1185 books match the query 'Travel' and 54 start with m

cover of Made in Chicago: Stories Behind 30 Great Hometown Bites

Made in Chicago

Stories Behind 30 Great Hometown Bites

Monica Eng and David Hammond

University of Illinois Press, 2023

A BookRiot Most Anticipated Travel Book of 2023

Italian beef and hot dogs get the headlines. Cutting-edge cuisine and big-name chefs get the Michelin stars. But Chicago food shows its true depth in classic dishes conceived in the kitchens of immigrant innovators, neighborhood entrepreneurs, and mom-and-pop visionaries.

Monica Eng and David Hammond draw on decades of exploring the city’s food landscape to serve up thirty can’t-miss eats found in all corners of Chicago. From Mild Sauce to the Jibarito and from Taffy Grapes to Steak and Lemonade, Eng and Hammond present stories of the people and places behind each dish while illuminating how these local favorites reflect the multifaceted history of the city and the people who live there. Each entry provides all the information you need to track down whatever sounds good and selected recipes even let you prepare your own Flaming Saganaki or Akutagawa.

Generously illustrated with full-color photos, Made in Chicago provides locals and visitors alike with loving profiles of a great food city’s defining dishes.

[more]
cover of Madison

Madison

Zane Williams

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2008

This spectacular collection of photographs takes the viewer on a stroll through the heart of Madison, around the Capitol Square and down renowned State Street, with stops at some of the most recent additions to the city’s skyline, including the Monona Terrace Convention Center (original design by Frank Lloyd Wright) and the Overture Center for the Arts. Then it’s on toward the University of Wisconsin campus, with its historic buildings, walkways, and the Memorial Union Terrace, one of the city’s best-known spots for students and locals to meet, eat and listen to live music. The tour continues through Madison’s diverse neighborhoods, visiting numerous ethnic restaurants, music festivals and the one Madison’s most famous traditions, the Dane County Farmers’ Market. The visual journey finishes with visits to the breathtaking parks and gardens scattered throughout the city.
[more]
cover of Madison

Madison

Brent Nicastro

University of Wisconsin Press, 2011

Brent Nicastro showcases the dynamic power, energy, and sheer beauty of Madison in this book of photography. Since the 1970s, Nicastro has been photographing the splendor of Madison, and his feel for his home is never more evident than in these images of the Dane County Farmers’ Market, the State Capitol building, the University of Wisconsin campus in all seasons, football at Camp Randall Stadium and basketball at the Kohl Center, the Monona Terrace Convention and Community Center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the Memorial Union Terrace, Picnic Point, and many more landmarks that evoke Madison’s charm.
    Accompanying each image are captions in four languages—English, German, Spanish, and Chinese—making this book a perfect gift volume for all who love Madison. Visitors, students, and lifelong residents will savor this photographic portrait of beautiful Madison, Wisconsin.

[more]
cover of Madison Chefs: Stories of Food, Farms, and People

Madison Chefs

Stories of Food, Farms, and People

Lindsay Christians and Chris Hynes

University of Wisconsin Press, 2021

Why do Salvatore’s tomato pies have the sauce on the top? Where did chef Tami Lax learn to identify mushrooms in the woods? How did Morris develop its signature ramen?
 
Farm-to-table is a cliché, but its roots among the farmers and chefs of south-central Wisconsin are deep, vibrant, and resilient. From brats and burgers to bibimbap, Madison’s food scene looks substantially different than it did just a decade ago. Though the city has always been ahead of the locavore movement, a restaurant boom in the 2010s radically changed the dining landscape. Even when individual eateries close or chefs move on, their ideas, connections, and creativity have lasting power. Much larger cities have been unable to match the culinary variety, innovation, and depth of talent found in Wisconsin’s state capital.
 
Lindsay Christians’s in-depth look at nine creative, intense, and dedicated chefs captures the reason why Madison’s food culture remains a gem in America’s Upper Midwest. This beautifully illustrated book will leave you salivating—or making reservations.
[more]
cover of Madison: The Illustrated History, 1932–1979

Madison

The Illustrated History, 1932–1979

Stuart D. Levitan

University of Wisconsin Press, 2026

This second volume in the acclaimed illustrated civic history of Madison, Wisconsin, tells the story of this iconic midwestern city in the middle years of the twentieth century. Like the rest of America in this period, Madison was buffeted by a boom-and-bust economy, hot and cold wars abroad, and social and cultural changes on the homefront. Stuart D. Levitan, a mainstay of Madison media and government since 1975, offers a decade-by-decade visual and narrative account of the city’s transformation—as well as that of its major public university. Featuring hundreds of illustrations, this volume also highlights the local legends and luminaries who shaped the city, from bootleggers to world-famous architects to radicals and revolutionaries.

