Geography Books

[Review by Larry Blumenfeld, Blumenfeld & Aswsociates, Post Office Box 2831, 660 Circulo Nomada, Tubac, AZ 85646-2831, (520) 398-3371, published in COUNCIL FIRES, The Publication for Western Americana Enthusiasts, Vol. 8, Issue #1, January, 1998, p. 16-17.] E1 Llano Estacado: Exploration and Imagination on the High Plains of Texas and New Mexico, 1536-1860. Written by John Miller Morris. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, First Edition ($39.95). El Llano Estacado is an extremely well written new work of Southwestern History, brilliantly revealing the historical core and heart of one of America's most history-packed regions--the mesaland of the Southern High Plains in Texas and New Mexico. From the Canadian River in the north to the Edwards Plateau in the south, from the Pecos River in the west to the awesome canyonlands of the Red, Pease, Brazos, and Colorado Rivers in the east, these 50,000-square miles of what is commonly referred to as "the Llano" are here chronicled over a period of 300 years, revealing the history, cultural grandeur, and mythic wonders of this special ruggedly beautiful land. A knockout read for both historians and buffs alike, Morris's new book is his song to this unique environment, revealing, melding, and analyzing a diversified series of Spanish, French, Mexican, and Anglo-American explorers and adventurers and how they made their mark on this remarkable land. The book opens with an examination of what is known as the Lost Coronado Trail, pursuing the question of where did the Coronado Expedition go in 1541. What follows is nothing short of a breakthrough analysis of what they saw and how they remembered it as revealed through their personal accounts and journals. The second part of the book, which deals with the Llano Frontier, continues its unique approach to the study of the three centuries of Spanish exploration and imagination following Coronado. Here we revisit this extraordinary land through the eyes and imaginations of the conqueror, Juan de Onate, the accounts of the French explorers, Pierre Mallet and Paul Mallet, and the travel diaries of trailblazers Pedro Vial, Jose Mares, and Francisco Amangual. Part Three then explores and analyzes "the invention or discovery of the Llano through the Anglo imagination," including the "prose of the poet Albert Pike, the grand deceits of Alexander Le Grand, the reasoning of Josiah Gregg, and the legendary collapse of the Texan-Santa Fe Expedition" as chronicled by George Wilkins Kendall and Thomas Falconer. Together the author analyzes what he calls the "American rhetoric of romantic discovery." The Great Zahara, the last of four parts, deliciously delves into the "perceptual approaches of classic U. S. Explorers James W. Abert, Randolph B. Marcy, A. W. Whipple, Andrew Gray, and John Pope...." Powerful, unusual, stimulating, and nothing short of brilliant, El Llano Estacado is one of the finest works of cultural and mythic history of a region I have ever read. Morris has penned a great work of both history and imagination, pushing the boundaries on historical scholarship to limits that I would have never thought possible. This book should change the way history is not only written but perceived. You must read this mmagnificent book!!

Using historical writings of early explorers, the author captures the mystery and magic of the great Llano Estacado or "Staked Plains" that begin in West Texas and extend north and west. Particularly amusing is the efforts of early railroad surveyors to find underground water at the edge of the Llano (aka the caprock) only to miss one of North America's largest aquifers (the Ogalla) by a matter of miles and in some cases yards.

We were going on a trip to see the Llano Estacado and the canyon in west Texas.This book gave the trip so much dimension and understanding at how hard the life was for the explorers and the pioneers in this harsh land.Very cleverly written,holds one attention. Wonderful

Although the title of the book points to the treatment of trauma from natural disasters like fire, flood or earthquake, its use is easily extended to other large traumas in life: widowhood, layoff, shocking medical news like breast cancer. When I got my own shocking news, I so appreciated specific remedies which I could use right then and there - and which did much to alleviate my emotional pain and fear. For example, the "thought-voices" - those involuntary intrusions which surface day or night to give you dark, dreary and counterproductive messages - can and should be quieted to give you the space to get back on track, to get back into your life, quickly. There are techniques to silence these unwanted messengers. A goal is to not linger in the trauma, not to be debilitated by it. With compassionate regard, Singer's style is clear, touching and well-written; she gets right to the point; her practices and techniques are grounded in decades of treating trauma victims; there is no "padding". I am generally super leery of therapy and self-help but give this book 5 stars and gratitude for its lucidity, practicality and the specific help that it gave me personally.

