Geography Books

This is an astonishing book, one that defies easy categorization or even any categorization at all. It is by turns
thought-provoking, horrifying, and inspiring, and the buyer will never regret the money spent on it. This book will stay with the reader for a long time to come.

I haven't read the book yet, but the cover image is amazing!

I read this book a couple of years and found it amazing!
It's heartbreaking, bloodchilling, and inspiring, all in one
book. These are stories that often remain untold and hidden in our culture, yet they are a distinct and vital part of
our national experience. I read the first edition, by the way,
and I now plan to buy the second, updated edition, which I
anticipate will deal with the World Trade Center attacks, the
Pentagon attack, and the Shencksville, PA, air crash. If you
buy one book this year, buy this one!

Excellent overview of why we choose to designate tragic events in some cases, and hush-up others shamefully. Poignant, original...no other book so comprehensively covers the geography of painful memorials. An interesting sequel could be written regarding domestic terrorism, not just in America, but regarding other countries' place-memorials of such events.

If you arrange your library by category you may have trouble with this book. History? True Crime? Cultural Geography? Anthropology? Sociology? American Studies?

The book covers the sites of disaster, assassination, murder and accident all across America, including nearly every site and shrine in Texas. We review it not just for it's interesting content, but its coverage of a most unusual type of geography. It's a thought-provoking book at how, why and in what manner we deal with the sites of violence (and tragedy).

The individual stories of the incidents are told completely, but without distracting from the book's theme.

It's a unique book and should remain so for some time. Foote's thoroughness guarantees that.

This book is the definitive history of the riding families -- the Border Reviers. It is a long scholarly look into the nature of these complex and determined families that does not pass judgment or apply modern values in the assessment of their history and deeds. This is not for the casusal reader. It uses a fair amount of old English spellings and can be an effort to decifer at times. However Fraser MacDonald combines this along with his natural story telling ability to make you feel as if you are on a foray across the border and it keeps you coming back for more. If you are a student of Border history or are lucky enough to have one of the riding names, make the effort to read this book. It has no equal in its treatment of the subject.

Until England and Scotland were united under a single king in March 1603, the border between them was, unsurprisingly, a natural place for strife and disorder. The two countries had been at war intermittently for centuries, and many armies had passed back and forth across the border counties. Fraser's history covers the last hundred years of the border, from 1503 to 1603, a period during which the decayed (and astonishingly corrupt) administration could never cope with the local gangs -- known as "reivers" -- who terrorized the district with cattle theft, murder, and arson.

The book is very well-organized. Fraser starts with a few pages on the long historical background, then takes about half the book to cover the reivers by topic: chapters on arms and armour; on reiving technique; on the key families and their alliances; on cross-border relations; on the administrative structure. Fraser gives a lot of details, and plenty of quotes from the original sources (with the original spellings!).

This painstaking coverage sets up the second half of the book perfectly: one hundred and forty pages that cover the history of the border chronologically through the sixteenth century. With the details in hand, the second half is easy to follow and put in context; the writing is also clear and entertaining.

The last section of the book details the uncompromising way in which King James I destroyed the reivers in a few short years after 1603. It is a startlingly bloodthirsty story: Fraser includes quotes from blanket pardons that King James issued to some of his enforcers, which essentially say "whatever murders you did, I'm sure it was in a good cause, and you're absolved".

There are separate chapters on some of the most famous events, notably the raid on Carlisle Castle that freed Kinmont Willie. Fraser is at some pains to dispel the romantic ideas that cling to stories of the borderers -- as he points out, they were essentially a Mafia, with little of Robin Hood about them. It's clear, though, that he finds their adventurousness and style endearing and fascinating; and he writes about them so well that you are likely to feel the same way.

