial features visible today --The early days of urbanization on Manhattan Island, focusing on the history of Central Park, Collect Pond, and Manhattan Square --The history of early railway lines and the development of New York’s iconic subway system --The problem of producing enough safe drinking water for an ever-expanding population --Prominent civic institutions, including universities, museums, and zoos

The End of Country

Author : Seamus McGraw
Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN 13 : 0812980646
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (129 download)

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Book Synopsis The End of Country by : Seamus McGraw

Download or read book The End of Country written by Seamus McGraw and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A rare, honest, beautiful, and, yes, sometimes heartbreaking examination of the echoes of water-powered natural gas drilling—or fracking—in the human community . . . vivid, personal and emotional.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune Susquehanna County, in the remote northeastern corner of Pennsylvania, is a community of stoic, low-income dairy farmers and homesteaders seeking haven from suburban sprawl—and the site of the Marcellus Shale, a natural gas deposit worth more than one trillion dollars. In The End of Country, journalist and area native Seamus McGraw opens a window on the battle for control of this land, revealing a conflict that pits petrodollar billionaires and the forces of corporate America against a band of locals determined to extract their fair share of the windfall—but not at the cost of their values or their way of life. Rich with a sense of place and populated by unforgettable personalities, McGraw tells a tale of greed, hubris, and envy, but also of hope, family, and the land that binds them all together. “To tell a great story, you need a great story. Seamus McGraw . . . has lived a great story. . . . [He] is just one of its many characters—very real characters—caught up in a very human story in which they must make tough, life-altering decisions for themselves, their community, and ultimately their country.”—Allentown Morning Call “Compelling . . . The End of Country is like a phone call from a close friend or relative living smack-dab in the middle of the Pennsylvania gas rush. . . . Anyone with even a passing interest in the [fracking debate should] read it.”—Harrisburg Patriot-News “This cautionary tale should be required reading for all those tempted by the calling cards of easy money and precarious peace of mind.”—Tom Brokaw “A page-turner . . . McGraw brings us to the front lines of the U.S. energy revolution to deliver an honest and humbling account that could hardly possess greater relevance.”—The Humanist