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Cactuses of Big Bend National Park
By Douglas B. Evans
University of Texas Press, 1998

When the cactuses bloom in Big Bend National Park, their vivid pinks and purples, reds and yellows bring an unforgettable beauty to the rugged Chihuahuan Desert landscape. In fact, many people visit the park just see the cactus blossoms and the wildflowers. If you're one of them, this book will increase your enjoyment by helping you identify the wonders at your feet. And if you've never been to Big Bend when the cactuses are blooming, you'll discover here what you've been missing.

Douglas B. Evans describes twelve kinds of cactus—living rock, topflower, stout-spined, hedgehog, pineapple, button, barrel, fishhook, nipple, chollas and pricklypears, and Texas nipple—and their individual species known to occur in the park. Color photographs taken by Doris Evans and Ro Wauer accompany the species descriptions. As you hike or drive through the park, you can identify most of the cactuses you see simply by leafing through these splendid pictures and then checking the descriptions, which indicate the cactuses' characteristic features and habitat.

To make the book even more useful, Evans also briefly defines the parts of a cactus, explains how scientific names work, and offers a quick introduction to the geography and ecology of Big Bend National Park and the Chihuahuan Desert. With this information, you'll enjoy not only seeing the cactuses of the Big Bend but also being able to tell one from another and knowing just what makes each one special.

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Campesinos
Inside the Soul of Cuba
Chip Cooper and Julio Larramendi
University of Alabama Press, 2017
Deep inside the soul of Cuba are the campesinos—the men and women who have always worked the countryside across the length and breadth of Cuba, away from cities, towns, and often villages. Resilient, resourceful, and proud, campesinos are the heart and soul of Cuba. The fruit of years of travel among Cuba’s less-known and little-explored rural communities, Campesinos: Inside the Soul of Cuba is a collection of loving and intimate photographs by world-renowned photographers Chip Cooper and Julio Larramendi documenting people and places from every corner of the island nation, many never seen by Cubans themselves let alone visitors from abroad.
 
Into the center of this world traveled two photographers to document these extraordinary people. One, Julio Larramendi, was born in Cuba and has spent his whole life there. The other, Chip Cooper, came to visit for the first time from his native Alabama more than a decade ago. Together, Cooper and Larramendi have captured the light, sounds, and spirit of the campesino landscape and the humble and determined people who inhabit it, ways of living that have not changed, in many instances, for a century or more. From green tobacco fields and winding roads to the faces, both stern and smiling, of children and their close-knit families, Cooper and Larramendi have captured in this landmark volume the rhythms and traditions of contemporary rural Cuban life in ways never before documented.
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Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar
Cuba Enters the Twenty-first Century
Lydia Chávez, ed.
Duke University Press, 2005
When the Soviet Union dissolved, so did the easy credit, cheap oil, and subsidies it had provided to Cuba. The bottom fell out of the Cuban economy, and many expected that Castro’s revolution—the one that had inspired the Left throughout Latin America and elsewhere—would soon be gone as well. More than a decade later, the revolution lives on, albeit in a modified form. Following the collapse of Soviet communism, Castro legalized the dollar, opened the island to tourism, and allowed foreign investment, small-scale private enterprise, and remittances from exiles in Miami. Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar describes what the changes implemented since the early 1990s have meant for ordinary Cubans: hotel workers, teachers, priests, factory workers, rap artists, writers, homemakers, and others.

Based on reporting by journalists, writers, and documentary filmmakers since 2001, each of the essays collected here covers a particular dimension of contemporary Cuban society, revealing what it is like to have lived, for more than a decade, suspended between communism and capitalism. There are pieces on hip hop musicians, fiction writing and censorship, the state of ballet and the performing arts, and the role of computers and the Internet. Other essays address the shrinking yet still sizeable numbers of true believers in the promise of socialist revolution, the legendary cigar industry, the changing state of religion, the significance of the recent influx of money and people from Spain, and the tensions between recent Cuban emigrants and previous generations of exiles. Including more than seventy striking documentary photographs of Cuba’s people, countryside, and city streets, this richly illustrated collection offers keen, even-handed insights into the abundant ironies of life in Cuba today.