[more]
cover of Mammals of South America, Volume 1: Marsupials, Xenarthrans, Shrews, and Bats

Mammals of South America, Volume 1

Marsupials, Xenarthrans, Shrews, and Bats

Edited by Alfred L. Gardner

University of Chicago Press, 2008

The vast terrain between Panama and Tierra del Fuego contains some of the world’s richest mammalian fauna, but until now it has lacked a comprehensive systematic reference to the identification, distribution, and taxonomy of its mammals. The first such book of its kind and the inaugural volume in a three-part series, Mammals of South America both summarizes existing information and encourages further research of the mammals indigenous to the region.
 
Containing identification keys and brief descriptions of each order, family, and genus, the first volume of Mammals of South America covers marsupials, shrews, armadillos, sloths, anteaters, and bats. Species accounts include taxonomic descriptions, synonymies, keys to identification, distributions with maps and a gazetteer of marginal localities, lists of recognized subspecies, brief summaries of natural history information, and discussions of issues related to taxonomic interpretations.Highly anticipated and much needed, this book will be a landmark contribution to mammalogy, zoology, tropical biology, and conservation biology.
[more]
cover of Mapping

Mapping

David Greenhood

University of Chicago Press, 1964

"A praiseworthy introduction to the lore of maps and a mine of information for the amateur map-maker."—O.M. Miller, American Geographical Society

"This book should be welcomed by all students of mapping, for it will take them in uncomplicated stages through the complexities of compiling a map. . . . Mr. Greenwood is to be congratulated on an excellent book."—C.J. Angus, Canadian Geographical Journal

"For the baggy and middle-aged who cannot afford skiing in Austria or sailing off Bimini, Greenhood invites his readers to a sort of intellectual excitement which neither skiing nor sailing could equal. . . . Unless you work professionally with maps to the degree that a navigator does, for instance, this book will fascinate and enthrall you."—Monroe Bush, American Forests

"A teacher who wishes to go into the classroom with a storehouse of knowledge and ideas will find this a remarkable book. It is easy to read, and each page contains information which can be fed into the work in progress no matter which area of the world is being studied."—Instructor
[more]
cover of Mapping Historical Las Vegas: A Cartographic Journey

Mapping Historical Las Vegas

A Cartographic Journey

Joe Weber

University of Nevada Press, 2022

Las Vegas has a long and rich history that extends far beyond the clichés of “sin city,” the Mafia, Elvis, or mindless urban sprawl. Mapping Historical Las Vegas takes readers beyond stereotypical tales and provides an illustrated cartographic exploration of the entire region from the time of the ancient Anasazi farmers to the present. Weber shows the development of the surrounding area, revealing a geographical perspective on the city’s growth, including the influence of water, public land surveys, transportation routes, and the construction of casinos on Las Vegas’s evolution.

Reaching past the city limits, Mapping Historical Las Vegas also examines the development of public lands, military bases, and the canyons and valleys of the Colorado River before the Hoover Dam was built and Lake Mead was created. Weber also includes information on dams, highways, railroads, and other projects that were planned but never constructed— showing what might have been in one of the nation’s largest cities.

With 137 color maps generated using Geographic Information Systems, along with extensive mapping by Weber that draws on his decades of experience in the region, Mapping Historical Las Vegas offers a unique perspective on one of the world’s most famous desert cities.
 
[more]
cover of Mapping It Out: Expository Cartography for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Mapping It Out

Expository Cartography for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Mark Monmonier

University of Chicago Press, 1993

Writers know only too well how long it can take—and how awkward it can be—to describe spatial relationships with words alone. And while a map might not always be worth a thousand words, a good one can help writers communicate an argument or explanation clearly, succinctly, and effectively.