Although the title of the book points to the treatment of trauma from natural disasters like fire, flood or earthquake, its use is easily extended to other large traumas in life: widowhood, layoff, shocking medical news like breast cancer. When I got my own shocking news, I so appreciated specific remedies which I could use right then and there - and which did much to alleviate my emotional pain and fear. For example, the "thought-voices" - those involuntary intrusions which surface day or night to send you dark, dreary and counterproductive messages - can and should be quieted to give you the space to get back on track, to get back into your life, quickly. There are techniques in this book to silence these unwanted messengers. A goal is to not linger in the trauma, not to be debilitated by it. With compassionate regard, Singer's style is clear, touching and well-written; she gets right to the point; her practices and techniques are grounded in decades of treating trauma victims; there is no "padding". I am generally super leery of therapy and self-help but give this book 5 stars and gratitude for its lucidity, practicality and the specific help that it gave me personally.

Natural disasters come in a wide variety of forms and degrees of severity. But there is one universal factor -- their devastating impact on the lives and emotions of the men, women and children who endure and survive them. In Emotional Recovery After Natural Disasters, Ilana Singer has written a unique self-help book of information, advice and counseling on how best to get back to a normal life after experiencing a flood, fire, hurricane, tornado, earthquake, or any other kind of natural disaster. Singer addresses "ordeal fatigue", depression as a response to trauma, the phenomena of "ambient anxiety", and more. Of special interest are the chapters "Children Speak"; Teens Speak"; "Senors and Trauma Recovery". Emotional Recovery After Natural Disasters is enhanced further with a chapter dedicated to "Frequently Asked Questions"; a glossary, a bibliography for further study, and an index. If you or a loved one is experiencing a delayed or impaired psychology/emotional recovery from a natural disaster experience, then I urge you to give a careful reading to Ilana Singer's Emotional Recovery After Natural Disasters.

Hard to find but oh so worth it! Each essay is densely packed but kid-friendly and very engaging. Wonderful photography brings it all home. Interesting to parents too!

An excellent book for children AND adults. A lot of information in a nutshell. The pictures of families around the world are perfect and a good way for everyone to see how all families are basically similar. I also especially liked the mini-family trees from each country.

A must for any child. A must for any parent who strives to impart the knowledge of a larger world for their children.

As an early childhood educator, I find this book to be a wonderful resource for a geography curriculum.

I absolutely loved the Felix Activity Book. I shared it with family members both young and old and with my third and fourth grade students. It exposed children to wordly things that they may not normally have been exposed to until adult age. My students felt like they were actually traveling around the world. They were taking in sites, learning about currency, customs, cutlures... My students got so excited each time I took the activity book out of my closest. They would ask me...Where are we going today???? We can't wait for another edition!!!

This book is a great combination of creativity and information. Kids are smart and this book does not insult their intelligence. The activities are varied and utilize a number of different skills. There really are exciting activities for each and every child out there. Additionally, the activities are fact-based, so while a child is connecting the dots, he/she is also learning a little piece of history. It's a great addition to your child's collection.

Using (( GLOBAL POTHOLE PROBLEM )) as a search query, you easily confirm it is one of Hardin's gems, detailed in this book. The great thing about having this as a mnemonic is that it is much less emotionally loaded, compared to say health-care. You can dispassionately observe that folks who fix potholes for a living would favor pothole-insurance, since they will get more business. Folks who say make ammunition for a living...

Garrett Hardin (now deceased) was a member of the rare species, an economically literate ecologist. He was also something of a heretic within the environmental movement, ...if you can even say he was part of that 'movement'.

Hardin made himself politically incorrect amongst "greens" by taking the Malthusian predictions of the movement to their logical conclusion. He was an advocate of tough population control, something that is not the same as birth control; he argued for immigration restrictions, reduced foreign aid and believed the admission of refugees was ecological stupidity. The mainstream of the green movement, if they recognise these issues at all, certainly like to soft pedal on the policy conclusions.

In this volume, that certainly deserves a wider audience, Hardin does not present his policy prescriptions in one big feast, at least not directly. He does sprinkle them lightly through the book, ...but even those who take an opposite viewpoint will not be disappointed by the taste.

He gives us what is essentially a "How To" guide, a book about thinking. He outlines a series of thinking aids, "filters", to help us avoid "folly". The filters are useful not just in dealing with the life and death issues of world population, but in everyday personal and even business problem solving.