Contributors. Juliana Barbassa, Ana Campoy, Mimi Chakarova, Lydia Chávez, John Coté, Julian Foley, Angel González, Megan Lardner, Ezequiel Minaya, Daniela Mohor, Archana Pyati, Alicia Roca, Olga R. Rodríguez, Bret Sigler, Annelise Wunderlich

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Car
Gregory Votolato
Reaktion Books, 2015
Whether you drool over their horsepower or decry their emissions, the car is an important and ubiquitous part of nearly all of our lives. And the history of their design and the innovations of their technologies can tell us a lot about how our values and attitudes have changed. In this book, Gregory Votolato shows us how and why the automobile has become—since its rise in the late nineteenth century—at once an object of unparalleled popular desire and a hugely problematic emblem of the modern world.
           
Votolato explores the ways that our love-hate relationship with the car has been intimately connected with car design. He tells the story of the rise of the private passenger car and all the psychological, social, and economic functions it has come to serve beyond mere transportation. Introducing readers to the automotive design process, he traces the lifecycle of the car from the drawing board to the scrapyard, offering insights from key figures in the industry, as well as a careful evaluation of the car’s enormous environmental impact. At the same time, he looks at the many cultures tied into the automobile, from drag racing and customizing to the luxury coachcraft of the classic era. Along the way, he takes us for a ride in some of the most famous cars ever to have had their tires inflated, from the Model T to the Tesla. The result is a top-down, thrilling burn through the history of one of our most beloved—and lamented—inventions.  
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Cañar
A Year in the Highlands of Ecuador
By Judy Blankenship
University of Texas Press, 2005

Once isolated from the modern world in the heights of the Andean mountains, the indigenous communities of Ecuador now send migrants to New York City as readily as they celebrate festivals whose roots reach back to the pre-Columbian past. Fascinated by this blending of old and new and eager to make a record of traditional customs and rituals before they disappear entirely, photographer-journalist Judy Blankenship spent several years in Cañar, Ecuador, photographing the local people in their daily lives and conducting photography workshops to enable them to preserve their own visions of their culture. In this engaging book, Blankenship combines her sensitively observed photographs with an inviting text to tell the story of the most recent year she and her husband Michael spent living and working among the people of Cañar.

Very much a personal account of a community undergoing change, Cañar documents such activities as plantings and harvests, religious processions, a traditional wedding, healing ceremonies, a death and funeral, and a home birth with a native midwife. Along the way, Blankenship describes how she and Michael went from being outsiders only warily accepted in the community to becoming neighbors and even godparents to some of the local children. She also explains how outside forces, from Ecuador's failing economy to globalization, are disrupting the traditional lifeways of the Cañari as economic migration virtually empties highland communities of young people. Blankenship's words and photographs create a moving, intimate portrait of a people trying to balance the demands of the twenty-first century with the traditions that have formed their identity for centuries.

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Cedar Mesa
A Place Where Spirits Dwell
Text by David Petersen; Photographs by Branson Reynolds
University of Arizona Press, 2002
High on the Colorado Plateau lies a uniquely magical desert place: a land of sandy mesas and slickrock escarpments, an elegant maze of vertical-walled, vertigo-inspiring canyons plunging to darkened depths. Cedar Mesa, Utah, is a place frozen in time. A land that can only be adequately explored on foot or horseback, Cedar Mesa offers adventurous visitors magnificent examples of all the topographic and geologic wonders that define "canyon country" throughout the Southwest: stone arches, natural bridges, and breath-sucking precipices, plus hidden springs, hanging gardens, and a treasure of pre-Columbian Indian ruins. Now a writer and a photographer who have roamed the Mesa for more than twenty years—and know many of its well-guarded secrets—offer an intimate look at a place where solitude and silence go hand in hand. Animated by towering "hoodoos"—sandstone formations eroded to resemble all manner of spooky beings—Cedar Mesa is, in David Petersen's words, "an undulating expanse of erosion-sculpted slickrock like petrified ocean swells." He and Branson Reynolds share insights into the natural and human history of the region; they provide a panoramic overview of the Mesa, then take readers on a personally guided descent into the canyons, where hikers can expect to encounter wildlife, prehistoric ruins, stone sculptures, and hidden pools. While providing details regarding much-visited locales, Petersen and Reynolds are more concerned with conveying an overall sense of the area's mystical beauty—capturing the spirit of ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings but keeping their locations secret so that their magic will not be lost. With its relative lack of roads, campgrounds, and maintained trails, Cedar Mesa is an Eden for personal discovery and hands-on adventure. But "be it known," advises Petersen, "that this is not yet another hand-holding, give-it-all-away, chamber-of-commerce-style 'backcountry' guidebook, of which there are far too many already." He and Reynolds have instead fashioned a book to celebrate and interpret "one of the most palpably spiritual natural places remaining on the American continent"—and to instill in readers the importance of protecting it forever.
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The Changing Arctic Landscape
Ken Tape
University of Alaska Press, 2010
With this book, photographer Ken Tape sets changes in the landscape in stark relief, pairing decades-old photos of the arctic landscape of Alaska with photos of the same scenes taken in the present. 