In his acclaimed How to Lie with Maps, Mark Monmonier showed how maps can distort facts. In Mapping it Out: Expository Cartography for the Humanities and Social Sciences, he shows authors and scholars how they can use expository cartography—the visual, two-dimensional organization of information—to heighten the impact of their books and articles.

This concise, practical book is an introduction to the fundamental principles of graphic logic and design, from the basics of scale to the complex mapping of movement or change. Monmonier helps writers and researchers decide when maps are most useful and what formats work best in a wide range of subject areas, from literary criticism to sociology. He demonstrates, for example, various techniques for representing changes and patterns; different typefaces and how they can either clarify or confuse information; and the effectiveness of less traditional map forms, such as visibility base maps, frame-rectangle symbols, and complementary scatterplot designs for conveying complex spatial relationships.

There is also a wealth of practical information on map compilation, cartobibliographies, copyright and permissions, facsimile reproduction, and the evaluation of source materials. Appendixes discuss the benefits and limitations of electronic graphics and pen-and-ink drafting, and how to work with a cartographic illustrator.

Clearly written, and filled with real-world examples, Mapping it Out demystifies mapmaking for anyone writing in the humanities and social sciences.

"A useful guide to a subject most people probably take too much for granted. It shows how map makers translate abstract data into eye-catching cartograms, as they are called. It combats cartographic illiteracy. It fights cartophobia. It may even teach you to find your way."—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
[more]
cover of Mapping New Jersey: An Evolving Landscape

Mapping New Jersey

An Evolving Landscape

Maxine N. Lurie (Editor in Chief), and Peter O. Wacker (Editor in Chief), Michael Siegel (Cartographer)

Rutgers University Press, 2009

Mapping New Jersey is the first interpretive atlas of the state in more than one hundred years. New Jersey, small in size with only 4.8 million acres, has a long and complex background. Its past is filled with paradoxes and contradictionsùan agricultural economy for most of its history, New Jersey was also one of the earliest states to turn to manufacturing and chemical research. Today, still championing itself as the "Garden State," New Jersey claims both the highest population density in the country and the largest number of hazardous waste sites. Many see an asphalt oasis, from the New Jersey Turnpike to the Garden State Parkway, with cities that sprawl into adjacent suburbs. Yet, after hundreds of years, large areas of New Jersey remain home to horse farms, cornfields, orchards, nurseries, blueberry bushes, and cranberry bogs.

Tracing the changes in environment, land use patterns, demography, transportation, economy, and politics over the course of many centuries, Mapping New Jerseyilluminates the state's transformation from a simple agricultural society to a post-industrial and culturally diverse place inhabited by more people per acre than anywhere else in the country.

An innovator in transportation, from railroads to traffic circles to aviation, New Jersey from its beginnings was a "corridor" state, with a dense Native American trail system once crisscrossed on foot, country roads traveled by armies of the American Revolution, and, lately, the rolling wheels of many sedans, SUVs, hybrids, public and commercial vehicles, and freight. Early to industrialize, it also served as the headquarters for Thomas Edison and the development of the modern American economy. Small in territory and crowded with people, the state works to recycle garbage and, at the same time, best utilize and preserve its land.

New Jersey has been depicted in useful and quite stunning historical maps, many of the best included in Mapping New Jerseyùcrude maps drawn by sixteenth-century navigators; complex and beautifully decorated pieces created by early Dutch cartographers; land maps plotted by seventeenth-century English settlement surveyors; examples of the nineteenth century's scientific revolution in map making that helped locate topography and important mineral resources; detailed insurance maps that correct London map maker William Faden's 1777-78 classic rendering of the state; and aerial photos, remote sensing, and global positioning system maps generated through twenty-first-century technology breakthroughs in cartography.

Integrating new maps, graphs, and diagrams unavailable through ordinary research or Internet searches, Mapping New Jersey is divided into six topical chapters, each accompanied by an introduction and overview telling the story of the state's past and detailing its diversity. Mapping New Jersey, dramatically bold and in full color, travels where New Jersey has gone and the rest of the nation is likely to follow.

[more]
cover of Mapping an Empire: The Geographical Construction of British India, 1765-1843

Mapping an Empire

The Geographical Construction of British India, 1765-1843

Matthew H. Edney

University of Chicago Press, 1997

In this fascinating history of the British surveys of India, Matthew H. Edney relates how imperial Britain used modern survey techniques to not only create and define the spatial image of its Empire, but also to legitimate its colonialist activities.