Hardin's easy-to-remember tool kit provides us with a broader perspective and thus helps the reader make better decisions.

This is the kind of book you buy an additional copy of to give or lend to friends, because you don't want to lose yours.

In this book the late Mr. Hardin outlays something I found obvious--after it was pointed out to me. That is that we can use (or misuse) out mental faculties in very different ways. He focuses on three and demonstates how using these three 'styles' or 'types' of intelligence can lead us to very different views of the world.

The 3 types of thinking he discusses are: literate, numerical, and ecolate. Literate thinking is exemplified in literature, and in most law. The Bill of Rights and the novel share a similiar view of the world that can be expressed in language.

Numerical thinking is of course arithmatic, but can lead you to a quite different understanding of a situation than literate thinking. Malthus can explain that if a population continues to grow it will ovetake it's food or water supply. Mathematic analysis can tell you exactly when it will happen.

Ecolate, with the same root as 'ecology' was a word unfamiliar to me before reading his book. It can be summed up in the phrase: "And then what?" It is concerned with effects, often unintended, that also occur as a result of any action. Or as Mr. Hardin is more famous for, "You can never do merely one thing."

If there is one weak point it is that it cannot be stressed enough that these three types of thinking are only 3 of many many types. A brief, excellant book, a little off the beaten path from Mr. Hardin's more famous works on population, but there is definite wisdom within.

I have not yet completed reading this book, but I've skimmed through many parts and done a thorough reading of little bits of it. It has a solid -- if not particularly rich, in terms of details (if it did, the book would be thousands of pages long) -- history, along with many pictures of the projections (a bit austere: just the graticules and the outlines of the boundaries between water and land are shown, but then, that's all that's really needed). It has many useful mathematical formulas for translating latitude-longitude coordinates on the Earth into x-y coordinate on maps of various projections. If you're into map projections, here's where to start. (or, at least that's where I'm starting, and I have no complaints yet!)

True to its title, here is a fascinating and very readable historical survey of mankind's struggle to draw a spherical planet as a flat map in a useful way - a problem simply stated, yet never perfectly solvable.

Not many projection formulas, but plenty of illustrations, including timelines and original historic maps.

The huge bibliography only hints at the enourmous amount of research and cross-referencing provided by this work. From the viewpoint of map projections, this is *the* ultimate history book.

About two months ago, I reviewed "Understanding Map Projections" by Melita Kennedy and Steve Kopp. While in certain minor ways this book falls short of Kennedy and Kopp's book, it is generally head and shoulders above it. And while it is true that Snyder's book is almost twice the price of Kennedy and Kopp's book, it is worth it. Other books of comparable value cost much more.

The only negative thing I really have to say about Snyder's book is that he tries to do two different things in it. This book is both a history and a survey of map projections, and what is appropriate for a history may not be best for a survey. In particular, it means that Snyder covers the various projections not in a sensible order (grouping similar types together), but chronologically. Projections popularized, say, in the 19th century are all covered in the same section.

I prefer the organization of Kennedy and Kopp's book, and I think the use of color in that book makes for a more attractive book. But my primary rating of a book on map projections is going to be based on three criteria: (1) Does it cover a large variety of different projections? (2) Does it give illustrations of what they look like? and (3) Does it give formulas or other information by which one can actually construct maps on the projections listed? This book ranks much higher than Kennedy and Kopp's on two of these three criteria (the first and last), and does not fall very far short of it on the remnaining one.

Over a hundred projections (actually, close to twice that many) are treated in this book, from familiar ones to novelty projections that never will be used in a serious atlas. And a large proportion of them are illustrated (though not all, and the ones that are do not use color as in the Kennedy & Kopp book) and either have the formulas for plotting them or are described in terms equivalent to giving formulas (By contrast the Kennedy-Kopp book has almost no formulas, and the descriptions do not allow you to produce them).

If you don't want to spend over $50, this is the one map projection book to buy.

This is an excellent book to be used in a history class I'm taking. Normally I'm not too sure about books I'm asked to get for classes such as this, but it turned out to be an excellent read. I would recommend it to anyone.

