front cover of The Social Lives of Forests
The Social Lives of Forests
Past, Present, and Future of Woodland Resurgence
Edited by Susanna B. Hecht, Kathleen D. Morrison, and Christine Padoch
University of Chicago Press, 2014
Forests are in decline, and the threats these outposts of nature face—including deforestation, degradation, and fragmentation—are the result of human culture. Or are they? This volume calls these assumptions into question, revealing forests’ past, present, and future conditions to be the joint products of a host of natural and cultural forces. Moreover, in many cases the coalescence of these forces—from local ecologies to competing knowledge systems—has masked a significant contemporary trend of woodland resurgence, even in the forests of the tropics.

Focusing on the history and current use of woodlands from India to the Amazon, The Social Lives of Forests attempts to build a coherent view of forests sited at the nexus of nature, culture, and development. With chapters covering the effects of human activities on succession patterns in now-protected Costa Rican forests; the intersection of gender and knowledge in African shea nut tree markets; and even the unexpectedly rich urban woodlands of Chicago, this book explores forests as places of significant human action, with complex institutions, ecologies, and economies that have transformed these landscapes in the past and continue to shape them today. From rain forests to timber farms, the face of forests—how we define, understand, and maintain them—is changing.
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front cover of The Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey, Vol. 1
The Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey, Vol. 1
Carla M. Sinopoli, Kathleen D. Morrison
University of Michigan Press, 2007
Vijayanagara, the “City of Victory,” was the capital of South India’s largest and most successful pre-colonial empire from c. AD 1330-1565. This richly illustrated volume reports on the results of a ten-year systematic regional archaeological survey in the hinterland or “metropolitan region” of this vast and well-preserved urban site.
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front cover of Wrapped in Beauty
Wrapped in Beauty
The Koelz Collection of Kashmiri Shawls
Grace Beardsley in collaboration with Carla M. Sinopoli
University of Michigan Press, 2005
This richly illustrated volume examines the remarkable Kashmiri shawls of the Walter Koelz Collection of the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology. Part I presents the history, production, forms, and ornamentation of Kashmiri shawls, focusing on the impact of social contexts and the advent of the Jacquard loom on shawl development. Part II is a detailed descriptive catalogue of the shawls in the Koelz Collection. An accompanying CD-ROM includes color illustrations of the shawls in the collection as well as a transcribed manuscript by Koelz.
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