MacDonald Fraser brings to the history of the Anglo-Scots border reivers all the exuberance and attention to detail that made his name in the Flashman novels. Readers looking for more gloriously politically-incorrect adventures from the Victorian age won't find them here, but this book does repay the extra effort needed from the reader. The Steel Bonnets is the most entertaining yet informative serious works of history I have read.
The story of the Anglo-Scots border is a complex and a bloody one. MacDonald Fraser manages to understand, without condoning, the hard men who fought and died, rode and raided across the border between the kingdoms of England and Scotland. He untangles the knotted threads of their family ties and feuds and reveals their part in the wider relations between England and Scotland prior to the union of the Crowns in 1603. He dives into the dusty depths of the written records and brings them back to us red in tooth and claw.
At a time when the border between England and Scotland looks as though it may become an international, rather than a domestic border once more, this book should be of relevence to all with an interest in and love of these two nations.

I was born in Carlisle, England. The second big town of the border area other than Berwick. My father is from Longtown, Cumbria which is right next to the debateable land and I have the last name of Crozier. This book was like reading about my own history and explained a whole lot of things about my home town and the people I grew up with. Just in my neighborhood, there were Armstrongs, Taylors, Littles, Nixons, Grahams and many other Reiver names.
This is a very scholarly book and exceptionally well written. The author must have done an incredible amount of research to put this together. I read it twice, the second time noting how many references to Croziers(Crosers) there were. My father's family name is in there 26 times. Along with the Armstrongs, Nixons and Eliots, we were considered the worst of the worst of the reivers. Maybe not something to be proud of, but interesting. According to my mother(God rest her soul)her paternal grandfather was the illegitmate son of the Duke of Buccleugh(you'll hear a lot about the Scotts of Buccleugh, many of whom had the same name of Walter, including the famous one), so I have Reiver blood from there too. Fascinating book especially if you have a surname that might go back to that part of the world and those times.
What I have written here is just a taste of the whole book. A little heavy going at times, but so good that I have read it twice already and now use it as a research tool.

As a newcomer to Scottish Border history I found the many forces and families influencing events very confusing. George MacDonald Fraser has written a remarkable book in which he creates order and logic from a very complicated period and at the same time has written a book which is etremely readble.

It essential reading for anybody interested in border history and will no doubt be quoted extensively by writers who follow.

I thought that book is really nice. The pictures are very detailed and i thought that getting it used that it would be in bad shape. Really it was in perfect condition. I have been looking at this book alot to learn about tornado's. I really recommed this book.

Jim Reed's new book STORM CHASER: A PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNEY is nothing short of amazing. WIth breath taking photos and insightful anecdotes, the book takes the reader into the forces of nature that shape our lives and create historic, defining moments in time. I met Jim on the ground in Greensburg, KS and he was exceedingly kind and allowed me to spend a very enjoyable afternoon with him chronicling the aftermath of the tornado that struck there. Jim's soul shines thru in every photo and his passion for weather, photography and in the end people is wonderfully displayed in this work. I have his two previous works and all are works of art! Heed Jim's advice to get a weather radio- he knows what he is talking about! I don't look at the sky the same way after meeting him and seeing his work!

My wife bought this for her father, who is impossible to buy gifts for. She read it first and loved it. Anyone who is interested in nature or science will like it very much.

The title "Storm Chaser" might lead one to believe this is a book about tornado chasing. It is but it's a whole lot more! Photographer Jim Reed takes his readers on a journey of land, sea, and sky covering the four seasons. Along the way we learn how Reed, once an eight year old boy, quickly became hooked on weather and began keeping a diary of events. As an adult he's traveled across North America photographing devastating tornadoes, hurricanes, raging flood waters, spectacular lightning displays, and blinding blizzards. Yet he also focuses on more benign (yet still beautiful) events such as rainbows, aurora, fall foliage, and migrating butterflies. Perhaps the book should have been titled "Open your eyes and take a look at all the interesting weather out there" because Reed shows us that there's natural beauty and wonder everywhere --if one just takes time to stop and smell the roses. Storm Chaser makes a great coffee table book but it's also a good study guide for those looking to improve their skills in photographing nature.

I received this book as a gift. The photos in the book are very good. Excellent in most cases. My only complaint, and it a very minor one, is that as an amateur photographer, I would love to have seen the EXIF data (i.e, shutter speed, ISO, F-Stop, etc.) from the camera published at the bottom of each photo. However I understand this is a book of photos, not a photography book. Given the photos, the author must have a lot of waterproof equipment.