The resulting volume is a stunning reminder of inexorable change; divided into sections on vegetation, permafrost, and glaciers, the images show the startling effects of climate change. In addition, each section presents a short biography of a pioneering scientist who was instrumental in both obtaining the antique photographs and advancing the study of arctic ecosystems, as well as interviews with scientists who have spent decades working in Alaska for the United States Geological Survey. The Changing Arctic Landscape is a profile of transformation—complex and not yet fully understood.
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Changing Works
Visions of a Lost Agriculture
Douglas Harper
University of Chicago Press, 2001
The work of Douglas Harper has for two decades documented worlds in eclipse. A glimpse into the life of dairy farmers in upstate New York on the cusp of technological change, Changing Works is no exception. With photographs and interviews with farmers, Harper brings into view a social world altered by machines and stuns us with gorgeous visions of rural times past. As a member of this community, Harper relates compelling stories about families and their dairies that reveal how the advent of industrialized labor changed the way farmers structure their work and organize their lives. His new book charts the transformation of American farming from small dairies based on animal power and cooperative work to industrialized agriculture.

Changing Works combines Harper's pictures with classic images by photographers such as Gordon Parks, Sol Libsohn, and Charlotte Brooks-men and women whose work during the 1940s documented the mechanization and automation of agricultural practices. Part social history and part analysis of the drive to mass production, Changing Works examines how we farmed a half century ago versus how we do today through pictures new and old and through discussions with elderly farmers who witnessed the makeover. Ultimately, Harper challenges timely ecological and social questions about contemporary agriculture. He shows us how the dissolution of cooperative dairy farming has diminished the safety of the practice, degraded the way we relate to our natural environment, and splintered the once tight-knit communities of rural farmers. Mindful, then, of the advantages of preindustrial agriculture, and heeding the alarming spread of mad cow and foot-and-mouth disease, Changing Works harks back to the benefits of an older system.
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Chasing Neotropical Birds
Text by Bob Thornton, Photography by Vera and Bob Thornton
University of Texas Press, 2005

From Belize to Brazil, the forests of the American neotropics are home to an astonishing array of birds—over 3,700 different species, or nearly 40 percent of all the birds on earth. Because of this overwhelming abundance, birders come from all over the world to try to catch glimpses of species that can be found nowhere else, such as toucans and antbirds, motmots and manakins, bellbirds and cocks-of-the-rock, and practically all of the planet's hummingbirds. Two such birding enthusiasts are Vera and Bob Thornton, who have spent fifteen years photographing these special and exotic birds in the rainforests of eleven different countries of Central and South America. In this book, you'll find more than a hundred spectacular color photographs they took during their travels, along with a highly entertaining account of their adventures—and misadventures—in chasing these exotic neotropicals.

The birds pictured here are among the Thorntons' personal favorites—birds that, in their words, "either dazzled us with their beauty, or charmed us by their behavior, or, in a few cases, simply challenged us by the mystique of their rarity." This latter category includes such elusive and sought-after birds as the Black-crowned Antpitta, the Zigzag Heron, the Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo, the Bare-necked Umbrellabird, and the monkey-eating Harpy Eagle. In the accompanying text, Bob Thornton engagingly describes the challenges as well as the magic of negotiating the neotropical rainforests in search of colorful birds to photograph. For those who would like to follow in the Thorntons' footsteps, there are also helpful tips about photographic gear and techniques, preferred places to see the birds, lodging, and guides. For everyone who enjoys excellent nature photography, Chasing Neotropical Birds is a must-have volume on the coffee table or in the library.

