Peter Bacon Hales, University of Illinois Press, 1997
Atomic Spaces is the story of the Manhattan Project from
a land use and cultural theory perspective, tracing the
acquisition of land, its development, and the effect of
the program on workers and the local population. Using a
vast archive of material amassed by the government Hales
compiles a detailed history of the Manhattan Project's impact
on the physical and psychological landscape.
John Strohmeyer, Simon and Schuster, 1993
Since the oil rush replaced the gold rush, Alaska's economy
and politics have revolved around oil. Journalist Strohmeyer
follows the path of oil money that has transformed the political
landscape of Alaska.
Ray Kresek, Historic Lookout Project, 1998
This is an exhaustive catalog of fire lookout towers in
that region, full of photographs, locations, and anecdotes.
With hundreds of photos depicting a baffling array of building
styles, from crow's nests atop trees, to wood frame buildings
perched on narrow rocks, to elaborate stone structures,
this is an architectural history both obsessive and sublime.
Stackpole Books, 1996.
In this collection of essays and journal writings, fire
lookouts share their lonely, and when lighting approaches,
dangerous life atop the mountains of the west. From bear
attacks to hallucinogenic mushroom omelets, this collection
of anecdotes chronicles the isolated lives of fire lookouts.
Margaret Crawford, Verso Press, 1995
A great subject which needs more attention. Crawford examines
the historical period from the late 1700's to the 1920's,
and indicates that company towns, in the USA at least, are
pretty much a thing of the past (though American companies
may be responsible for the maquiladora factory towns of
the Mexican border region). New or expanding industries
in relatively remote places, though, still seem to build
corporate housing, such as the trailervilles of Hadley and
Primm, Nevada.
Edited by Stan Gibilisco, McGraw-Hill, 1999.
Around and beyond the earth's atmosphere lies a man-made
haze of radio signals, an electro-magnetic sphere of information.
The Handbook of Radio & Wireless Technology provides a technical
overview of transmission technology, from radio and TV to
cell phones, satellites, and navigation systems.
Robert Kronenburg, Academy Editions, 1995.
Often neglected and denigrated by architects, and historians,
Kronenburg takes the stance that portable buildings offer
viable solutions to economic and design problems. Houses
in Motion traces the history of portable structures from
Tipis and shipbuilding to the development of trailers and
20th century experimental structures. The book is perhaps
most valuable for the last chapter which tackles the image
and identity of portable structures and the people that
inhabit them.
Edited by Frederic E. Shearer, Crown Publishers, 1970.
A facsimile edition of a tourist guide published in 1884
and sponsored by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads
to draw tourists to the west. A valuable historical resource,
this book contains a guide to each city served by the railroad,
some that have grown into major urban centers and others
that have vanished from the map. The Pacific Tourist provides
a glimpse at what the landscape and cities of the west looked
like before and during their transformation by tourism and
migration.
Edgar A. Haine, Cornwall Books, 1993
While transforming the landscape and revolutionizing mass
transit, the railroad has also produced a fair amount of
carnage. Combining Ballardesque accident eroticism with
trainspotting, Railroad Wrecks falls into the popular genre
of coffee table disaster books.
Bert Weber, Webb Research Group, 1990.
Lost in the storm of negative publicity surrounding the
Rajneeshi takeover of Antelope, Oregon and the subsequent
charges of election fraud, theft, and salad bar poisonings,
was the story of the development of a huge self-sufficient
commune. At its height Rajneeshpuram could support festival
crowds of 15,000 people with its own reservoir, organic
farm, post office, vineyard, and even its own airline. Consisting
of essays by followers who remain true believers to this
day, Webber's book lacks objectivity and polish, but it
does contain some inside information on the development
of Rajneeshpuram's complex and short-lived infrastructure.
Tim Cahill, Random House, 1991.
In this gonzo-journalistic endeavor, Outside magazine editor
Tim Cahill tells the story of his 15,000 mile journey from
Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic Circle in a GM truck. Battling
customs bureaucrats and bad roads, Cahill completes the
journey in less than twenty-four days and makes the Guinness
Book of World Records for the longest drive south to north.
Bert Webber, Webb Research Group, 1997.
Webber, whose publishing empire also put out Rajneeshpuram:
Who Were Its People, has amassed an exhaustive history of
suppressed and forgotten attacks by the Japanese on North
America during World War II. The book details Japanese balloon
bombs launched from Japan and carried in the Gulf Stream
to targets all over the U.S., attempts to start forest fires
with incendiary bombs, and air raids on metropolitan areas.
H. Ward Jandl with additional essays by John A. Burns, A.I.A.
and Michael J. Auer
The Preservation Press, 1991.
Jandl's book catalogs a set of retro-futuristic buildings
that put the materials of the industrial revolution together
with mass production and prefabrication. Most of these innovations
in building techniques and materials have since been incorporated
into the building vernacular, but the bold, undisguised
use of metal, glass and concrete as design elements in residential
architecture has failed to catch on. While few home owners
today live in houses with steel or concrete clad walls,
many tract homes in the endless suburbs of America sit atop
concrete slabs and have walls containing steel studs instead
of wood. Lavishly illustrated, this is a post-modern take
on modernism, where the optimistic use of new building technologies
and industrial materials takes on, in retrospect, a sense
of ornamentation and folly.