If a silly picture of a gust of wind blowing down Main Street doesn't do anything for you, you've never read "Yo, Sacramento!" It should remind you that Augusta is the capital of Maine. The whole book is a marvelous mix of funny mnemonic cartoons with interesting facts about the states and capitals. My eight year old daughter loves this book and its companion, "Yo, Millard Filmore!"; she memorized the Presidents in a few minutes and the states/capitals in a couple days. And although I hate to admit that I couldn't remember them from my school days, the books helped me learn them too. (I don't know about the "never forget" part, but it does stick with you, and it's easy to pick back up.) When we showed these books to my family, my niece (the daughter of a social studies teacher) even told me she thought it was too easy; it must be cheating somehow to learn them this way!

I have to say, however, I prefer the Millard Filmore book to the Sacramento one, primarily because 'Millard' is designed as a series -- an element from each picture is carried into the next in order to reinforce the historical sequence. This not only teaches the sequence, but it helped me with the actual memorization -- I know I haven't left any presidents out. 'Sacramento' is a group of unconnected pictures, which may connect the capitals to their states -- and generally link the states with their geographic region, but doesn't guarantee you have all the states. ("Oops! I only counted 47! Which ones did I leave out?") If I could wish for anything besides additional titles in this series, it would be that 'Sacramento' could be rewritten to link the states together from east to west or alphabetically or even in order of admission to the union, so you end up with all 50 states in your brain.

I bought this for my 3-1/2 year-old son, who has an interest in the United States (thanks to "The Scrambled States Of America"). He really enjoys this book! I must say that I've picked up quite a bit of information myself.

Yo, Sacramento! is a humorous incentive to learn the capitals for every state. The word pictures which aid memory recall are sure to prompt hearty laughter. The fast-paced writing style is an added bonus. One can laugh, learn facts, and have state capitals memorized in under 30 minutes!

I teach school and used the illustrations and catchy phrases to help students learn the states and capitals. It really works! have older students and they need to learn countries and capitals. I would love to see Will Cleveland & Mike Alvarez team up again and write a book to help us memorize these (but maybe not in 20 minutes)!

This book really helps a child or an adult to memorize states and capitals within 20 minutes. I have never come across any program so precise. My kids really enjoy learning with the picture and word association method used in the book. This book should be used in all schools around the world.

Great graphics, tremendous research, a treasure trove for "data miners" from all spectrums of science - ecology, climatology, sociology, forestry, geology, etc. Once you read this book you will understand the Adirondacks far better than most life-long residents of the region.

Geologically, the Adirondacks owe more to the Canadian Shield from which it arises as it passes under the St. Lawrence River. This remarkable coffee table book contains some of the most majestic and intimately beautiful photographs of the East's greatest wilderness. Far from simply showing the natural landscape, this volume delves into the Adirondack Park's culture, history and economics. The book also explores through photographs and narrative, the complex mixture of people and wilderness and it's fragile coexistence. This is a grand mixture of prose and photography that will please anyone, fan of the Adirondack Mountains or one about to be.

Because a good picture can be worth a thousand words, or quite possibly ten thousand, as demonstrated by the detailed, high quality graphics packing every page of Jenkins' book, his "Adirondack Atlas" (which is ever so much more than an "atlas") truly can be said to contain volumes of fascinating, up-to-date, accurate and pertinent information on our incomparable six-million acre "forever wild" forest park. Indeed, this one model reference book captures in its 267 pages an amount of information equivalent to that found in a small library of the best available books on Adirondack history, politics, geography, geology, ecology and natural history, and then adds considerable information and highly readable interpretation that can be found in no other published work. It is a miracle of a book, the work of a stunning and accomplished intellect.

Very informative book - a wealth of current knowledge. A pleasure to pick up in spare moments to read a bit and expand my knowledge of this great park. Have shared with friends already.