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Chasing Warblers
By Vera and Bob Thornton
University of Texas Press, 1999

Honorable Mention, Southern Books Competition, 1999

Known to many as "the butterflies of the bird world," wood warblers allure even the most experienced and discriminating birders. Their annual migrations to and from nesting areas in the United States and Canada draw thousands of birders to places such as High Island, Texas; Crane Creek, Ohio; and Point Pelee, Ontario, where warblers stop to rest and feed during the long journey. There birders have a chance to see and photograph these colorful, elusive songbirds whose quick, darting flight among high branches and thick cover makes them some of the most challenging birds to observe and identify.

In this entertaining, beautifully illustrated book, Bob Thornton recounts his and Vera Thornton's cross-continent adventures in finding and photographing all 52 species of wood warblers that nest in the United States. In addition to describing where and how they photographed each species, Thornton tells marvelous stories of the colorful characters they encountered along the way. He also touches on the current human threats to wood warblers that come from loss of habitat.

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Chicago
Growth of a Metropolis
Harold M. Mayer and Richard C. Wade
University of Chicago Press, 1969
This is the story of Chicago and how it grew. In a little over a century it rose from a mere frontier outpost to become one of the great cities of the world. No single book can possibly encompass the immense scope of this development or convey the endless diversity of the life of Chicago's people. But with the help of the camera it is possible to capture many dimensions of this extraordinary story.

This volume, however, which comprises over 1,000 pictures and 50 maps, tries to do more than show physical development—it attempts to suggest how the city expanded and why it looks the way it does. Because it asks different questions, this book differs markedly from other "pictorial histories" of American cities. Instead of emphasizing society and customs, this volume deals with the physical conditions of life. In place of the conventional interest in "founding fathers" and leading families, it is more concerned with street scenes and ordinary people. Without neglecting downtown, it also reaches into the residential areas and neighborhood shopping centers. Moreover, this volume is concerned with suburbs and "satellite" towns as well as the historic city.

"Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis is an incredible book. Like its subject it is excessive, and nothing succeeds like excess. It is handsomely designed, with a thousand photographs that document the physical growth and the spatial patterns of the city. . . . A dimensionalism comes through that no other city has. Carl Sandburg sang it in his poetry, and the book does more to grasp it . . . than any other book I have seen."—Hugh Newell Jacobson, New Republic
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Chicago Reflected
A Skyline Drawing from the Chicago River
Ryan Chester
University of Chicago Press, 2023
A unique and playful hand-drawn exploration of the Chicago River’s landscape, documented on an eleven-foot-long foldout.
 
In March 2020, architect Ryan Chester began drawing the Chicago River for at least one hour every day. Using only a pen, he moved methodically along a single massive roll of paper. As each chaotic, isolating day of the COVID-19 pandemic passed, he stayed connected with his adopted city by carefully documenting by hand the beautiful intricacies of Chicago’s riverfront architecture, boats, and bridges.
 
As completed, Chester’s two-foot-high, fifty-five-foot-long drawing is a unique vision. In addition to dozens of accurately depicted buildings, Chester included pieces of Chicago’s past, including the Union Station Concourse Building that was demolished in 1969 and the immense SS Eastland, which sank in the river in 1915, killing hundreds of people. Recent architecture is featured as well, including Studio Gang’s St. Regis Chicago tower and the Bank of America Tower by Goettsch Partners.
 
An essay by acclaimed writer Thomas Dyja accompanies the accordion-fold presentation of Chester’s drawing, enhancing this remarkable volume that will delight any fan of Chicago, architecture, or art. Chicago Reflected opens up fresh vistas of the stunning, ever-evolving architectural landscape that can be found only in Chicago.
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The Chicago River
An Illustrated History and Guide to the River and Its Waterways, Second Edition
David M. Solzman
University of Chicago Press, 2006
“The river has seen it all, done it all, carried it all,” writes David Solzman. “Its current whispers of the past even as it rushes into the future. Those who know the river and its connected streams know Chicago in an elemental way. In a strong sense, the river is Chicago. Follow the river and travel into the soul of the city.”

The river is indeed the soul of the city—it runs through the heart of downtown, and it is a vehicle for both pleasure and the industry that keeps Chicago humming. With The Chicago River, Solzman has succeeded in writing an encyclopedic work—at once guidebook and history—that explores the river’s physical character and natural history. Examining the river’s past, contemplating its present, and forecasting its future, Solzman draws on his unparalleled knowledge to point out places of scientific and historic interest—involving everything from infamous murder cases to invasive zebra mussels. The book’s 200 photographs and maps perfectly complement Solzman’s vivid prose, leading readers on a visual journey as sinuous as the river it celebrates—a journey interspersed with plenty of river lore, facts, and literary quotations. 

