The early twentieth century's futuristic utopian plans for your home and lifestyle--in vivid color and detail!

The Santa Cruz River that once flowed through Tucson, Arizona is today a sad mirage of a river. Except for brief periods following heavy rainfall, it is bone dry. The cottonwood and willow trees that once lined its banks have died, and the profusion of birds and wildlife recorded by early settlers are nowhere to be seen. The river is dead. What happened? Where did the water go. As Robert Glennon explains in Water Follies, what killed the Santa Cruz River -- and could devastate other surface waters across the United States -- was groundwater pumping. From 1940 to 2000, the volume of water drawn annually from underground aquifers in Tucson jumped more than six-fold, from 50,000 to 330,000 acre-feet per year. And Tucson is hardly an exception -- similar increases in groundwater pumping have occurred across the country and around the world. In a striking collection of stories that bring to life the human and natural consequences of our growing national thirst, Robert Glennon provides an occasionally wry and always fascinating account of groundwater pumping and the environmental problems it causes. Robert Glennon sketches the culture of water use in the United States, explaining how and why we are growing increasingly reliant on groundwater. He uses the examples of the Santa Cruz and San Pedro rivers in Arizona to illustrate the science of hydrology and the legal aspects of water use and conflicts. Following that, he offers a dozen stories -- ranging from Down East Maine to San Antonio's River Walk to Atlanta's burgeoning suburbs -- that clearly illustrate the array of problems caused by groundwater pumping. Each episode poses a conflict of values that reveals the complexity of how and why we use water. These poignant and sometimes perverse tales tell of human foibles including greed, stubbornness, and, especially, the unlimited human capacity to ignore reality. As Robert Glennon explores the folly of our actions and the laws governing them, he suggests common-sense legal and policy reforms that could help avert potentially catastrophic future effects. Water Follies, the first book to focus on the impact of groundwater pumping on the environment, brings this widespread but underappreciated problem to the attention of citizens and communities across America.

Bestselling author and Berkeley professor of thirty years Frederick Crews has always considered himself a skeptic. Forty years ago he thought he had found a tradition of thought — Freudian psychoanalytic theory — that had skepticism built into it. He gradually realized, however, that true skepticism is an attitude of continual questioning. The more closely Crews examined the logical structure and institutional history of psychoanalysis, the more clearly he realized that Freud's system of thought lacked empirical rigor. Indeed, he came to see Freudian theory as the very model of a modern pseudoscience. Follies of the Wise contains Crews's best writing of the past fifteen years, including such controversial and widely quoted pieces as "The Unknown Freud" and "The Revenge of the Repressed," essays whose effects still reverberate today. In addition, his topics range from "Intelligent Design" creationism to theosophy, from psychological testing to UFO zaniness, from American Buddhism to the current state of literary criticism. A single theme animates his bracing and witty discussions: the temptation to reach for deep wisdom without attending to the little voice that asks, "Could I, by any chance, be deceiving myself here?"

The progress of science and the growth of knowledge, claim the authors, depend upon challenging accepted dogma and belief. Their purpose in this book is not to criticize medicine or those who practice it but to advocate the need for criticism in medicine. Doctors, they claim, can discover new ways and improve old ways to ease the human journey from cradle to grave--through rational inquiry, honest admission of ignorance, and by demystifying rituals. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In this definitive biography, Cynthia Brideson and Sara Brideson offer a comprehensive look at both the life and legacy of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. Drawing on a wide range of sources, they provide a lively and well-rounded account of Ziegfeld as a father, a husband, a son, a friend, a lover, and an alternately ruthless and benevolent employer. Lavishly illustrated, this is an intimate and in-depth portrait of a figure who profoundly changed American entertainment.

A young woman joins Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Barnum’s circus to rescue her infant from the KKK In the seventh stand-alone book of The American Novels series, Ellen Finch, former stenographer to Henry James, recalls her time as an assistant to Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, heroes of America’s woman suffrage movement, and her friendship with the diminutive Margaret, one of P. T. Barnum’s circus “eccentrics.” When her infant son is kidnapped by the Klan, Ellen, Margaret, and the two formidable suffragists travel aboard Barnum’s train from New York to Memphis to rescue the baby from certain death at the fiery cross. A savage yet farcical tale, American Follies explores the roots of the women’s rights movement, its relationship to the fight for racial justice, and its reverberations in the politics of today.

This remarkably illuminating portrait of Tennessee Williams lifts the veil on the heart and soul of his artistic inspiration: the unspoken collaboration between playwright and actor. At a low moment in Williams’s life, he summoned to New Orleans a young twenty-year-old writer, James Grissom, who had written him a letter asking for advice. After a long, intense conversation, Williams sent Grissom on a journey on his behalf to find out if he or his work had mattered to those who had so deeply mattered to him. Among the more than seventy women and men with whom Grissom talked were giants of American theater and film: Lillian Gish, (“the escort who brought me to Blanche”), Jessica Tandy (the original Blanche DuBois on Broadway), Eva Le Gallienne (“She was a stone against which I could rub my talent and feel that it became sharper”), Maureen Stapleton, Julie Harris, Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Elia Kazan, Marlon Brando, John Gielgud, and many more. Follies of God provides dazzling insight into how Williams conjured the dramatic characters and plays that so transformed American theater.

This book examines how dominant interest groups manipulate the available science to support their positions.

The United States once was a traditional republic, remaining aloof from foreign conflicts. Today no problem on earth is exempt from Washington's meddling. The result is an oversize military, perpetual intervention, and consistent conflict, according to Bandow, who says it's time for a new foreign policy.

New York Times bestseller A down-to-earth, hilarious collection of stories and musings on marriage, motherhood, and country life from the #1 New York Times bestselling author and star of the Food Network show The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. Once upon a time, I lost my marbles and married a sexy, Wrangler-wearing cowboy named Ladd. That single decision would wind up setting the stage for years of rural adventures (and misadventures), and while I can't imagine my life being any different, raising a family in the “idyllic” countryside has not been without a few bumps in the road. (Or were those cow patties? It's hard to tell the difference sometimes.) I'm excited to share this crazy collection of true stories from my full-of-energy, hard-to-tame, wonderfully wild (and very weird) frontier family. From the unique challenges of being married to a rancher to the blood, sweat, mud, and tears of raising country kids, I'll pull back the curtain and let you in on some of the sh*t and shenanigans that have really gone on here on Drummond Ranch over the past two-plus decades. You'll learn about marital spats, run-ins with wildlife, ER visits, my parenting neuroses, triumphs, tribulations, love, loss . . . and how manure has somehow managed to weave its way through all of it. To keep things up to the minute, you'll also hear about more recent family developments that have tested my sanity and pushed me to the brink. (And pleasantly surprised me, too.) This book is both a love letter and a laugh letter, and I hope you get a big kick out of it all: the good, the bad, and the dirty. Mostly, I hope it demonstrates how much I adore this family of mine . . . even if I sometimes have to use rubber snakes to show it.