"There is much to be praised in this book. It is an excellent history of how India came to be painted red in the nineteenth century. But more importantly, Mapping an Empire sets a new standard for books that examine a fundamental problem in the history of European imperialism."—D. Graham Burnett, Times Literary Supplement

"Mapping an Empire is undoubtedly a major contribution to the rapidly growing literature on science and empire, and a work which deserves to stimulate a great deal of fresh thinking and informed research."—David Arnold, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History

"This case study offers broadly applicable insights into the relationship between ideology, technology and politics. . . . Carefully read, this is a tale of irony about wishful thinking and the limits of knowledge."—Publishers Weekly

[more]
cover of Maps: Finding Our Place in the World

Maps

Finding Our Place in the World

Edited by James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow Jr.

University of Chicago Press, 2007

Maps are universal forms of communication, easily understood and appreciated regardless of culture or language. This truly magisterial book introduces readers to the widest range of maps ever considered in one volume: maps from different time periods and a variety of cultures; maps made for divergent purposes and depicting a range of environments; and maps that embody the famous, the important, the beautiful, the groundbreaking, or the amusing. Built around the functions of maps—the kinds of things maps do and have done—Maps confirms the vital role of maps throughout history in commerce, art, literature, and national identity.

The book begins by examining the use of maps for wayfinding, revealing that even maps as common and widely used as these are the product of historical circumstances and cultural differences. The second chapter considers maps whose makers employed the smallest of scales to envision the broadest of human stages—the world, the heavens, even the act of creation itself. The next chapter looks at maps that are, literally, at the opposite end of the scale from cosmological and world maps—maps that represent specific parts of the world and provide a close-up view of areas in which their makers lived, worked, and moved.

Having shown how maps help us get around and make sense of our greater and lesser worlds, Maps then turns to the ways in which certain maps can be linked to particular events in history, exploring how they have helped Americans, for instance, to understand their past, cope with current events, and plan their national future. The fifth chapter considers maps that represent data from scientific instruments, population censuses, and historical records. These maps illustrate, for example, how diseases spread, what the ocean floor looks like, and how the weather is tracked and predicted. Next comes a turn to the imaginary, featuring maps that depict entire fictional worlds, from Hell to Utopia and from Middle Earth to the fantasy game World of Warcraft. The final chapter traces the origins of map consumption throughout history and ponders the impact of cartography on modern society.

A companion volume to the most ambitious exhibition on the history of maps ever mounted in North America, Maps will challenge readers to stretch conventional thought about what constitutes a map and how many different ways we can understand graphically the environment in which we live. Collectors, historians, mapmakers and users, and anyone who has ever “gotten lost” in the lines and symbols of a map will find much to love and learn from in this book.
[more]
cover of Marching West: The Los Angeles Civil Rights Movement in Photographs

Marching West

The Los Angeles Civil Rights Movement in Photographs

Karin L. Stanford

J. Paul Getty Trust, The, 2026

This volume presents the first visual history of the people and organizations that led the fight for change during the civil rights era in Los Angeles.

During a 1963 speech to a crowd of nearly forty thousand at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the question of how Angelenos could contribute to the civil rights movement: “The most important thing that you can do is to set Los Angeles free, because you have segregation and discrimination here, and police brutality.”

Marching West illuminates the dynamic history of civil rights activism in Los Angeles and explores how the medium of photography both witnessed and advanced the fight for Black equality. Over one hundred images, some of which have never been previously published, reveal connections between the local and national movements and document the actions of Western coalitions, religious leaders, Hollywood stars, and concerned citizens. Drawn from the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), the Getty Research Institute, and other Southern California collections—including prints by Harry Adams, Howard Bingham, Charles Brittin, Joe Flowers, Vera Jackson, and Charles Williams—this unprecedented volume presents less familiar but essential stories about American progress toward social justice.

[more]
cover of Mark Twain & France: The Making of a New American Identity

Mark Twain & France

The Making of a New American Identity

Paula Harrington and Ronald Jenn

University of Missouri Press, 2017

Blending cultural history, biography, and literary criticism, this book explores how one of America's greatest icons used the French to help build a new sense of what it is to be “American” in the second half of the nineteenth century.

