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Wisconsin is a premier backpacking state, with outstanding opportunities for weekend trips. With its Great Lakes and river boundaries, national and state parks and forests, and stunning geological diversity, it offers a variety of experiences for both novice and experienced backpackers. In Backpacking Wisconsin Jack and Liz Hailman, drawing on years of personal experience, provide first-hand information for trails in every corner of the state—from the wooded Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, inhabited by whitetailed deer and black bears, to picturesque Newport State Park in Door County, set upon Silurian-age limestone laid down over 100 million years ago.

For each backpacking site you’ll find:
• information on entrance fees and permits, campsites, & contact sources
• directions to the location
• detailed trail maps with keys that pinpoint roads, parking, trail shelters, water supplies, outhouses
• ratings for trails, scenery, quiet, solitude, and interest
• background information on history, geology, and terrain
• trail notes describing trees, shrubs, wildflowers, birds, and animals you may  encounter.

    Backpacking Wisconsin also provides an overview of the backpacking experience, tips for the beginner and the expert, hints on how to choose equipment (boots, packs, tents, sleeping bags, rain gear, stoves), notes on troublesome plants and animals, a list of state areas that no longer offer backpacking, schedules of fees, a checklist for backpacks, and a list of trail, outdoor, and conservation organizations. For those hesitant to venture deep into wilderness, the Hailmans spotlight “quasi-backpacking” sites. All you have to do is pick a trail!

On a December day in 1968, DDT went on trial in Madison, Wisconsin. In Banning DDT: How Citizen Activists in Wisconsin Led the Way, Bill Berry details how the citizens, scientists, reporters, and traditional conservationists drew attention to the harmful effects of “the miracle pesticide” DDT, which was being used to control Dutch elm disease.

Berry tells of the hunters and fishers, bird-watchers, and garden-club ladies like Lorrie Otto, who dropped off twenty-eight dead robins at the Bayside village offices. He tells of university professors and scientists like Joseph Hickey, a professor and researcher in the Department of Wildlife Management in at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who, years after the fact, wept about the suppression of some of his early DDT research. And he tells of activists like Senator Gaylord Nelson and members of the state’s Citizens Natural Resources who rallied the cause.

The Madison trial was one of the first for the Environmental Defense Fund. The National Audubon Society helped secure the more than $52,000 in donations that offset the environmentalists’ costs associated with the hearing. Today, virtually every reference to the history of DDT mentions the impact of Wisconsin’s battles.

The six-month-long DDT hearing was one of the first chapters in citizen activism in the modern environmental era. Banning DDT is a compelling story of how citizen activism, science, and law merged in Wisconsin’s DDT battles to forge a new way to accomplish public policy. These citizen activists were motivated by the belief that we all deserve a voice on the health of the land and water that sustain us.

The most famous couple in Wisconsin politics, "Fighting Bob" La Follette and his wife, Belle Case La Follette, come to life in the pages of the newest addition to the Badger Biographies series for young readers. In an accessible format that includes historic images, a glossary of terms, and sidebars explaining political concepts, students learn about Progressive politics and reform in the early 20th century through the experiences of this pioneering couple.

The father of "Progressive politics," Bob La Follette was famous for digging in his heels when it came to reforming government corruption. He also gained a reputation for fiery speeches on the campaign trail and on the Senate floor. Belle La Follette was political in her own right. The first woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin's Law School, she was an advocate for world peace and an agitator for the women's vote. She was also Bob's most trusted political advisor. Together, the couple raised a family and fought for the changes they believed would make the world a better place.

An Osseo native looks at the enduring power of immigrant traditions in rural Trempealeau County, from its pioneer days to recent decades.

Nature writer Candice Andrews weaves together contemporary observations and historical reminisces in Beyond the Trees: Stories of Wisconsin Forests. Readers will journey to some of the most pristine and notable places in the Upper Midwest—Wisconsin’s state and national forests.

The diversity of landscapes evoked in Beyond the Trees is matched only by the characters who inhabit them. Traverse the footsteps of Ojibwe hunters and early explorers in the remote woods of Brule River State Forest. Trek past the remains of bygone logging and CCC camps in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Glimpse into the world of Great Lakes shipping in Point Beach State Forest. Walk on trails named after John Muir and Increase Lapham in the Kettle Moraine State Forest, and experience urban green space at Milwaukee’s Havenwoods State Forest. From orchids to oak savanna, beaver to brook trout, and white-tailed deer to timber wolves, discover Wisconsin’s wildlife and flora and fauna. Archival images, informative sidebars, locator maps, and contact information for Wisconsin state and national forests round out this unique book.