Jerry Jenkins and Andy Keal do a great job covering the entire spectrum of the Adirondack Park, which I find helpful when doing research for my books, "New York State's Mountain Heritage: Adirondack Attic" volumes 1-3. Their compilation of material is astounding and historic in itself, a marvel of Adirondack publishing. It tires me to think of the countless hours of research that went into writing this book. This is a must-read for those who love New York State's Adirondack Mountains.

My kids--ages 6.5 and 3--are obsessed with this book. It has all the great elements of children's literature: heroes (in this case a cowgirl - yeah! - -and her female horse sidekick), two bad guys, suspense, vibrant and action-packed illustrations, and tons of humor. The only catch: You must read it in a funky Western twang to get the right feel out of it. My daughter has been checking this out of the library since she was 3. I finally decided to buy our own copy last week.

One of the best childrens books ever!. original and so much fun to read out loud. makes me want to learn to yodel, square dance and drink saspirilla.

this book is a pleasure to read out loud...the art work is beautiful. Finally, a cleverly written adventure with a girl leading the action.

Ms. Watson's story set in the old west with dashing heroine is sure to delight the little ones in your household. Reading this story to my children reminds me of the Saturday afternoon TV westerns of my childhood. I find this story most amusing when read with the inflection of the late, great Slim Pickens. This is a FUN book!

New and inspiring. One of the most original childrens novel to date. Excellant!

Contrary to other information, this book is a good neutral source to the history of the middle east in maps.

The book does not take a stand on the issue of what land was and was not promised to arabs during the first world war. Anyone who claims they found an easy answer to that question in this atlas is misrepresenting the material.

Further maps show patterns of Jewish popluation growth. But none of the maps claim to show: 1) the price at which the land was sold, 2) that Palestine was a waste land, 3) the motives for land sales to Jews during the mandate and pre-mandate period.

Other maps show conficts between the communities within what is now Israel. They show a pattern of consistant and growing resistance of local people (palestinians) to the creation by force of a Jewish State around their homes.

The book also does not claim that Transjordan was ever a part of any intended jewish homeland, consistant with history. Any suggestion that the league of nations had ever sought to incorporate lands east of the jordan river into a jewish state is false. See the text of the mandate, the discussions of the negotiation of the mandate...etc. It is further false and not suggested by the book that the 1920-21 riots by palestinians against the mandate ended any jewish immigration.

The atlas shows the growing violence between palestinians and jewish settlers throughout the mandate period. What maps cannot show however are movements among the settlers to economically exclude all arabs from their lives. Movements such as hebrew labor which attempted to create economic segregation within palestine are not easily shown in maps.

The facts as shown by the book are that Palestinians resisted the creation of the mandate and a jewish homeland since the start. And that as the pace of jewish migration increased, violence and resistance increased in parallel. And throughout the mandate period there were deaths on both sides. The book also clearly shows the increasing violence that ended in civil war in 1948.

The peel commission did not find that Jerusalem was a predominatly jewish city. But it did use the example of the forced removal of greeks from Turkey in 1922 to suggest all non-jews be removed by force from the jewish state proposed by the Peel Commission. During the late 1930s, the Palestinians insisted on one country for all people. Every British proposal for division of the country involved large-scale explusions of Palestinians and a continuation of british rule over a large part of the remaining land (so-called international rule).

The book finally shows the war of 1948 and its disasterous results for palestinians. The flight of palestinians away from their homes during the war, the destruction of their villages by Israel and Israeli massacres like Dier Yassein of Palestinians are all shown in great detail. It also shows the patterns of settlement following the 1967 occupation of the west bank and gaza.

And while some will use the book to apportion blame, its better to look at the book and get a sense of who has lost what. Palestine, in 1921 was denied national existance and turned over to the british for colonization by europeans. In 1948, Democratic Israel was created by driving what would now be a non-jewish majority out of their homes within the new state of Israel. And after 1967, the clear intent of the Israelis to take all the land through settlements is more than visible.