While critics have generally dismissed Mark Twain’s relationship with France as hostile, Harrington and Jenn see Twain’s use of the French as a foil to help construct his identity as “the representative American.” Examining new materials that detail his Montmatre study, the carte de visite album, and a chronology of his visits to France, the book offers close readings of writings that have been largely ignored, such as The Innocents Adrift manuscript and the unpublished chapters of A Tramp Abroad, combining literary analysis, socio-historical context and biographical research.
[more]
cover of Mark Twain and the American West

Mark Twain and the American West

Joseph L. Coulombe

University of Missouri Press, 2003

In Mark Twain and the American West, Joseph Coulombe explores how Mark Twain deliberately manipulated contemporary conceptions of the American West to create and then modify a public image that eventually won worldwide fame. He establishes the central role of the western region in the development of a persona that not only helped redefine American manhood and literary celebrity in the late nineteenth century, but also produced some of the most complex and challenging writings in the American canon.
Coulombe sheds new light on previously underappreciated components of Twain’s distinctly western persona. Gathering evidence from contemporary newspapers, letters, literature, and advice manuals, Coulombe shows how Twain’s persona in the early 1860s as a hard-drinking, low-living straight-talker was an implicit response to western conventions of manhood. He then traces the author’s movement toward a more sophisticated public image, arguing that Twain characterized language and authorship in the same manner that he described western men: direct, bold, physical, even violent. In this way, Twain capitalized upon common images of the West to create himself as a new sort of western outlaw—one who wrote.
Coulombe outlines Twain’s struggle to find the proper balance between changing cultural attitudes toward male respectability and rebellion and his own shifting perceptions of the East and the West. Focusing on the tension between these goals, Coulombe explores Twain’s emergence as the moneyed and masculine man-of-letters, his treatment of American Indians in its relation to his depiction of Jim in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the enigmatic connection of Huck Finn to the natural world, and Twain’s profound influence on Willa Cather’s western novels.
Mark Twain and the American West is sure to generate new interest and discussion about Mark Twain and his influence. By understanding how conventions of the region, conceptions of money and class, and constructions of manhood intersect with the creation of Twain’s persona, Coulombe helps us better appreciate the writer’s lasting effect on American thought and literature through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.
[more]
cover of Mark Twain in Paradise: His Voyages to Bermuda

Mark Twain in Paradise

His Voyages to Bermuda

Donald Hoffman

University of Missouri Press, 2006

For Mark Twain, it was love at first landfall. Samuel Clemens first encountered the Bermuda Islands in 1867 on a return voyage from the Holy Land and found them much to his liking. One of the most isolated spots in the world, Bermuda offered the writer a refuge from his harried and sometimes sad existence on the mainland, and this island paradise called him back another seven times. Clemens found that Bermuda’s beauty, pace, weather, and company were just the medicine he needed, and its seafaring culture with few connections to the outside world appealed to his love of travel by water.

This book is the first comprehensive study of Clemens’s love affair with Bermuda, a vivid depiction of a celebrated author on recurring vacations. Donald Hoffmann has culled and clarified passages from Mark Twain’s travel pieces, letters, and unpublished autobiographical dictation—with cross-references to his fiction and infrequently cited short pieces—to create a little-known view of the author at leisure on his fantasy island.

Mark Twain in Paradise sheds light on both Clemens’s complex character and the topography and history of the islands. Hoffmann has plumbed the voluminous Mark Twain scholarship and Bermudian archives to faithfully re-create turn-of-the-century Bermuda, supplying historical and biographical background to give his narrative texture and depth. He offers insight into Bermuda’s natural environment, traditional stone houses, and romantic past, and he presents dozens of illustrations, both vintage and new, showing that much of what Mark Twain described can still be seen today.

Hoffmann also provides insight into the social circles Clemens moved in—and sometimes collected around himself. When visiting the islands, he rubbed shoulders with the likes of socialist Upton Sinclair and multimillionaire Henry H. Rogers; with Woodrow Wilson and his lover, socialite Mary Peck; as well as with the young girls to whom he enjoyed playing grandfather.

