Whether one has lived in or visited the West for an entire lifetime, or whether one is coming to the West for the very first time, all readers of this book will find in Sutton's photographs a magisterial guide to what makes the West so unique, so special.

Poems and photographs, chiefly on California subjects.

Haunting postcard images of the non-Western world from a century ago. The antique postcards depicted here were acquired in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Western tourists, business people, traders, and colonialists. The circumstances in which the cards were sent, and the details of those who sent them, are largely lost. Yet the audience for collecting them has enjoyed a spectacular growth in recent years and includes not only those with the collecting instinct or the desire to travel but also artists, photographic historians, fashion and jewelry specialists, and designers everywhere. Once it was believed that by taking someone's portrait you stole that person's soul. Here, the human subjects have a powerful presence because they express a deep-seated connection with the land and customs that gave them their identities. Their stories are implicit in their eyes, their costumes, and their postures. Reproduced with complete fidelity, these postcards take us on a magical journey across the world in five travelogues, depicting Asia, the Arab Lands, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. The book is introduced by one of the greatest and most successful travel writers of our time.

"'The process of transfer to private ownership of government land or government-supervised Indian land was the woof thread on the loom of the frontier,' the author writes in his preface. 'This thread was continually interlaced with hard experiences in the struggle for existence, thus weaving the fabric of the social and economic history of the American frontier. My aim in this book is to trace this thread from government ownership of the land into private hands.' Although Thomas Jefferson reckoned that the march of population from the Appalachians to the Pacific would take one hundred generations, by 1935 the western wilderness, created by law in the 1780s as the 'unreserved and unappropriated public domain,' had all but vanished. It is the human side of this process of land distribution that Professor Dick examines--'how the land-hungry pioneer interpreted the land laws, or ignored them; his success in "handing up laws" to Congress by frontier usage when existing statutes were inadequate for his needs; his custom of illegally exploiting the natural resources; and the final end of exploitation and the coming of a policy of conservation.' After a brief discussion of colonial land policies and the formation of the public domain in the post-Revolutionary period, the author describes the adoption of the surveying system, the actual work of the surveyors, and how the land was distributed to settlers. There follow chapters on the squatter; the use of land by lumbering interests; the struggle for pre-emption; the campaign of the West for free land and the passage of the Homestead Act; the problems which accompanied the acquisition of land from foreign governments; the occupation and exploitation of the mineral lands; the occupation and use of the grasslands with a discussion of the range wars; land given for internal improvements such as railroads; the openings of Indian reservations with their land rushes or drawings; the final occupancy of the dry land for use by dry-land farming or irrigation; and finally the coming of conservation and the establishment of the permanent public domain in the form of national forests and grazing land. Professor Dick's work goes beyond present books on land in the realm of human interest, for it deals with the people themselves, not with acts of Congress or legal decisions. It also goes deeper than previously published works into such areas as the development of claim clubs, squatting, and the holding of public land by individuals for extended use or speculation while waiting to sell at an advance over the government price."--Dust jacket.

Is private ownership an inviolate right that individuals can wield as they see fit? Or is it better understood in more collective terms, as an institution that communities reshape over time to promote evolving goals? What should it mean to be a private landowner in an age of sprawling growth and declining biological diversity? These provocative questions lie at the heart of this perceptive and wide-ranging new book by legal scholar and conservationist Eric Freyfogle. Bringing together insights from history, law, philosophy, and ecology, Freyfogle undertakes a fascinating inquiry into the ownership of nature, leading us behind publicized and contentious disputes over open-space regulation, wetlands protection, and wildlife habitat to reveal the foundations of and changing ideas about private ownership in America. Drawing upon ideas from Thomas Jefferson, Henry George, and Aldo Leopold and interweaving engaging accounts of actual disputes over land-use issues, Freyfogle develops a powerful vision of what private ownership in America could mean—an ownership system, fair to owners and taxpayers alike, that fosters healthy land and healthy economies.

Explores the multiple senses of place in society through cultural studies, history, geography, photography, and contemporary public art

I have heard of a land Where the imagination has no fences Where what is dreamed one night Is accomplished the next day/FONT In the late 1880s, signs went up all around America - land was free in the Oklahoma territory. And it was free to everyone: Whites, Blacks, men and women alike. All one needed to stake a claim was hope and courage, strength and perseverance. Thousands of pioneers, many of them African-Americans newly freed from slavery, headed west to carve out a new life in the Oklahoma soil. Drawing upon her own family history, National Book Award winner Joyce Carol Thomas has crafted an unforgettable anthem to these brave and determned people from America's past. Richly illustrated by Coretta Scott King Award honoree Floyd Cooper, I Have Heard of a Land is a glorious tribute to the Afrian-American pioneer spirit. 00-01 Sequoyah Children's Book Award Masterlist

From bestselling author Lynne Ewing comes a gritty, sexy novel perfect for fans of books like Perfect Chemistry—about a teen forced to become a "lure," a beautiful girl used by her street gang to seduce and entrap rival gang members. The Lure tells the story of fifteen-year-old Blaise Montgomery, who lives on the dangerous outskirts of Washington, DC, where a stray bullet can steal a life on the way to school and death lurks around every corner. Drugs and violence are the only ways to survive, so Blaise and her friends turn to gangs for safety, money, and love. And when Blaise is accepted into one of the toughest gangs in the city, she's finally part of a crew. A family. But as Blaise is put in increasingly dangerous situations, particularly as her gang's newest lure, she begins to see there's more to lose than she ever realized. Should Blaise continue to follow the only path she's ever known, or cut and run?

In this major work on landscape photography, extensively illustrated in colour and black & white, Liz Wells is concerned with the ways in which photographers engage with issues about land, its representation and idealisation. She demonstrates how the visual interpretation of land as landscape reflects and reinforces contemporary political, social and environmental attitudes. She also asks what is at stake in landscape photography now through placing critical appraisal of key examples of work by photographers working in, for example, the USA, in Europe, Scandinavia and Baltic areas, within broader art historical and political concerns. This illuminating book will interest readers in photography and media, geography, art history and travel, as well as those concerned with environmental issues.