Gary Nash has done it again. He ponders whether abolition following the Revolutionary War would have been possible. He provides the most detailed argument to date as to how and why it could of happened. I, being a historian myself, had previously accepted the opposition side and thought abolition would not of been possible following the revolutionary war due to states rights and the loose union established by the thirteen colonies during the war for independence, but Nash brings up some interesting points as to why this train of thought is an inaccurate portrayal of the times. The book also discusses some of the black leaders following the revolution and their attempts to gain an equal footing for blacks within the new republic. The political struggle of blacks during this period of American History is often untold, and Nash does an outstanding job of summing up what occurred in such a short and easy read that will leave you wanting more. I wholeheartedly reccomend this book to those who wish to explore a forgotten part of our history. For further reading on the subject I would reccomend "Washington's Decision," "Water from the Rock," and "The Negro in the American Revolution."

Gary Nash's _The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans in the Age of Revolution_ is an excellent introduction to early U.S. history, particularly the Revolutionary Period, from an African American perspective. What becomes clear from his study is that American history and the story of the nation's founders cannot be understood without a thorough examination of the lives and contributions of African Americans.

Much of the groundwork for these lectures is contained in Nash's 1991 work, _Race and Revolution_, which is an excellent companion to this work because it excerpts the writings and petitions of the black founding fathers: people like Richard Allen, Benjamin Banneker, Prince Hall, and James Forten. Nash reminds readers of an important fact: African Americans were actively involved in the debates of the Revolutionary Period and in the military action as well, fighting on both the American and the British side. In terms of the military involvement, white and black soldiers fought side-by-side in integrated units in the Revolutionary War, a phenonemon which would not re-occur until the Korean War, nearly two hundred years later.

The first chapter "The Black Americans' Revolution" discusses African Americans' participation in the Revolutionary War, a subject that is generally not widely known in the United States. Nash describes the large flight of slaves and freemen to the British-side who offered emancipation in 1775 through Lord Dunmore's Emancipation Proclamation. In contrast, the American forces offered freedom in exchange for one year of military service. For the colonials, wide-spread emancipation was never offered despite the enlightenment rhetoric expressed in the Declaration of Independence and in state constitutions.

Nash begins chapter one by crediting previous historians and, in particular, William C. Nell, whose _Colored Patriots of the American Revolution_ (1855) was the first historical account of black soldiers fighting for the Americans. Nash discusses how Nell, a black school teacher in Boston, focused exclusively on black patriots, de-emphasizing black participation on the British side. The emphasis of Nell's history advanced a political argument for black citizenship and rights in the 1850s, during a period when rights were being retracted in the North.

Chapter two "Could Slavery Have Been Abolished?" looks closely at the contradiction between the Declaration of Independence, with its statements about unalienable rights, and the Constitution, which inscribed legal slavery. Nash makes a convincing case that there was an opportunity for abolition at the beginning of the Republic, which was later sacrificed to short term political interests reflecting the North and Mid-Atlantic states' lack of conviction. Nash criticizes the trend among professional U.S. historians to apologize for the founding fathers' inaction on abolition--the view that historical circumstances did not permit abolition at this time. Nash offers insights about the conflicted views and attitudes of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson on slavery.

The third chapter discusses citizenship and the hardening of racial codes in the 1800s. African Americans' rights and freedoms in the North and Mid-Atlantic states were being curtailed by legislation barring blacks' participation in civic life and foreclosing economic opportunities. Much of the chapter contrasts the views of two Philadelphians: James Forten, a black patriot of the Revolutionary War, and Tench Coxe, a white politician who published pamphlets on race in American in the 1810s and 1820s. Nash threads the discussion of Forten's and Coxe's views throughout the chapter in order to discuss black and white views on race and citizenship in the early 1800s.

A final comment is that this book is very readable in a way that academically-oriented histories often are not. Nash is a diligent scholar and a strong writer with a gift for brevity. As a result, the book can be enjoyed in a few sittings, yielding rewards well worth a reader's time. The footnotes lead in many different directions, and point out new areas of interest for amateur and professional historian alike. There is a wealth of knowledge in this short book.

_The Forgotten Fifth_ can be read profitably by high school, college, and graduate students. It is an important study that will enrich and deepen one's understanding of American history.

This is the sort of book which all popularizers of Mathematics aspire to. It is well written, mathematically honest, with absolutely minimal prerequisites. On finishing the book, the reader should have a good understanding of the essentials of the Four Colour Problem, and its solution.

"Four Colours Suffice" is essentially a chronological history of the Four Colour Conjecture (4CC), the attempts to solve it, the successes and failures, the incremental and fundamental steps forward.

Although Wilson mentions that most of the 20th century used the graph theory perspective to attack the problem, he sticks with the map presentation throughout.