“You go to heaven if you want to,” Mark Twain wrote from Bermuda in 1910 during his long last visit. “I’d druther stay here.” And because much of what Clemens enjoyed in the islands is still available to experience today, visitors to Bermuda can now have America’s favorite author as their guide. Mark Twain in Paradise is an unexpected addition to the vast literature by and about Mark Twain and a work of travel literature unlike any other.
[more]
cover of Mark Twain on the Move: A Travel Reader

Mark Twain on the Move

A Travel Reader

Alan Gribben

University of Alabama Press, 2008

Journeys, humor, and insight from Mark Twain's travel narratives - America’s literary master.

Mark Twain on the Move gathers the very best passages from all five of Mark Twain’s travel narratives: The Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872), A Tramp Abroad (1880), Life on the Mississippi (1883), and Following the Equator (1897). Although Twain’s travel narratives were his best sellers throughout his career, modern readers are largely unfamiliar with them. Thus, readers are not only missing some of Twain’s most hilarious and insightful material, they are also missing a complete understanding of a beloved literary and cultural icon.

Mark Twain on the Move presents the best of these works—sometimes respectful, often irreverent and outlandish—at their most lively and captures his renowned experiences as an American tourist. And they demonstrate why Twain’s greatest popularity in his lifetime derived from his travel writings rather than from his novels. Twain was always entertaining and provocative while on the move and this collection captures that fabled energy for modern readers.

[more]
cover of Mark Twain's Homes and Literary Tourism

Mark Twain's Homes and Literary Tourism

Hilary Iris Lowe

University of Missouri Press, 2025

A century after Samuel Clemens’s death, Mark Twain thrives. One way fans still celebrate the first true American writer and his work is by visiting any number of Mark Twain destinations. They believe they can learn something unique by visiting the places where he lived. Mark Twain’s Homes and Literary Tourism untangles the complicated ways that Clemens’s houses, now museums, have come to tell the stories that they do about Twain and, in the process, reminds us that the sites themselves are the products of multiple agendas and, in some cases, unpleasant histories. 

Hilary Iris Lowe leads us through four Twain homes, beginning at the beginning—Florida, Missouri, where Clemens was born. Today the site is simply a concrete pedestal missing its bust, a plaque, and an otherwise-empty field. Though the original cabin where he was born likely no longer exists, Lowe treats us to an overview of the history of the area and the state park challenged with somehow marking this site. Next, we travel with Lowe to Hannibal, Missouri, Clemens’s childhood home, which he saw become a tourist destination in his own lifetime. Today mannequins remind visitors of the man that the boy who lived there became and the literature that grew out of his experiences in the house and little town on the Mississippi.

Hartford, Connecticut, boasts one of Clemens’s only surviving adulthood homes, the house where he spent his most productive years. Lowe describes the house’s construction, its sale when the high cost of living led the family to seek residence abroad, and its transformation into the museum. Lastly, we travel to Elmira, New York, where Clemens spent many summers with his family at Quarry Farm. His study is the only room at this destination open to the public, and yet, tourists follow in the footsteps of literary pilgrim Rudyard Kipling to see this small space.

Literary historic sites pin their authority on the promise of exclusive insight into authors and texts through firsthand experience. As tempting as it is to accept the authenticity of Clemens’s homes, Mark Twain’s Homes and Literary Tourism argues that house museums are not reliable critical texts but are instead carefully constructed spaces designed to satisfy visitors. This volume shows us how these houses’ portrayals of Clemens change frequently to accommodate and shape our own expectations of the author and his work.

 

[more]
cover of Mark Twain, Travel Books, and Tourism: The Tide of a Great Popular Movement

Mark Twain, Travel Books, and Tourism

The Tide of a Great Popular Movement

Jeffrey Alan Melton

University of Alabama Press, 2008

Winner of the Elizabeth Agee Prize for best manuscript in American Literature

With the publication of The Innocents Abroad (1869), Mark Twain embarked on a long and successful career as the 19th century's best-selling travel writer. Jeffrey Melton treats Twain's travel narratives in depth, and in the context of his contemporary travel writers and a burgeoning tourism culture. As Melton shows, Twain's five major travel narratives--The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, Life on the Mississippi, A Tramp Abroad, and Following the Equator--demonstrate Twain's mastery and reinvention of the genre.