Solzman, a veteran Chicago River tour guide, has also compiled a diverse collection of easy and enjoyable tours for anyone who wants to experience the river by foot, boat, canoe, or car. And he provides an appendix that lists river-related organizations, museums, tours, and riverfront restaurants and clubs. 

With practical tips, evocative language, and an astonishing array of anecdotes, TheChicago River is the most comprehensive guide to the river and its waterways, the perfect companion for everyone from the active river enthusiast to the armchair traveler.
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Chicago under Glass
Early Photographs from the Chicago Daily News
Mark Jacob and Richard Cahan in association with the Chicago History Museum
University of Chicago Press, 2007
When the Chicago Daily News closed its doors in March 1978 after over a century of publication, the city mourned the loss of an American original. The Daily News boasted the inventive, aggressive writing of such luminaries as Carl Sandburg and Ben Hecht. It was also one of the first newspapers in the country to feature black-and-white photography. In 1900, staffers from the paper’s art department began lugging bulky cameras, heavy glass plates, and explosive flash powder throughout the city. A labor strike, a boxing match, or a crime scene—it was all in a day’s work for the Daily News photographer.

These cameramen helped sell papers, but, as Mark Jacob and Richard Cahan reveal, they also made art. Chicago under Glass: Early Photographs from the Chicago Daily News is the first collection of images from the photo staff’s early years, 1901 to 1930. Jacob and Cahan, seasoned journalists themselves, have selected more than 250 images—many of which have never before been published—from the nearly 57,000 glass negatives housed at the Chicago History Museum. They include rare photographs of a young Buster Keaton with his wife and child, waiting to board a train and the notorious Al Capone outside a courtroom, smoking a cigar and consulting with his lawyer. Each thematic section begins with a fascinating introduction by the authors, and each image is accompanied by insightful historical commentary.

These fragile glass records are a remarkable piece of American history. Together, they capture a time of massive change and stark contrasts, the defining years in a place Nelson Algren called “Hustlertown.” From candid shots of the Eastland steamer disaster to the glittering electric lights of the White City amusement park and the grim aftermath of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, the history these images reveal is not simply the story of Chicago, but the history of the modern American city.
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Chiricahua Mountains
Bridging the Borders of Wildness
Text by Ken Lamberton; Photographs by Jeff Garton
University of Arizona Press, 2003
For many, these mountains represent the Apache stronghold of Geronimo. For others, they are a birdwatcher's paradise. But the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona are more than this. They are a classic "sky island" of the desert, a rich storehouse of biologic diversity. On a journey undertaken in search of a pair of rare short-tailed hawks, Ken Lamberton takes readers on an excursion through these mountains, from their riparian canyons to their highest peaks. The Chiricahuas comprise the largest single range in southern Arizona, crisscrossed by more than 300 miles of trails. Lamberton is your guide along these trails, and his knowledge of the mountains and their natural history makes him a perfect hiking companion while Jeff Garton's stunning photographs enrich your visit.

Lamberton shares insights about the geology, habitats, and diversity of wildlife in a place of such isolation that species must either adapt or become extinct. The Chiricahuas are one link in a chain of mountains connecting the Rockies to the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico, and some Madrean species reach the northernmost extension of their ranges here: birds like sulphur-bellied flycatchers, mammals like jaguarundis, and trees like the Apache pine. But this is not an untraveled wilderness. We learn why the Chiricahuas are so popular with birders, who flock to these mountains from around the world in the hopes of spotting some of the nearly four hundred avian species found here. We also learn something of the Chiricahua's rich human culture, from Apache warriors to European settlers.