Wilson has a very readable style. He gives the reader a real sense of the key elements of the story, such as Kempe's chain argument, the necessity of pentagons in a minimal criminal (a minimal counterexample to the 4CC), discharging, and reducible and unavoidable configurations. He gives background on the main characters, with excellent photos, and is mostly kind in his evaluation of various individual's contributions. He calls Kempe's flawed proof an excellent proof, and is sincere in that characterization.

The book is very focussed on the 4CC, but does mention related issues such as Heawood's Theorem on the torus, and empires, and Birkhoff's chromatic polynomial. There are no exercises, but there are several proofs, e.g. the five colour theorem.

The controversy over Appel & Haken's proof closes out the book.

I was surprised at the number of people who were nipping at the heels of the 4CC when Appel & Haken announced their solution. There must have been some deflated egos amongst them, but all of the experts supported Appel & Haken when their proof was criticized for its reliance on computers, and its apparent ugliness.

One very minor disappointment is the lack of a bibliography, but this is nullified by the references scattered throughout the endnotes. This is not a math textbook, but is excellent supplementary/bedtime reading. Perhaps it will stimulate a young mathematician to present us with a readable, convincing, and surveyable proof of the 4CC. A Proof From The Book might be too much to hope for, but we can dream.

Every now and then a mathematical book of an historical/overview nature arrives on the scene and deserves to be an instant success.
"Four Colours Suffice" by Robin Wilson is precisely such a book.
This book marks the 150th anniversary of one of the most famous of all mathematical problems: How many colours are needed to colour in a map so that no two adjacent countries have the same colour?
The problem is famous for two main reasons:
(1) It is very simple to understand but incredibly difficult to solve.
(2) It was eventually solved in 1976 with computer assistance and represents the first major mathematical theorem which continues to resist any attmpet at a solution not requiring computer assitance.

The full story of how the proof finally came about has to rank as one of the most fascinating stories in the history of mathematics and Robin Wilson's account is full of interesting anecdotes and lots of humourous asides.
Wilson has gone to immense trouble to ensure that his book is both accurate and understandable to the novice. All in all a truly rewarding read for anyone with even a cursory interest in mathematics.

. . Ted Swart . .

Review of: "Four Colors Suffice - How the Map Problem Was Solved"

By: Robin Wilson

The four color map theorem is easy to understand and hard to prove.

The four color map theorem states that on a plane, which is divided into non-overlapping contiguous regions, the regions can be colored with four colors in such a way that all regions are colored and no two adjacent regions have the same color. In other words you can color any ordinary map with just four colors.

The proof of the four color theorem is very difficult. It is so difficult that the proof took over a century. The search for a proof was so long and became so complex that some mathematicians speculated that it was impossible. The four color served as one of the first real mathematical challenges posed to mathematics undergraduate students.

The statement of the challenge was deceptively simple. Prove that four colors are sufficient. The statement of the problem is so simple that it seems the solution should be equally simple. It is not simple. In 1976 the four-color theorem was finally demonstrated. The authors of the proof are Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken of the University of Illinois.

The book "Four Colors Suffice" is the story of the century long search for the proof. The effort culminated in a computer program. Appel and Haken restated the problem as a collection of 1,936 types of maps. They had a computer program prove each of these 1,936 forms.

The author succeeds in conveying the excitement of the competition in those final months. This book shows the drama of one of the most exciting episodes of modern mathematics.

See also:

Graphs, Colourings and the Four-Colour Theorem (Oxford Science Publications)

The Four-Color Theorem: History, Topological Foundations, and Idea of Proof

Introduction to Graph Theory (4th Edition)

I thoroughly enjoyed this thoughtful and exciting book.

For anyone interested in the vegetation of Sonora, Mexico this book is a must! Back in the early 1980s I was very fortunate to be able to buy a copy of the original Smithsonian book published in 1942 and this current version is a wonderful update of that earlier work. The new book includes additional plant accounts from years of plant collecting in southeast Sonora by botanists at the University of Arizona in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The authors are careful to keep Gentry's original accounts in parentheses.

Gentry spent a considerable amount of time traveling in the Alamos region of southeast Sonora during the late 1930s and during these travels he collected interesting information concerning the local names and medicinal uses of the plants of southern Sonora. In reading the plant descriptions and associated plant habitats you can almost envision the plant growing and flowering in its native habitat. This book is nicely complimented by "Sonoran Desert Plants" and "The Trees of Sonora, Mexico" which look with greater depth into the larger plants and trees of Sonora.