 
[more]
cover of Mark Twain, Unsanctified Newspaper Reporter

Mark Twain, Unsanctified Newspaper Reporter

James E. Caron

University of Missouri Press, 2008

Before Mark Twain became a national celebrity with his best-selling The Innocents Abroad, he was just another struggling writer perfecting his craft—but already “playin’ hell” with the world. In the first book in more than fifty years to examine the initial phase of Samuel Clemens’s writing career, James Caron draws on contemporary scholarship and his own careful readings to offer a fresh and comprehensive perspective on those early years—and to challenge many long-standing views of  Mark Twain’s place in the tradition of American humor.

Tracing the arc of Clemens’s career from self-described “unsanctified newspaper reporter” to national author between 1862 and 1867, Caron reexamines the early and largely neglected writings—especially the travel letters from Hawaii and the letters chronicling Clemens’s trip from California to New York City. Caron connects those sets of letters with comic materials Clemens had already published, drawing on all known items from this first phase of his career—even the virtually forgotten pieces from the San Francisco Morning Call in 1864—to reveal how Mark Twain’s humor was shaped by the sociocultural context and how it catered to his audience’s sensibilities while unpredictably transgressing its standards.

Caron reveals how Sam Clemens’s contemporaries, notably Charles Webb, provided important comic models, and he shows how Clemens not only adjusted to but also challenged the guidelines of the newspapers and magazines for which he wrote, evolving as a comic writer who transmuted personal circumstances into literary art. Plumbing Mark Twain’s cultural significance, Caron draws on anthropological insights from Victor Turner and others to compare the performative aspects of Clemens’s early work to the role of ritual clowns in traditional societies

Brimming with fresh insights into such benchmarks as “Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands” and “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,” this book is a gracefully written work that reflects both patient research and considered judgment to chart the development of an iconic American talent. Mark Twain, Unsanctified Newspaper Reporter should be required reading for all serious scholars of his work, as well as for anyone interested in the interplay between artistic creativity and the literary marketplace.

[more]
cover of Mark Twain, the World, and Me: "Following the Equator," Then and Now

Mark Twain, the World, and Me

"Following the Equator," Then and Now

Susan K. Harris

University of Alabama Press, 2020

WINNER OF THE ELIZABETH AGEE PRIZE IN AMERICAN LITERATURE
 
A scholar accompanies Twain on his journey around the world
 
In Mark Twain, the World, and Me: “Following the Equator,” Then and Now, Susan K. Harris follows Twain’s last lecture tour as he wound his way through the British Empire in 1895–1896. Deftly blending history, biography, literary criticism, reportage, and travel memoir, Harris gives readers a unique take on one of America’s most widely studied writers.
 
Structured as a series of interlocking essays written in the first person, this engaging volume draws on Twain’s insights into the histories and cultures of Australia, India, and South Africa and weaves them into timely reflections on the legacies of those countries today. Harris offers meditations on what Twain’s travels mean for her as a scholar, a white woman, a Jewish American, a wife, and a mother. By treating topics as varied as colonial rule, the clash between indigenous and settler communities, racial and sexual “inbetweenness,” and species decimation, Harris reveals how the world we know grew out of the colonial world Twain encountered. Her essays explore issues of identity that still trouble us today: respecting race and gender, preserving nature, honoring indigenous peoples, and respecting religious differences.

 
[more]
cover of Market Day in Provence

Market Day in Provence

Michèle de La Pradelle

University of Chicago Press, 2006

At farmers’ markets, we expect to see fruit bursting with juicy sweetness and vegetables greener than a golf course. For Michèle de La Pradelle these expectations are mostly the result of a show performed by merchants and sustained by our propensity to see what we want to see there. Hailed upon its release in France, the award-winning Market Day in Provence lays bare the mechanisms of the contemporary outdoor market by providing a definitive account of the centuries-old institution at Carpentras, a city near Avignon in the south of France famous for its quintessential public street market.

The renewal and celebration of the outdoor market culture in recent years, argues de La Pradelle, artfully masks a fierce commitment to modern-day free-market economics. Responding to consumer desire for an experience that recalls a time before impersonal supermarket chains and mass-produced products, buyers and sellers alike create an atmosphere built on various fictions. Vendors at the market at Carpentras, for example, oblige patrons by acting like lifelong acquaintances of those whom they’ve only just met as they dispense free samples and lively, witty banter. Likewise, going to the market to look for “freshness” becomes a way for the consumer to signify the product’s relation to nature—a denial of the workaday reality of growing melons under plastic sheets, then machine-sorting, crating, and transporting them.
Offering captivating descriptions of goods and the friendly and occasionally piquant exchanges between buyers and sellers, Market Day in Provence will be devoured by any reader with an interest in areas as diverse as food, ethnography, globalization, modernity, and French culture.
 