Gracing the text are more than a dozen black-and-white photographs by Jeff Garton that offer views of the Chiricahuas different from those usually found in tourist brochures: landscapes and riparian settings, rock formations and plant studies that give readers a lasting impression of the beauty and tranquility of this wilderness. Together words and images convey an intimate view of one of the Southwest's most exotic locations—stronghold, paradise, and everlasting island in the vast and rolling desert.
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A Chorus of Cranes
The Cranes of North America and the World
Paul A. Johnsgard, Photographs by Thomas D. Mangelsen
University Press of Colorado, 2015

Since long before medieval times cranes have been considered messengers of the gods, calling annually from on high to remind humans below of the passing years and of their own mortality. Now it is up to humans to take responsibility for controlling our own fate—and also to cry out to protect not only cranes but all the other wonderful creatures that share our increasingly fragile and threatened planetary ecosystem with us."
—Paul A. Johnsgard, from the acknowledgments

Accompanied by the stunning photography of Thomas D. Mangelsen, A Chorus of Cranes details the natural history, biology, and conservation issues surrounding the abundant sandhill crane and the endangered whooping crane in North America. Author Paul A. Johnsgard, one of the leading authorities on cranes and crane biology, describes the fascinating social behaviors, beautiful natural habitats, and grueling seasonal migrations that have stirred the hearts of people as far back as medieval times and garnered the crane a place in folklore and mythology across continents.

Johnsgard has substantially updated and significantly expanded his 1991 work Crane Music, incorporating new information on the biology and status of these two North American cranes and providing abbreviated summaries on the other thirteen crane species of the world. The stories of these birds and their contrasting fates provide an instructive and moving history of bird conservation in North America. A Chorus of Cranes is a gorgeous and invaluable resource for crane enthusiasts, birders, natural historians, and conservationists alike.


The University Press of Colorado gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Iain Nicholson Audubon Center at Rowe Sanctuary, Audubon Nebraska, Ron and Judy Parks, Wagon Tongue Creek Farm, and the Trull Foundation toward the publication of this book.
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The City as Photographic Text
Urban Documentary Photography of São Paulo
David William Foster
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020
The City as Photographic Text offers the first comprehensive presentation of photography on São Paulo. But more than just a study of one city’s photographic legacy, this book is a manual for how to understand and talk about Latin American photography in general. Focusing on major figures and referencing widely available books of their work, David William Foster offers a unique analysis of how photographers have contributed to our understanding of the megalopolis São Paulo has become. Eschewing a conventional historical approach, Foster explores how best to interpret visual urban life. In turn, by focusing interest on the photographic text and the ways in which it creates an interpretive meaning for the city, rather than rehearsing the circumstances under which the photographs were taken, this study provides a model for productive comment on urban photography as a project of visual meaning with important artistic attributes. As a unique entry in the inventory of scholarly writing on São Paulo, The City as Photographic Text adds to our understanding of the enormous cultural significance this city holds as a world-class urban center.
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Civil and Corrupt Asia
Image and Text in the Itinerario and the Icones of Jan Huygen Van Linschoten
Ernst van den Boogaart
University of Chicago Press, 2003
Jan Huygen van Linschoten (1562-1611) was a Dutchman who, in 1596, penned the famous Itinerario, an account of his travel to the Indian Peninsula and its eastern surroundings that described the inhabitants of this vast region and quickly became a travel guide for everyone going there. Van Linschoten is held as a key eyewitness of the Portuguese-Asian empire at its height, and as one who worked to shift the center of European expansion from the Iberian peninsula and Italy to the Netherlands and England. In 1604 he published an abridged version, the Icones et Habitus Indorum, which contained 36 of the engravings from the Itinerario together with Latin captions.

Divine and Spoiled Asia reproduces these engravings and their captions (in English), together with an extensive analysis of them by historian Ernst van den Boogaart. In addition to providing unparalleled insights into early modern European views of the East, the engravings also contain valuable depictions of the peoples, customs, and flora and fauna of late sixteenth-century India and neighboring countries.

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The Climb from Salt Lick
A Memoir of Appalachia
Nancy L. Abrams
West Virginia University Press, 2018
In the mid-1970s, Nancy L. Abrams, a young photojournalist from the Midwest, plunges into life as a small-town reporter in West Virginia. She befriends the hippies on the commune one mountaintop over, rents a cabin in beautiful Salt Lick Valley, and falls in love with a local boy, wrestling to balance the demands of a job and a personal life. She learns how to survive in Appalachia—how to heat with coal and wood, how to chop kindling, plant a garden, and preserve produce.

The Climb from Salt Lick is the remarkable memoir of an outsider coming into adulthood. It is the story of a unique place and its people from the perspective of a woman who documents its burdens and its beauty, using words and pictures to tell the rich stories of those around her.
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The Color of Loss
An Intimate Portrait of New Orleans after Katrina
Photographs and introduction by Dan Burkholder
University of Texas Press, 2008

The devastation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina has been imprinted in our collective visual memory by thousands of images in the media and books of dramatic photographs by Robert Polidori, Larry Towell, Chris Jordan, Debbie Fleming Caffrey, and others. New Orleanians want the world to see and respond to the destruction of their city and the suffering of its people—and yet so many images of so much destruction threaten a visual and emotional overload that would tempt us to avert our eyes and become numb.