I was given the opportunity to catalog Dr. Gentry's herbarium collection at the Desert Botanical Garden in 1987-88. I haven't seen the new edition mentioned here, but read the original work at the time I was cataloging his herbarium specimens. Through it, I was able to share his experience as an explorer in the spirit of John Wesley Powell, someone who knew that the American southwest is best delineated by watersheds, not along false lat/long lines. I met Dr. Gentry a couple of times, and remember the occasions well. Last time I saw him, when I was cataloging his collection, I overheard a conversation between him and a consultant for the Fort McDowell Indian Community. The consultant was asking about desert-adapted crop plants. Dr. Gentry went into great detail describing many desert plants suited to agriculture - tepary beans, jojoba, Lippia (Mexican oregano), agave, chiltepines, gum arabic, etc. I learned a lot just by eavesdropping. The consultant listened, but did not hear the words. He recommended that the Fort McDowell people plant cotton. Not because it was best suited to desert agriculture - far from that. They planted cotton because it needs vast quantities of water. They did not want the best desert-adapted crops. What they wanted, instead, was the best crop for wasting water, so that they could establish valid rights to the water. Worse, I watched them clear off vast acreages of mesquite forests to make room for the water-wasting cotton crop. The Hopi call this koyaanisqatsi. This book should help folks in southwestern north America realize that we have a bounteous resource, if we can only learn to use it.

Located in a transition zone between the Sonoran Desert and the tropics,this region is well known for its biodiversity, thanks to a 1942 study by botanist Howard Scott Gentry. Revision of his classic work began before his death in 1993. For researchers, this is a must-read book. It provides a clear overview of botanical studies of the Rio Mayo, a contemporary view of the vegatation, excerpts from the original text and an annotated list of plants.

As Hurricane Katrina roared into the city, Richard Campanella remembers in "Geographies of New Orleans," he tried to convince himself that his decision to ride the storm out in his 9th Ward home "was not an emotional one, made with a clenched fist and a fanatical dedication to place, but rather a rational one based on data and reason."

He lived, after all, in a sturdy, old, raised house, seven feet above sea level, and by staying he could be present "to minimize structural damage, to mitigate, to respond to conditions before they developed into crises, to take corrective action to protect important papers and possessions, and afterwards, to guard against looters." But when his street suddenly filled with two feet of water, he knew he had made a "big, big mistake." He and his wife were now living "literally in the Gulf of Mexico."

Although the water receded before it became life-threatening, Campanella later recognized that his "ill-advised decision" not to evacuate had never really been as rational as he'd first thought. Instead, as "the big one" approached, he simply could not bring himself to leave. He wanted to be here "to bear witness to the intricate fabrics of this cherished city, at the moment of their terrible shredding." And, after reading "Geographies of New Orleans," it is easy to empathize with his decision.

"Geographies of New Orleans: Urban Fabrics Before the Storm" is a big, striking book, filled with photographs, maps, timelines and beautifully written essays on the city's culture, environment and history. Campanella, a geographer at the Tulane Center for Bioenvironmental Research, has made understanding the nuances of New Orleans neighborhoods his life's work. "Geographies of New Orleans" is clearly a labor of love, but it is also a book stunning in its analytical precision. While Campanella knows and appreciates the lore of New Orleans, he bases all of his conclusions about the city's past and present on hard-won data, and it is, indeed, difficult to imagine just how much painstaking research went into this book.

Take, for example, his chapter on the Irish Channel, one of New Orleans' most-storied neighborhoods. Anyone who has attended the St. Patrick's Day block party at Parasol's Irish Channel Bar knows the legends. The Channel, so the story goes, was once filled with Irish immigrants who worked grueling shifts on the docks and then went to corner watering holes at night to drink, fight and sing Irish songs long into the evening. It is a rich and colorful history, and one based, in part, on truth. But, as Campanella notes, there is substantial disagreement as to whether Parasol's is in the historical Irish Channel -- or even whether the Channel of lore ever existed at all.