Beyond that, arguments about what might have been in 1937 are utterly worthless today. The situation is that a huge population of Palestinians today lives in the west bank under Israeli military rule with no rights. That situation must change if there is to be peace. 1948 cannot be undone anymore than 1917 can be undone. But rather than apportion blame or point fingers or rehash the past, what needs to be done is to find a way to give the palestinians in the occupied territories a national state once and for all.

History can provide a source of facts, but it cannot make a peace. Peace can only be made by looking at the grim reality of the current situation and finding a solution.

My 1993 edition of this classic reference contains 147 maps imparting great wisdom, and a depth of understanding rarely presented in the evening news. Only three maps concern periods before the twentieth century. The third shows the Turkish conquerors' vilayet re-districting of the Holy Land in 1888, plus areas of Arab-Jewish conflict during the last three decades of Ottoman rule.

The book's fourth map clearly outlines the areas excluded in 1915 from the independence promised by the British to the Arabs, and requested by Hussein of Mecca for Arab cantons. Neither side mentioned southern Palestine, the Mutasarriflik of Jerusalem or the Jewish people--at all.

Further maps also evidence the eagerness of Arab property owners to sell waste land to Jewish settlers at very high prices, for very large tracts were made available.

Still others show the locations of Arab attacks on Jewish communities beginning in 1882. Through 1914, bands of Arabs assaulted at least 10 Jewish settlements between Jaffa and Jerusalem and in the Jezreel Valley.

From 1920 on, the maps show progressively more attacks, in which Arab assailants destroyed the new landowners' forests, wheat fields, orange groves and cattle, burned and stoned their shops and factories--and murdered unarmed Jews.

A March 1920 attack by a large number of Halsa Arabs on the Jews in Tel Hai killed six; an April 1920 attack on B'nai Yehuda killed one. In May 1921, Arab riots prompted Britain, the League of Nations' trustee of all Middle Eastern Mandates, to end Jewish immigration and "close settlement of the land" throughout Transjordan, both of which the League had sought, with Arab approval, only a few years earlier. Only these attacks, and the Arab 1929 riots that killed 20 Jewish children and elders in Safed, 7 in Hacarmel, 6 in Motza, 1 in Hulda, 6 in Tel Aviv, 2 in Beer Toviya--and 59 in Hebron-- persuaded previously passive Jewish farmers to take up arms, thereby defying British prohibitions against Jewish self-defense.

The fact is, Arab riots occurred well in advance of Israel's creation. They took scores of Jewish civilian lives. And then (in 1921)--as now--the only Arabs killed by Jews were killed in counter-attacks that followed the initial Arab assaults.

All this shows clearly on the maps readers reach page 14.

From here, the pictorials exhibit the precise dimensions of the 1936 Arab riots, with one page devoted to each of four months. The casualties to Jewish life and property were massive and nationwide. More riots in 1937 and 1938 followed.

Most enlightening of all, however, are those maps detailing the various partition plans over the years. The first of these, which the Jewish people accepted, and the Arabs rejected, was the 1937 Peel Commission proposal. The Peel Commission envisioned a tiny Jewish State, an L-shaped affair perhaps 6 or 8 miles-wide along the Mediterranean coast, from south of Rehovot to a few miles north of Acre with a northern corridor no more than 30 miles deep running from the coast, and inland on a border south of Afula to Beit Shean. Even this, the Jewish people accepted, and Arabs rejected.

But the Peel proposal was most remarkable for something else it inherently acknowledged: Jerusalem was not a "traditionally Arab city," as modern-day news repeatedly misinforms us. Its population--which was centered in the Old City--was predominantly Jewish. Christians and Muslims were minorities.

Thus the Peel Commission assigned Jerusalem, Bethlehem and a roughly oval-shaped area surrounding them, to an international trust to be managed by Britain for the League of Nations.

When that plan foundered on the Arab refusals, two subsequent 1938 partition plans proposed assigning even larger areas to the international trust. The more significant of the pair was the British Woodhead plan, as it was none too sympathetic to Zioninsts. Nevertheless, Woodhead expanded the international area encompassing Jerusalem and Bethlehem to include "traditionally Arab Ramallah" as well.