In The Color of Loss, Dan Burkholder presents a powerful new way of seeing the ravaged homes, churches, schools, and businesses of New Orleans. Using an innovative digital photographic technology called high dynamic range (HDR) imaging, in which multiple exposures are artistically blended to bring out details in the shadows and highlights that would be hidden in conventional photographs, he creates images that are almost like paintings in their richness of color and profusion of detail. Far more intense and poetic than purely documentary photographs, Burkholder's images lure viewers to linger over the artifacts of people's lives—a child's red wagon abandoned in a mud-caked room, a molding picture of Jesus—to fully understand the havoc thrust upon the people of New Orleans.

In the deserted, sinisterly beautiful rooms of The Color of Loss, we see how much of the splendor and texture of New Orleans washed away in the flood. This is the hidden truth of Katrina that Dan Burkholder has revealed.

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Community In-Between / Urur Dhex Dhexad Ah
Portraits of Somali-Americans in Columbus
Qorsho Hassan and Ruth M. Smith
The Ohio State University Press, 2017
Community In-Between / Urur Dhex Dhexad Ah: Portraits of Somali-Americans in Columbus by Qorsho Hassan and Ruth M. Smith is a collection of stories and portraits of fifteen young Somali Americans involved in community building in Columbus, Ohio. By using their unique skills, these individuals balance their identities, build bridges, and create spaces for success. The rich, multifaceted stories in this book represent the heterogeneous experiences of the participants and show the deep connection to the diaspora and the interconnectedness of individual experiences.
 
A combination of storytelling and research connect each narrative to another, creating a strong framework for capturing the roles of young Somali Americans in community building through innovative initiatives such as designing a mixer bottle, beginning charitable programs, and educating the Somali community on voter rights. Two community artists help to capture the participants in their natural spaces, and their journey, aided by their empowering mentor, Riya Jama, bridges the gap of Somali females and their access to photography.
 
 
The portraits, stories, and artifacts throughout the book create a modicum of belonging. This new generation resiliently overcomes challenges such as racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia while still maintaining their hope in the future. Community In-Between captures their spirit and unwavering faith.
 
 
The portraits, stories, and artifacts throughout the book create a modicum of belonging. This new generation resiliently overcomes challenges such as racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia while still maintaining their hope in the future. Community In-Between captures their spirit and unwavering faith.
 
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Cornerstone on College Hill
An Illustrated History of the University of Alaska Fairbanks
Terrence Cole
University of Alaska Press, 1994
No college campus in America has a wilder or more magnificent natural setting than that of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This history of UAF commemorates the colorful past of one of America's most unusual educational institutions. It tells the story of how the University of Alaska Fairbanks has changed the lives of thousands of people over the past seventy-five years.
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Corregidor in Peace and War
Charles M. Hubbard & Collis H. Davis, Jr.
University of Missouri Press, 2007
 

          A picturesque island strategically located at the entrance of Manila Bay, Corregidor has had military significance since the days of the Spanish galleon trade. Although its dramatic role in the defense of the Philippines during World War II is well documented, relatively little is known about its history apart from military involvement. This richly illustrated book tells the story of the island and sheds new light on the geopolitical forces that shaped its destiny.

            Corregidor in Peace and War is a biography of a mysterious island known simply as “the Rock.” It traces the buildup of armaments and fortifications on the island after the American occupation of the Philippines in 1898, then chronicles clandestine military preparations for an expected war with Imperial Japan. It vividly documents aspects of island life before World War II—including the enviable lifestyle of the American officer corps stationed there, the development of the island’s rail system using imported American streetcars, and the creation of the Philippine Scouts coastal artillery units—and then records its loss and recapture during the struggle with Japan. The final chapter reviews the island’s history since the war.

