Geographies of the Holocaust

Geographies of the Holocaust edited by Anne Kelly Knowles, Tim Cole, and Alberto Giordano

D 804.348 .G46 2014

“This book explores the geographies of the Holocaust at every scale of human experience, from the European continent to the experiences of individual human bodies. Built on six innovative case studies, it brings together historians and geographers to interrogate the places and spaces of the genocide. The cases encompass the landscapes of particular places (the killing zones in the East, deportations from sites in Italy, the camps of Auschwitz, the ghettos of Budapest) and the intimate spaces of bodies on evacuation marches. Geographic information systems (GIS) and cartography, as well as fieldwork and spatial ideation (the graphic expression of spatial ideas in diagrams and graphic art), provide the means for identifying, measuring, and comparing the spatial characteristics of historical sites, actors, relationships, and how they changed over time. Employing these techniques, backed by extensive historical research, the book aims to model the physical reality in which victims, perpetrators, and bystanders operated in order to ask new questions and to see historical circumstances in a new light.”
– publisher description

The Flooded Earth

The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World Without Ice Caps by Peter D. Ward

GB 2401.7 .W37 2010

“Sea level rise will be an unavoidable part of our future, no matter what we do.  Even if we stopped all carbon dioxide emissions today, the seas will rise three feet by 2050 and nine feet by 2100.  This – not drought, species extinction, or excessive heat waves – will be the most dramatic effect of global warming.

The effects of three feet of sea-level rise will be massive.  Nine feet will be catastrophic.  Incursions of salt into the water table will destroy most of our best agricultural land – for instance, the Central Valley of California – and corrosion will devour the electrical and fiber-optic systems of coastal cities, as well as our roads and bridges.  Amsterdam, Miami, Venice, and other cities, might have to be abandoned.  The melting of the ice caps will not be a slow trickle of water into the sea; it will release armadas of icebergs that will make shipping in the Southern Ocean hazardous or impossible.  As icebound regions melt, new sources of oil, gas, minerals, and arable land will also be revealed – as will fierce geopolitical battles over who owns the rights to them.

In The Flooded Earth, species extinction expert Peter D. Ward describes in intricate detail what our world will look like in 2050, 2100, 2300, and beyond.  In this blueprint for a foreseeable future, Ward also explains what politicians and policy makers around the world should be doing now to head off the worst consequences of an inevitable transformation, including the complete melting of the ice sheets, stagnant oceans, and greenhouse extinction.” – publisher description

The Multicultural Cookbook for Students

The Multicultural Cookbook for Students by Lois Sinaiko Webb and Lindsay Grace Roten

 TX 725 .A1 W43 2009

“When it was first published, The Multicultural Cookbook for Students was widely acclaimed for its unique way of introducing students both to world cultures and to the kitchen. Now, that landmark volume returns in a thoroughly revised and expanded new edition, offering an even richer culinary tour of the planet with more delectable stops along the way.

 The Multicultural Cookbook for Students: Updated and Revised offers hundreds of recipes from over 150 countries—including 140 new recipes to this edition. Recipes are arranged geographically by region, then country of origin. For each country, the book offers one to three recipes as well as a brief introduction to that locationÕs geography, history, and culinary traditions. Students will not only enjoy deliciously diverse eating, they will understand why these dishes are representative of the countries they originate from. They will also get expert training in the ways of the kitchen, with easy-to-follow recipe instructions, and advice on safety, cooking equipment, and appropriate substitutions for more exotic ingredients.” — book jacket

Rewilding the West: Restoration in a Prairie Landscape

Rewilding the West: Restoration in a Prairie Landscape by Richard Manning

QH 104.5 .G73 M36

“”The most destructive force in the American West is its commanding views, because they foster the illusion that we command,” begins Richard Manning’s vivid, anecdotally driven account of the American plains from native occupation through the unraveling of the American enterprise to today. As he tells the story of this once rich, now mostly empty landscape, Manning also describes a grand vision for ecological restoration, currently being set in motion, that would establish a prairie preserve larger than Yellowstone National Park, flush with wild bison, elk, bears, and wolves. Taking us to an isolated stretch of central Montana along the upper Missouri River, Manning peels back the layers of history and discovers how key elements of the American story–conservation, the New Deal, progressivism, the yeoman myth, and the idea of private property–have collided with and shaped this incomparable landscape. An account of great loss, Rewilding the West also holds out the promise of resurrection–but rather than remake the plains once again, Manning proposes that we now find the wisdom to let the prairies remake us.”
— book jacket

City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism

City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism by Jim Krane

DS 247 .D7 K73 2009

“The city of Dubai, one of the seven United Arab Emirates, is everything the Arab world isn’t: a freewheeling capitalist oasis where the market rules and history is swept aside. Until the credit crunch knocked it flat, Dubai was the fastest-growing city in the world, with a roaring economy that outpaced China’s while luring more tourists than all of India. It’s one of the world’s safest places, a stone’s throw from its most dangerous.

In City of Gold, Jim Krane, who reported for the AP from Dubai, brings us a boots-on-the-ground look at this fascinating place by walking its streets, talking to its business titans, its prostitutes, and the hard-bitten men who built its fanciful skyline. He delves into the city’s history, paints an intimate portrait of the ruling Maktoum family, and ponders where the city is headed.