Some historians and old-timers say the "one and only" Irish Channel was on Adele Street, near where the Wal-Mart stands today. Others claim that Tchoupitoulas Street was the "main avenue of the Irish Channel." And while many maintain that the boundaries of the Channel were Josephine Street, Magazine Street, Louisiana Avenue and the river (the neighborhood that includes Parasol's), the 1938 WPA guide to New Orleans placed the Channel in today's Warehouse District. Father Earl Niehaus, the most famous chronicler of the Irish in New Orleans, rejected the idea that the city ever had a segregated Irish neighborhood. Instead, he suggested that people simply liked the "picturesque, though mysterious" phrase "Irish Channel," and "a myth was born."
Campanella brings a geographer's meticulousness to this debate. Rather than rely on legend, he spent countless hours mining data from primary sources in an effort to determine if there ever was a specific, predominantly Irish neighborhood known as the Irish Channel. His systematic search through old newspapers revealed that the term Irish Channel first appeared in the late 19th century but that the exact location of the neighborhood was rarely defined.

Census data from the 19th century proved to be of little help because census takers often failed to record house numbers or streets for the houses they visited. So Campanella created his own method for determining whether there was ever a neighborhood Irish enough to fit the legend of the Irish Channel. Matching addresses found in 19th century city directories with a list culled from the burial records of St. Patrick's Cemetery No. 1 of unmistakable Irish surnames -- such as Callahan, Flynn, Kelly and those starting with Fitz-, Mc-, O' -- Campanella mapped the old neighborhoods block by block.

What he found was that there was never an intensely clustered, exclusively Irish neighborhood in New Orleans. Although Irish immigrants did settle in particular districts such as the "back of town" where housing was cheap, they invariably lived side by side with Germans, Italians, African-Americans, and "a multitude of other ancestries." Assessing his research as a whole, Campanella concludes that the Irish Channel was once, most likely, a specific street -- Adele Street -- whose nickname came to be applied to a number of neighborhoods where Irish families lived. It is a cautious conclusion, one unlikely to end the long-standing debates, but in reaching it Campanella creates the most detailed account we have of where Irish immigrants to New Orleans settled and why they chose to settle where they did.

The Irish Channel is just one of many New Orleans neighborhoods Campanella explores in "Geographies of New Orleans." In other chapters he turns his expertise to the French Quarter, Uptown, the 9th Ward, Lakeview and eastern New Orleans, and it is fascinating to view the city through his eyes. In old, seemingly unremarkable buildings, Campanella sees the settlement patterns and streetscapes created by Sicilian and German immigrants, former slaves and free persons of color, Orthodox Greeks and Jews, black and white Creoles. In newer buildings he sees the history of desegregation, man's fateful efforts to conquer the environment, and the haphazard campaign to make New Orleans a "New South" city. He makes the architecture and topography of Gentilly and Mid-City as compelling as the famous neighborhoods frequented by tourists. And oft-ignored thoroughfares such as Elysian Fields Avenue become as interesting and worthy of preservation as St. Charles Avenue or Royal Street. "As a microcosm and barometer of two centuries of urban growth," Campanella argues convincingly, "Elysian Fields Avenue stands alone."

Because Campanella wrote almost all of "Geographies of New Orleans" before Katrina, it is also heartbreaking to read. Every page is a reminder of just how much has been lost. Given the amount of destruction the storm wrought, some may even wonder whether we should be spending so much time worrying about the city's past when there are so many questions about its future. Are long debates about the location of the Irish Channel -- and the meaning of the word Creole, and the dividing line between Uptown and downtown -- a luxury we can really afford? Perhaps New Orleanians have always been too focused on the minutia of the past rather than the problems of the present.

"Geographies of New Orleans" is a powerful refutation to such arguments. It is a dazzling book, unparalleled in its scope, precision, clarity and detail, that makes clear that what still survives of the "intricate urban fabrics woven here over the past three hundred years" is exactly what makes New Orleans worth saving.
. . . . . . .
Michael A. Ross is associate professor of history at Loyola University.

Of all the volumes of print that have been dedicated to New Orleans in the last few years, this book stands out as a masterpiece.

As the discipline of geography is many things so is this book and it chronicles many aspects of this city. To understand the importance of New Orleans it is essential to understand its history, which Campanella explores with loving detail. Perhaps the most intruiging part of the book is the ethnic histories of a city which one hundred years ago was arguably the most multi-ethnic in America.

As a transplant to New Orleans I came to learn much about the neighborhoods and history through conversations with old-timers. Campanella's findings confirm everything that I had learned and much, much more. Even today, the destinies of individual neighborhoods and areas of the city can be explained largely through the histories illustrated in this book.