It is a lot more difficult after consulting this book, to lay blame for the Arab Israeli conflict solely on Israel's doorstep. The pictures tell the story. While the Camp David II final settlement offered in 2000 and 2001 is not shown, the book does contain maps of the "peace enclaves" as the future Palestinian Authority areas were then called. Moreover the later proposals almost seem unnecessary, given the illustrations of intense anti-Jewish attacks that began even before Israel was a state.

In short, Israel could and would have been much smaller than it is today if only Arabs had in 1937 accepted any Jewish state. They didn't, although none of the current issues even existed in 1937. But then, they had begun attacking Jewish farmers decades before Israel had any borders at all. These points are very telling indeed.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

Professor Gilbert may know more about this subject than any other scholar, and despite some inherent difficulties has reconstructed geographical areas with great precision. Even those who disagree with his views (occasionally expressed in the explanatory captions) must acknowledge the consumate scholarship underlying his maps--which have no "attitudes," only facts.

The Arab-Israeli conflict is a fiercely debated topic with numerous accusations constantly being thrown back and forth. For someone just beginning to study the Arab-Israeli conflict, it can be overwhelming. This book is a collection of maps drafted by a professional cartographer to show the real dimensions of treaties, ceasefires, boycotts, and other historical moments in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Would you like to know exactly which land the Oslo Agreements included?

Would you like to know which parts of the Middle East belonged to biblical Israel?

Would you like to know which parts of Britain's Palestine Mandate they forbid Jews to dwell or buy land on?

This resource can answer all those question and more graphically showing you the exact boundaries of, countries involved in, and other important aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict. I particularly found this resource helpful in disputing allegations by people that "such-and such a percentage" of the land was to be given up in a treaty such as the original U.N. plan for Palestine or under the Oslo Agreements. After showing my fellow debater the actual maps, the arguments were ended since I was in possession of hard fact thanks to this fine reference book.

Sir Martin Gilbert is a well-acclaimed British scholar, who has written numerous titles in the Historical Atlas series, extensively written about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and was also officially appointed to write the biography of Sir Winston Churchill.

I have reviewed the 1984 Fourth Edition, but several editions have since come out with updated information and additional maps to reflect more recent developments. I recommend getting the most recent edition available.

I highly recommend this outstanding resource for anyone studying the Arab-Israeli conflict, whether pro-Arab or pro-Israeli.

Review by: Maximillian Ben Hanan

Very informative. Gives a good understanding of the conflict by one of the best historians alive right now. Buy it.

This book is very interesting. It allows you to actually visualize the regions related to biblical times. The illustrations and maps are very informative. The book is easy to read and understand.

This is a more comprehensive summary than one would get in an encyclopedia. Nice for what it is.

This Illustrated Atlas did help me much to understand more about the Biblical Place. Looking to the pictures and reading at the same time felt like as if I was there. It is like visiting a holy place, because the picture says all.

Bought this for my husband. He forund this book interesting and enlightening.The quality is excellent.He read and reread several times.

This is a great book for history buffs, especially about the history of Christianity. Gives you a view of the old world versus the new world.

Members of Duke University's Sigma Nu fraternity are thugs. At least, one could get that impression from walking by their section and hearing such musical selections as "Baby I'm a Thug" and "Nothin' but a G Thang" that are frequently boom from within. Adopting parts of the gangsta persona for well-monied groups of future investment bankers and may be relatively consequence free but may not be the case for many youths in Chicago's South Side. This is one issue that Mary Pattillo-McCoy addresses in her ethnographic study of the middle class residents of the South Side's Groveland community, Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among The Black Middle Class.

Black Picket Fences is in part a response to what Pattillo-McCoy characterizes as the research pendulum of socio-economic studies of blacks having "swung to the extreme." That is, despite the large body of research focusing on the black population, the overwhelming majority further focuses on the less affluent portions of the population, having largely other segments the black population. However, research and knowledge of the black middle class is vitally important because, as Pattillo-McCoy points out, these are the people who are supposedly living the lives that our government and society has envisioned for all blacks following the Civil Rights era of the 1960s.

