Dan Dagget believes that humanity can have a positive effect on the land.  He demonstrates case after case of positive human engagement in the environment and of managed ecosystems and restored areas that are richer, more diverse, and healthier than unmanaged ones. Much of pre-Columbian America, he contends, was not a pristine wilderness but an ancient garden managed over millennia by native peoples who shaped the plant and animal communities around them to the mutual benefit of all.

Dagget recommends a new kind of environmentalism based on management, science, evolution, and holism, and served by humans who enrich the environment even as they benefit from it. His new environmentalism offers hopeful solutions to the current ecological crisis and a new purpose for our human energies and ideals. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the earth and anyone seeking a viable way for our burgeoning human population to continue to live upon it.
 
 

Richard O. Davies won Foreword Reviews' INDIEFAB Book of the Year Bronze Medal in Sports for The Main Event: Boxing in Nevada from the Mining Camps to the Las Vegas Strip. Davies' book was chosen as one of the best indie books of 2014. 

As the twentieth century dawned, bare-knuckle prizefighting was transforming into the popular sport of boxing, yet simultaneously it was banned as immoral in many locales. Nevada was the first state to legalize it, in 1897, solely to stage the Corbett-Fitzsimmons world heavyweight championship in Carson City. Davies shows that the history of boxing in Nevada is integral to the growth of the sport in America. Promoters such as Tex Rickard brought in fighters like Jack Dempsey to the mining towns of Goldfield and Tonopah and presented the Johnson-Jeffries “Fight of the Century” in Reno in 1910. Prizefights sold tickets, hotel rooms, drinks, meals, and bets on the outcomes. It was boxing\--before gambling, prostitution, and easy divorce\--that first got Nevada called “America’s Disgrace” and the “Sin State.” The Main Event explores how boxing’s growth in Nevada relates to the state’s role as a social and cultural outlier. Starting in the Rat Pack era, organized gambling’s moguls built arenas outside the Vegas casinos to stage championships\--more than two hundred from 1960 to the present. Tourists and players came to see and bet on historic bouts featuring Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson, and other legends of the ring.

From the celebrated referee Mills Lane to the challenge posed by mixed martial arts in contemporary Las Vegas, the story of boxing in Nevada is a prism for viewing the sport. Davies utilizes primary and secondary sources to analyze how boxing in the Silver State intersects with its tourist economy and libertarian values, paying special attention to issues of race, class, and gender. Written in an engaging style that shifts easily between narrative and analysis, The Main Event will be essential reading for sports fans and historians everywhere.

A collection of biographical essays on fourteen contemporary Nevadans. The subjects of the essays are Maude Frazier; Moe Dalitz; James B. McMillan; William F. Harrah; Hank Greenspun; Alan Bible; Robert Laxalt; Grant Sawyer; Molly Flagg Knudtsen; Paul Laxalt; Steve Wynn; William Raggio; Sue Wagner; and Jerry Tarkanian. 

The Basques played a remarkably influential role in the creation and maintenance of Spain’s colonial establishment in the Philippines. Their skills as shipbuilders and businessmen, their evangelical zeal, and their ethnic cohesion and work-oriented culture made them successful as explorers, colonial administrators, missionaries, merchants, and settlers. They continued to play prominent roles in the governance and economy of the archipelago until the end of Spanish sovereignty, and their descendants still contribute in significant ways to the culture and economy of the contemporary Philippines. This book offers important new information about a little-known aspect of Philippine history and the influence of Basque immigration in the Spanish Empire, and it fills an important void in the literature of the Basque diaspora.

Poet Elizabeth Dodd’s world stretches from the lightless cave home of the eyeless, transparent fish known as a blindcat to the imagination of painter Georgia O’Keeffe. In this brilliantly crafted collection, Dodd reveals her mastery of the medium—her closely observed images, compelling metaphors, and deep understanding of and sympathy for the natural world; the rhythms of geologic time; and the seasons of the living year. Dodd possesses the rare gift that links the vagaries of the human experience with the mysterious truths of universal life, the vastness of the night sky with the equally vast potentials of the human heart.

Sonoma is one of Northern California’s most desirable places to live and a popular tourist destination, combining small-town charm, a colorful past, and its current role as the hub of one of the world’s premier wine-producing regions. A Short History of Sonoma traces its past from the Native American peoples who first inhabited the valley, proceeding through the establishment of a mission by Spanish priests, the Bear Flag Revolt that began California’s movement to become part of the United States, the foundation of what would become a celebrated wine industry, and its role today as the center of a sophisticated and highly envied food and wine culture.

The book also addresses such topics as the development of local ranching and businesses and of transportation links to San Francisco that helped to make Sonoma and the surrounding Valley of the Moon a popular location for summer homes and resorts. It discusses the role of the nearby hot springs in attracting visitors and permanent residents, including people seeking cures for various ailments. There are also accounts of some of the famous people who lived in or near Sonoma and helped establish its mystique, including Mexican general Mariano Vallejo, the town’s first leader; Hungarian winemaker Agoston Haraszthy, who first saw the region’s potential for producing superior wines; and writers Jack London and M. F. K. Fisher, who made their homes in the Valley of the Moon, drawn by its beauty and bucolic lifestyle.

A Short History of Sonoma is generously illustrated with vintage photographs. It is a delightful account of one of America’s most charming towns and its evolution from rowdy frontier settlement to the paragon of sophisticated living that it is today.

Andrew J. Dunar and Dennis McBride skillfully interweave eyewitness accounts of the building of Hoover Dam. These stories create the richest existing portrait of the building of Hoover Dam and its tremendous effect on the lives of those involved in its creation: the gritty, sometimes grisly realities of living in cardboard boxes and tents during several of the hottest Southern Nevada summers on record; the fearsome carbon monoxide deaths of tunnel builders who, it was claimed, had died of "pneumonia"; the uproarious life of nearby Las Vegas versus the tightly controlled existence of the workers in the built-overnight confines of Boulder City; and of course the astounding accomplishment of building the Dam itself and completing the task not only early but under budget!

As interest in environmental issues grows, many writers of fiction have embraced themes that explore the connections between humans and the natural world. Ecologically themed fiction ranges from profound philosophical meditations to action-packed entertainments. Where the Wild Books Are offers an overview of nearly 2,000 works of nature-oriented fiction. The author includes a discussion of the precursors and history of the genre, and of its expansion since the 1970s. He also considers its forms and themes, as well as the subgenres into which it has evolved, such as speculative fiction, ecodefense, animal stories, mysteries, ecofeminist novels, cautionary tales, and others. A brief summary and critical commentary of each title is included. Dwyer’s scope is broad and covers fiction by Native American writers as well as ecofiction from writers around the world. Far more than a mere listing of books, Where the Wild Books Are is a lively introduction to a vast universe of engaging, provocative writing. It can be used to develop book collections or curricula. It also serves as an introduction to one of the most fertile areas of contemporary fiction, presenting books that will offer enjoyable reading and new insights into the vexing environmental questions of our time.