If I have one criticism it is that many of the illustrations are too small, however it must have been difficult to pack so much information into one book.

Finally, Campanella's often quirky photographs are pleasant aesthetic lagniappe.

Perhaps the most eerie thing about reading Richard Campanella's new book, Geographies of New Orleans: Urban Fabrics Before the Storm is coming across sentences like this, written before Katrina: "The general trajectory of the region's physical geography is one of an eroding coastline, rising sea level, subsiding soils, and increasing vulnerability to hurricane-induced gulf surges." Campanella, a geographer at Tulane University, has made a literary career of analyzing New Orleans with scientific exactitude, and given his expertise in matters of alluvial deposits and soil subsidence, such prescient assertions are hardly surprising. What is a bit surprising about Geographies of New Orleans is how touchingly human it is. Campanella's work has none of the detached coldness one might expect from his analytical, scientific approach; instead he provides a vivid portrait of the city's organic development over the course of its 300-year history, one that should be required reading for anyone who has ever fallen under its spell.
Covering ground that will be familiar to readers of his previous book, Time and Place in New Orleans, Campanella begins with a look at the site of New Orleans in geological time. This first part, "Physical Geographies," is perhaps the most technical, but it provides an important basis for the historical analysis that follows. In part II, "Urban Geographies," Campanella analyzes how the physical characteristics of New Orleans have come to influence its urban form, from street patterns to land values and ethnic distributions.
The section dealing with the French Quarter, coming early in the second part, is where Geographies of New Orleans veers into the delightfully unexpected. It is here that we find Campanella's scientific methods of analysis applied to the architectural development of a neighborhood. The results are particularly illuminating, especially from the perspective of architectural preservation. Campanella has surveyed every single building in the Quarter by construction date, architectural style and building type, and he presents the results of his labor in a series of fascinating maps. Here we see that the storehouses prevalent in the more commercial parts of the quarter near the river and Canal Street correspond almost perfectly to modern levels of pedestrian traffic, that Creole architectural styles are more prevalent in the back of the Quarter, and that construction of townhouses declined sharply as the Quarter became more working-class after the Civil War. There is even an in-depth analysis of cast-iron galleries in the Quarter, with a map showing the density of their distribution in splotchy shades of green.
This type of analysis is replicated throughout. Elysian Fields Avenue is treated as a historical cross section of the city and is analyzed through its entire history, providing an architectural narrative of New Orleans' expansion from the river into the backswamp and to the edge of the lake. Here too, Campanella has the approach of a scientist. A page showing Elysian Fields Avenue with blocks color-coded by decade of oldest construction next to a topographic map of the same area looks more like a page from a chemistry textbook than a work of architectural history, but that is precisely what makes Campanella's work so provocative and fascinating.
Campanella opens his section on "Ethnic Geographies" with a brief statistical analysis illustrating the fact that New Orleans was, between 1820 and 1850, the most diverse city in the country. The more important question for Campanella, however, is why New Orleans was able to attract newcomers from all over the world in such numbers, and it is an issue that he carries forward into his analysis of each ethnicity, examining how and why each minority group was drawn to the city. Using the deep geographical perspective gained from the first parts of the book, Campanella is able to illustrate with convincing meticulousness why minorities settled where they did and how they were integrated into the urban fabric of New Orleans.
Campanella's chapter on the Irish is presented as a historical puzzle: "where was the Irish Channel?" By looking at distributions of Irish-born New Orleanians from 1840 to 1940 and delving into historical accounts, Campanella is able to provide a map showing various overlapping and conflicting theories of where this elusive neighborhood was actually located, and how its perceived location varied over time. This approach provides fascinating insights into the architectural character of the city throughout its history and in every neighborhood.
Geographies of New Orleans was, of course, researched and written before Katrina washed over and forever disrupted the city that had developed over the centuries. Campanella points out ruefully that his work is now of questionable relevance to the city that has survived and that it stands only as a monument to what was lost. There are short epilogues to each chapter pointing out the effects of the storm, but for the most part, Katrina is restricted to a final chapter in which Campanella weaves together an emotional account of staying in his Bywater home throughout the storm and a cool, detached narrative in which Campanella the geographer begins to take stock of the storm and its impact on his city. One can only hope that he will continue this process and present us with a comprehensive portrait of the new city to complement this impressive and fascinating volume, rendered poignantly out of date by a single storm last August.