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Mira Engler, Johns Hopkins, 2004.
In this in-depth overview of waste, landscape architect and historian
Mira Engler works her way from the domestic to the societal landscapes
of discarded material, and includes the creative interpretations
of waste among the essential elements in bringing waste back into
the circuit of consumption. Another very nice book done with the
help of our friends at the Center for American Places.
Jack Kelly, Basic Books, 2004
Covers the 900 year history of gunpowder, from its early use in
China in fireworks (the Chinese used it in bombs and other weaponry
early on too) to its transition into the staple for all wars fought
until the 20th Century, then back to just fireworks, when other
things came along to replace it.
William R. Haycraft, University of Illinois Press, 2000
A good basic and comprehensive description of the evolution of
mobile heavy machinery, written by an industry insider, a retired
caterpillar marketing executive. An interesting reflection of
the changes society made to machines, and machines to society.
They worked together, both the chicken and the egg.
Dolores Hayden, W. W. Norton and Company, 2004
Low altitude color aerial photographs on one side of the spread,
and a paragraph or two of text on the other, with each spread
describing a word or phrase from developer/critical parlance.
A bit arbitrary, and covering more than just “sprawl,”
its a field guide in style and name, mostly. But its a nice idea
to illustrate with examples concepts like “edge nodes,”
“leapfrog,” “LULU,” “privatopia.”
Keller Easterling, MIT Press, 1999
A look at some of the modernist systems that cover a lot of ground,
like interstates and subdivisions, and some of the “systemicists”
who conceived of them, like Norman Bel Geddes (highways), the
TVA, and, most notably, Benton MacKaye, who was a fascinating
visionary of the American whole. Easterling dredges up some revolutionary
notions from his archives at Dartmouth.
Peter Goin and C. Elizabeth Raymond, Center for American Places,
2004
The book covers eight major mining areas in the USA: the Mesabi
Iron Range in Minnesota; the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania; Karnes
County, Texas’ uranium mines; the radon health mines of
Montana; Bingham Pit in Utah; Rawhide Nevada; Eagle Mountain,
California; and American Flat, Nevada. Each region is a chapter,
with an instructive essay about its history and present state,
historical images, and Goin’s contemporary views. “Reality,”
at its finest.
Erik Twitty, Western Reflections Publishing Company, 2002
A nice description of historic American mining technology, designed
to help readers understand what they might find at old abandoned
mines in the West. By the author of Blown to Bits in the Mine:
A History of Mining and Explosives in the West.
Beth and Bill Sagstetter, Benchmark Publishing of Colorado, 1998
A “hands on” guide to explaining what you might encounter
at an old mining site, from understanding how boilers worked,
to reading old cans. Has lots of images and photographs, which
make it especially handy, including images of common objects as
they appeared in mail order catalogs of the time, and lots of
on site photos of debris.
Bob Moore, Route 66 Magazine Publishing, 2004
For about a hundred pages, this picture book shows the original
ad for a particular model trailer (mostly large-ish but towable
versions from the 1940s to the 1960s), coupled with a photograph
of an actual specimen of the model, usually abandoned and/or battered,
taken in the field by the author. This technique implies, without
depicting, the life of use of the trailers, as if it were some
kind of elusive truth. The best trailer book yet, and without
a drop of pretention.
Jennifer Gabrys, Book Works, 2004
A beautiful little booklet about dropping things from the sky
onto the ground by longtime CLUI associate Jennifer Gabrys. Published
in the United Kingdom by Book Works.
William Langewiesche, North Point Press, 2004
A swashbuckling investigative journalistic account of tales of
the current international sea trade, fishing industry, shipwrecks,
piracy, and such.
Richard Menzies, Stephens Press, 2005
Nice to see a full-length book version of veteran travel writer
and photographer Richard Menzies’ stories and images from
his meetings with characters across Nevada and Utah, from Melvin
Dummar, to Robert Golka. Menzies mounted an exhibit of this work
at the CLUI in Wendover in 1999.
Melissa L. Jones, Capital Books, 2005
This is no Guinness Book, its just another way to slice the plethora
of Americanorama out there. But a few new things find their way
into the roadside canon with every new publication of this sort,
as things are always changing out there.
Les Joslin, Wilderness Associates, 1995
Just what the title says it is. This is a practical book covering
75 historic ranger and guard stations through out the western
forestlands. Most are little log cabins in the woods, often built
by the rangers themselves in the early 1900s, and some are large
complexes, built during the WPA years. But its an interesting
way of thinking about the Forest Service, as it established itself,
like a sort of pioneer of federal bureaucracy, expressing itself
through architecture.
David M. Solzman, Wild Onion Books, 1998
A nicely done look at this network of urban waterways, though
as much a history and description of the city, as the waterways.
Nearly half the book is devoted to a 70 mile loop around southern
Chicago, entirely on the water, from downtown to Lake Michigan,
then inland at Calumet and back through a network of lakes and
canals, cutting through the industrial core of America’s
“Second City.”
Stanley Greenberg, Princeton Architectural Press, 2003
With an informative essay by Matthew Gandy, this book of very
photographic black and white photographs (thankfully annotated)
provides a vivid look at the water supply system for this largest
- and most protective of its infrastructure - city. Completed
in the months before the twin towers attack, this world is much
more hidden now. |