            More than 150 illustrations include maps and photos from both the Spanish and American periods up to the present day—some photographs published more than a century ago and impeccably restored, many never before seen in print. Interweaving new and old photos with informative text, Charles Hubbard and Collis Davis, Jr., provide a guided tour that captures the natural beauty of an island once enjoyed by early residents but subsequently decimated by cannon fire and aerial bombardment. Brilliant color images evoke a place where flora and wildlife coexist alongside abandoned fortifications, documenting stark reminders from times of war. Other photographs show the majestic “suicide cliffs” where Japanese soldiers are said to have jumped to their deaths rather than become prisoners.

            Now a tourist destination and historic monument, Corregidor remains a formidable island worthy of its nickname. Corregidor in Peace and War uncovers its many unknown facets and singularly reflects the experiences of both a place and a people that deserve a prominent place in history.

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front cover of Cracked Sidewalks and French Pastry
Cracked Sidewalks and French Pastry
The Wit and Wisdom of Al McGuire
Tom Kertscher
University of Wisconsin Press, 2002

Al McGuire was the Mark Twain of college basketball. Never was there a figure in the game so quoted and so quotable, on sports and on the human condition. This book collects more than a hundred of McGuire’s most colorful quotations, plus photographs from his life and career, in a tribute that is funny, poignant, and brimming with his streetwise sagacity.
    McGuire, a brash and fiery New Yorker who grew up working in his parents’ saloon, played a rough and tumble game of basketball at St. John’s University and briefly in the NBA before entering the coaching ranks. He reached the pinnacle of his profession and gained national fame at Marquette University in Milwaukee, where in thirteen seasons he compiled a 295-80 record, appeared in nine NCAA tournaments, and won eighty-one home games in a row. He was a fine coach who cared deeply about his players and was beloved by his teams and fans alike, but his flamboyance and his mouth sometimes got him into trouble. The end of his coaching career captivated the nation: McGuire wept on the bench as his Marquette Warriors won the national title.
McGuire then began a ground-breaking career in network broadcasting, adding a zest and unconventionality that the college game had never seen. His sometimes bizarre and always entertaining commentary kept viewers tuned in even after the outcome of a lopsided game was a foregone conclusion. When Al McGuire died of leukemia in 2001, the sports world lost a true original.

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front cover of Cuba--Going Back
Cuba--Going Back
By Tony Mendoza
University of Texas Press, 1999

Imagine being unable to return to your homeland for thirty-six years. What would you do if you finally got a chance to go back?

In 1996, after travel restrictions between the United States and Cuba were relaxed, Cuban exile Tony Mendoza answered that question. Taking his cameras, notebooks, and an unquenchable curiosity, he returned for his first visit to Cuba since summer of 1960, when he emigrated with his family at age eighteen. In this book he presents over eighty evocative photographs accompanied by a beautifully written text that mingles the voices of many Cubans with his own to offer a compelling portrait of a resilient people awaiting the inevitable passing of the socialist system that has failed them.

His photographs and interviews bear striking witness to the hardships and inequalities that exist in this workers' "paradise," where the daily struggle to make ends meet on an average income of eight dollars a month has created a longing for change even in formerly ardent revolutionaries. At the same time, Cuba—Going Back is an eloquent record of a personal journey back in time and memory that will resonate with viewers and readers both within and beyond the Cuban American community. It belongs on the shelves of anyone who values excellent photography and well-crafted prose.

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Cuban Miami
Robert M Levine
Rutgers University Press, 2000

For two centuries, Cuban exiles have found their way to the United States, especially to Florida. But since Castro's victory in 1959, Miami has seen almost one million Cubans arrive by sea and air. The impact on this area has been enormous. Miami---known as the "Exile Capital"---has a greater cultural affinity to Havana and the rest of Latin America than to Tallahassee, Florida's capital.

Cuban Miami is the first analytical, photographic record of Cuban migration to south Florida. Robert M. Levine and Moises Asis have interviewed members of every sector of the Cuban exile community, from the first pioneers to the mass waves in the early 1960s to those who arrived by raft during the late 1990s. In their wide-ranging investigation of Cuban-U.S. history, they touch upon all aspects of Cuban influence: politics, cuisine, music, assimilation, discrimination, and institution buildings. Miami has more Cuban food establishments than the nearby island does. The city has been fertile ground for germinating a unique synthesis of Cuban and Americans are the most prosperous immigrant group in the United States today, this success has come at a price---living in exile can exact a personal toll.

Cuban Miami is a feast for the eyes, including 180 photographs and original cartoons drawn for the book by Jose M. Varela, a well-known member of the Cuban-American community.

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