Dubai literally came out of nowhere. It was a poor and dusty village in the 1960s. Now it’s been transformed into the quintessential metropolis of the future through the vision of clever sheikhs, Western capitalists, and a river of investor money that poured in from around the globe. What has emerged is a tolerant and cosmopolitan city awash in architectural landmarks, luxury resorts, and Disneyfied kitsch. It’s at once home to America’s most prestigious companies and universities and a magnet for the Middle East’s intelligentsia. Dubai’s dream of capitalism has also created a deeply stratified city that is one of the world’s worst polluters. Wild growth has clogged its streets and left its citizens a tiny minority in a sea of foreigners.

Jim Krane considers all of this and casts a critical eye on the toll that the global economic downturn has taken on a place that many tout as a blueprint for a more stable Middle East.  While many think Dubai’s glory days have passed, insiders like Jim Krane who got to know the city and its creators firsthand realize there’s much more to come in the City of Gold, a place that, in just a few years, has made itself known to nearly every person on earth.”
— book jacket

Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America

Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America by Frederick Douglass Opie

TX 715 .O548 2008

“Frederick Opie’s culinary history is an insightful portrait of the social and religious relationship between people of African descent and their cuisine. Beginning with the Atlantic slave trade and concluding with the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Opie composes a global history of African American foodways and the concept of soul itself, revealing soul food to be an amalgamation of West and Central African social and cultural influences as well as the adaptations blacks made to the conditions of slavery and freedom in the Americas.

Soul is the style of rural folk culture, embodying the essence of suffering, endurance, and survival. Soul food comprises dishes made from simple, inexpensive ingredients that remind black folk of their rural roots. Sampling from travel accounts, periodicals, government reports on food and diet, and interviews with more than thirty people born before 1945, Opie reconstructs an interrelated history of Moorish influence on the Iberian Peninsula, the African slave trade, slavery in the Americas, the emergence of Jim Crow, the Great migration, the Great Depression, and the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. His grassroots approach reveals the global origins of soul food, the forces that shaped its development, and the distinctive cultural collaborations that occurred among Africans, Asians, Europeans, and Americans throughout history.

Hog and Hominy traces the class- and race-inflected attitudes toward black folk’s food in the African diaspora as it evolved in Brazil, the Caribbean, the American South, and such northern cities as Chicago and New York, mapping the complex cultural identity of African Americans as it developed through eating habits over hundreds of years.”
— Amazon.com

Travel as a Political Act

Travel as a Political Acy by Rick Steves

G 155 .A1 S6648 2009

“Travel connects people with people. It helps us fit more comfortably and compatibly into a shrinking world. And it inspires creative new solutions to persistent problems facing our nation. We can’t understand our world without experiencing it. Traveling as a Political Act helps us take that first step.

There’s more to travel than good-value hotels, great art, and tasty cuisine. Americans who “travel as a political act” can have the time of their lives and come home smarter—with a better understanding of the interconnectedness of today’s world and just how our nation fits in.

In his new book, acclaimed travel writer Rick Steves explains how to travel more thoughtfully—to any destination. He shares a series of field reports from Europe, Central America, Asia, and the Middle East to show how his travels have shaped his politics and broadened his perspective.” –book jacket

The Cultural Context of Aging: Worldwide Perspectives

The Cultural Context of Aging: Worldwide Perspectives, edited by Jay Sokolovsky

HQ 1061 .C79 2009

“The new edition of Sokolovsky’s unique text explores a wide variety of cultural issues worldwide that impact aging issues, from perception and valuation of the elderly to homelessness, caregiving, assisted suicide, psychological support, and responses to those with dementia.

This third edtion of The Cultural Context of Aging includes twenty-five new chapters as well as special student resources, data from the most recent studies, a guide to Internet sites, and a bibliography of related readings.”
–from book jacket

The Worlds Protected Areas: Status, Values, and Prospects in the 21st Century

The World’s Protected Areas: Status, Values and Prospects int he 21st Century – edited by Stuart Chape, Mark Spalding and Martin Jenkins

S 994.5  .P78 W695 2008

“Extensively illustrated with maps, color photographs, and graphics, this state-of-the-art reference offers a comprehensive and authoritative status report on the world’s 100,000 parks, nature reserves, and other land and marine areas currently designated as protected areas. Now covering over 12 percent of the Earth’s land surface, protected areas are the great strongholds of biodiversity and landscape conservation. They also provide a wide range of valuable ecosystem services: protecting food and water supplies; regulating weather patterns; protecting watersheds and coastlines from erosion; maintaining places of historical or cultural significance for recreation, solace or spiritual wellbeing; generating income and employment from tourism, and more. This timely volume offers a benchmark overview of where these protected areas exist worldwide, what they have and have not accomplished, what threats they face, and how they can be better managed to achieve the goals of conserving biodiversity and other natural resources.”
–from book  jacket

Confessions of an Eco-Sinner

by Fred Pearce

GE 195.7 .P43 2008

“Where does everything in our daily lives come from?  The clothes on our backs, the computers on our desks, the cabinets in our kitchens, and the food behind their doors?  Under what conditions – environmental and social – are they harvested or manufactured?  Veteran science journalist Fred Pearce set off to find out, and the resulting 100,000 miles journey took him to the end of this street and across the planet to more than twenty countries.” — book jacket