In the book, the author emphasizes the prevalence and importance of spatial orientation of racial communities. Pattillo-McCoy utilizes census data to show that in Chicago and most other metropolitan areas, black communities are concentrated in "black belts" surrounded by tracts of predominantly white communities. On the periphery of these black belts are often middle-income black communities that serve as a buffer between white communities and low-income black communities.

This picture, though, is not static through time. Pattillo-McCoy reveals a game of racial cat-and-mouse in which middle class black families are chasing their white counterparts. The pattern starts when a black family moves into a predominantly white neighborhood. Whites begin leaving the area, and soon the area is predominantly middle class black. Then lower income blacks migrate into the area, creating a mixture of economic statuses within the community. Such is the case in Groveland.

One concern that arises from her heavy reliance on census data, though, is the possibility of generalization. This is especially troublesome in light of the high socio-economic diversity of many black communities that Pattillo-McCoy describes. This is not as much in relation to her Groveland study area, but the other South Side communities that the author details in chapters one and two.

The implications of living in such an economically diverse community are large, especially for adolescents. Pattillo-McCoy points out that the appeal of deviance to teenagers cuts across racial and class lines, the motivations and accessibility of deviant behavior are often very different. In Groveland, a teenager is constantly confronted with realities of gang life and drug use because gang members and drug users are a large part of the Groveland community. In fact, most teenagers have acquaintances who are in gangs or who know gang members. This means that a part of the teenager's social network probably participates in gang behavior and drug use, making him or her both easy access and social reinforcement for such activities. This is less often the case for middle class whites, who often reside in homogenous neighborhoods where gangs and drugs are less common.

McCoy also emphasizes that today's young Groveland residents are much downward social mobility than previous generations of Groveland residents and middle class whites outside of Groveland.

There are often family and community security mechanisms to help Groveland residents. It is relatively common for divorced or resource-limited mothers to move in with her own parents. The grandparents help in parenting by supervising children, changing diapers, and serving as role models for children. Also, many families in Groveland are third or fourth generation residents, so most people in the community have long-standing social connections to other residents. These connections often prevent wrong-doers from targeting others in the community, and the familiarity helps potential targets feel more comfortable around people they perceive as being criminals, because in all likelihood they know each other or other's parents or children.

McCoy shows how individual Groveland residents deftly navigate between "street" and "decent" parts of their social networks by code and persona switching. Chief among these is William "Spider" Waters, a marijuana-smoking gang member who works two jobs with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Groveland Park, respectively. At the exchange, he speaks proper English, goes by Will, and works on his days off. In Groveland, he speaks Black English, goes by Spider, and "kicks it" with his friends. Tyson Reed, former Groveland gang member, student at Grambling University, and aspiring lawyer, points out the even though he talks about school, grades, and academic things, he doesn't broach the subjects of grades or Albert Einstein with his friends from the ghetto.

This book has wide-ranging relevance. It is enriching academic reading for students in sociology, cultural anthropology, and ethnographic studies. More importantly, though, this book is very important to American citizens in general. This book is about their neighbors and illustrates injustices that take place within America's borders. If the American social ideal of racial integration is to ever become a reality, the American public needs to be more informed about why integration is taking so long, why middle class citizens are still socially constrained, and what unjust situations are being perpetuated within America's borders. Black Picket Fences gives a very personal, very compelling answers to these queries. It is certain that the situations that exist in Groveland exist elsewhere in America and quite probable that they exist outside of America, too. Therefore, this book comes highly recommended to everyone.

Through ethnographic research the author highlights the intersections between middle, working and lower class African Americans in Groveland, a primarily African Americans middle class community in Chicago. Despite arguments that the African American middle class is flourishing, Patillo McCoy documents how racial segregation and racism confines many middle class African Americans to neighborhoods that frequently have to battle issues such as crime, gangs and drug use, that white middle class neighborhoods do not. In addition she does an excellent job of tying in the consumer wants and desires of African American youth and adults with the capitalist nature of American society.