Praise for the first edition: “Trotter has written a valuable, provocative book that opens new areas for certain--and heated--debate.”--Journal of American Ethnic History

Other historians have tended to treat black urban life mainly in relation to the ghetto experience, but in Black Milwaukee, Joe William Trotter Jr. offers a new perspective that complements yet also goes well beyond that approach. The blacks in Black Milwaukee were not only ghetto dwellers; they were also industrial workers.  The process by which they achieved this status is the subject of Trotter’s ground-breaking study. 

This second edition features a new preface and acknowledgments, an essay on African American urban history since 1985, a prologue on the antebellum and Civil War roots of Milwaukee’s black community, and an epilogue on the post-World War II years and the impact of deindustrialization, all by the author. Brief essays by four of Trotter’s colleagues--William P. Jones, Earl Lewis, Alison Isenberg, and Kimberly L. Phillips--assess the impact of the original Black Milwaukee on the study of African American urban history over the past twenty years. 

Someone lucky enough to live on Milwaukee’s near north side between 1888 and 1952 could experience the world without ever leaving the neighborhood. Nestled between North Seventh and Eighth Streets and West Chambers and Burleigh, Borchert Field was Milwaukee’s major sports venue for 64 years. In this rickety wooden stadium (originally called Athletic Park), Wisconsin residents had a close-up view of sports history in the making, along with rodeos, thrill shows, and even multiple eruptions of Mount Vesuvius. In Borchert Field, baseball historian Bob Buege introduces the famous and fascinating athletes who dazzled audiences in Milwaukee’s venerable ballpark. All the legendary baseball figures—the Bambino, Satchel Paige, Ty Cobb, Joltin’ Joe, Jackie Robinson, the Say Hey Kid—played there. Olympic heroes Jim Thorpe, Babe Didrikson, and Jesse Owens displayed their amazing talents in Borchert. Knute Rockne’s Fighting Irish competed there, and Curly Lambeau’s Green Bay Packers took the field 10 times. Buege tells stories of other monumental moments at Borchert as well, including a presidential visit, women ballplayers, the arrival of television broadcasting, the 1922 national balloon race, and an appearance by scat-singing bandleader Cab Calloway. Borchert Field is long gone, but every page of this book takes readers back to the sights, sounds, and spectacle of its heyday.

Bottoms Up celebrates Wisconsin’s taverns and the breweries that fueled them. Beginning with inns and saloons, the book explores the rise of taverns and breweries, the effects of temperance and Prohibition, and attitudes about gender, ethnicity, and morality. It traces the development of the megabreweries, dominance of the giants, and the emergence of microbreweries. Contemporary photographs of unusual and distinctive bars and breweries of all eras, historical photos, postcards, advertisements, and breweriana illustrate the story of how Wisconsin came to dominate brewing—and the place that bars and beer hold in our social and cultural history.
Seventy featured taverns and breweries represent diverse architectural styles, from the open-air Tom’s Burned Down Cafe on Madeline Island to the Art Moderne Casino in La Crosse, and from Club 10, a 1930s roadhouse in Stevens Point, to the well-known Wolski’s Tavern in Milwaukee. There are bars in barns and basements and brewpubs in former ice cream factories and railroad depots. Bottoms Up also includes a heady mix of such beer-related topics as ice harvesting, barrel making, bar games, Old-Fashioneds, bar fixtures, and the queen of the bootleggers. Now in paperback for the first time!

The story of the Dairy State’s other major industry—beer!  From the immigrants who started brewing here during territorial days to the modern industrial giants, this is the history, the folklore, the architecture, the advertising, and the characters that made Wisconsin the nation’s brewing leader. Updated with the latest trends on the Wisconsin brewing scene.

 "Apps adeptly combines diligent scholarship with fascinating anecdotes, vividly portraying brewmasters, beer barons, saloonkeepers, and corporate raiders. All this plus color reproductions of popular beer labels and a detailed recipe for home brew."—Wisconsin Magazine of History

"In a highly readable style Apps links together ethnic influence, agriculture, geography, natural resources, meteorology, changing technology, and transportation to explore some of the mystique, romance and folklore associated with beer from antiquity to the present day in Wisconsin."—The Brewers Bulletin