Through ethnographic research the author highlights the intersections between middle, working, and lower class African Americans in Groveland, a primarily African American middle class community in Chicago. Despite arguments that the African American middle class is flourishing, Patillo McCoy documents how racial segregation and racism confines many middle class African Americans to neighborhoods that frequently have to battle issues such as crime, gangs and drug use, that white middle class neighborhoods do not. In addition she does an excellent job of tying in the consumer wants and desires of African American youth and adults with the capitalist nature of American society.

Black Picket Fences is an insightful and informative survey of privilege and peril among middle class blacks providing an unusual, intriguing study of the pressures of black middle-class families. Sociologist Pattillo-McCoy lived in a black middle-class neighborhood in Chicago: her experiences serve as a foundation for analysis of social issues and change.

This is perhaps the most significant book on the black middle class since Wilson's Declining Significance of Race. The Author gives us a community study at par with Streetwise, Getting Paid, and Street Corner Society. Through this book, black neighborhood are transformed into multi-dimensional communities, rich with institutions and networks. Truely a balanced view, which goes beyond books like the Truely Disadvantaged (although both deal with the same community). Most importantly, the author reminds us of the link between structural factors and race. The content of the book should not be overlooked, and the conclusions regarding the need to maintain race-based affirmative action, even for middle class blacks, should influence every policymaker in the country.

I can do no better than the hydrogeologist Syndnor in summarizing the utility of this introductory work. My only critique is that Mount needs to revise the chapter on climate and consider projected impacts on CA's surface water based on what we now know after 13 years of data collection.
Just as Knox needs to revise his primer Global Climate Change and California (1992).

California Rivers and Streams: the conflict between fluvial processes and land use, Dr. Jeffrey F. Mount, 1995, University of California Press, 359 pages

California geologists, engineers, environmental planners, and the general public will enjoy reading this comprehensive book on California rivers. The author is Dr. Jeffrey Mount, who holds the Roy J. Shlemon Chair of Geology at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Mount is the Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis. He has formerly served on the Reclamation Board within the California Resources Agency.

With a heightened sense of public concern about flooding, water supply, levee repair, fish habitat, and river restoration, this book on California rivers is the best general primer that is currently available. Although not designed as a textbook, California teachers may find it suitable for introductory courses because of its comprehensive scope and highly readable narrative.

The book is divided into two parts. Part 1, How Rivers Work, includes: Chapter 1, Introduction to the rivers of California; Chapter 2, Water in motion, Chapter 3, A river at work ¯ sediment entrainment, transport, and deposition; Chapter 4, The shape of a river; Chapter 5, Origins of river discharge; Chapter 6, Sediment supply; Chapter 7, River network and profile; Chapter 8, Climate and the rivers of California; Chapter 9, Tectonics and geology of California's rivers.

Part 2, Learning the Lessons: Land Use and the Rivers of California, includes: Chapter 10, Rivers of California ¯ the last 200 years; Chapter 11, Mining and the rivers of California; Chapter 12, Logging California's watersheds; Chapter 13, Food production and the rivers of California; Chapter 14, A primer on flood frequency ¯ how much and how often? Chapter 15, The urbanization of California's rivers; Chapter 16, The damming of California's rivers; and Chapter 17, The future ¯ changing climate, changing rivers.

Review by Robert H. Sydnor
California Certified Hydrogeologist #6
LM-AEG, LM-AAAS, LM-AGU, M-GSA, M-AGWA

This book will answer any questions you have and then answer all the questions you are too dense to think of. Anyone living in California should be forced to read this. River runners also benefit from this book that shows the correct fleuvial processes, unlike many kayaking/rafting books. Read it, get on the water and then fight for the rivers!

This is a subperb review of how rivers systems work and how man-made changes effect these systems. Perfect for the interested layperson interested in earth science. The second half of this book covers the major watersheds of California.

I am a hydrologist and a water lawyer practicing in Washington DC -- this is the book I give to clients and friends to explain how rivers work and what people do to them. It assumes an intelligent reader but no background is required to get the main points. While its title and focus is California, the lessons are applicable throughout the country. Great book.