 
[more]
cover of Massachusetts at a Glance: A User's Guide to the Bay State

Massachusetts at a Glance

A User's Guide to the Bay State

Jack Tager

University of Massachusetts Press, 2004

Designed for both residents and visitors, this book offers an alphabetically arranged compendium of information about people, places, and events—past and present—in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its aim is to provide a handy one-volume reference guide to a state that has played a central role in American history since the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620.

Site of the first Thanksgiving in the seventeenth century and seedbed of revolutionary sentiment during the eighteenth, the Bay State became a center of industrialization during the nineteenth and of the high tech revolution during the twentieth. It has served as home to some of the nation's most renowned writers, from Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson to Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, as well as some of its most prominent public figures, including Samuel Adams, Daniel Webster, W. E. B. Du Bois, and John F. Kennedy.

A professional historian with a long-standing interest in the history of Massachusetts, Jack Tager has organized the book to allow readers to find answers to questions in an efficient and reliable manner. He begins with a compilation of basic facts about Massachusetts, including population data drawn from the latest census, state motto and seal, even the state bird. This is followed by the main section of the book, an A-to-Z list of individuals, events, and sites of interest.

Additional information about the state can be found in a year-by-year chronology of key historical developments, a statistical profile of the state's 351 towns and cities, and lists of the state's museums, historic sites, and state parks as well as its many colleges and universities, with addresses, telephone numbers, and websites for readers who might wish to contact these institutions directly. Finally, an extensive listing of suggested readings is included for those who would like to explore further any of the topics covered in the book.
[more]
cover of Masters of All They Surveyed: Exploration, Geography, and a British El Dorado

Masters of All They Surveyed

Exploration, Geography, and a British El Dorado

D. Graham Burnett

University of Chicago Press, 2000

Chronicling the British pursuit of the legendary El Dorado, Masters of All They Surveyed tells the fascinating story of geography, cartography, and scientific exploration in Britain's unique South American colony, Guyana. How did nineteenth-century Europeans turn areas they called terra incognita into bounded colonial territories? How did a tender-footed gentleman, predisposed to seasickness (and unable to swim), make his way up churning rivers into thick jungle, arid savanna, and forbidding mountain ranges, survive for the better part of a decade, and emerge with a map? What did that map mean?

In answering these questions, D. Graham Burnett brings to light the work of several such explorers, particularly Sir Robert H. Schomburgk, the man who claimed to be the first to reach the site of Ralegh's El Dorado. Commissioned by the Royal Geographical Society and later by the British Crown, Schomburgk explored and mapped regions in modern Brazil, Venezuela, and Guyana, always in close contact with Amerindian communities. Drawing heavily on the maps, reports, and letters that Schomburgk sent back to England, and especially on the luxuriant images of survey landmarks in his Twelve Views in the Interior of Guiana (reproduced in color in this book), Burnett shows how a vast network of traverse surveys, illustrations, and travel narratives not only laid out the official boundaries of British Guiana but also marked out a symbolic landscape that fired the British imperial imagination.

Engagingly written and beautifully illustrated, Masters of All They Surveyed will interest anyone who wants to understand the histories of colonialism and science.
[more]
cover of Mayan Drifter: Chicano Poet in the Lowlands of America

Mayan Drifter

Chicano Poet in the Lowlands of America

Juan Herrera

Temple University Press, 1997

[more]
cover of Meander Scars: Reflections on Healing the Willamette River

Meander Scars

Reflections on Healing the Willamette River

Abby Phillips Metzger

Oregon State University Press, 2013

Abby Phillips Metzger’s book of personal stories recounts a forgotten Oregon river, the Willamette, as it was before white settlement. Once a rich network of channels and sloughs, the Willamette today bears the scars of development and degradation.

Yet, through canoe trips and intimate explorations of the river, Metzger discovers glints of resiliency: a beaver trolling through a slough, native fish in quiet backwaters, and strong currents that carry undertones of the wild Willamette. Together with tales from farmers and scientists alike, these experiences lead Metzger to ask whether something scarred can fully heal, and whether a disjointed river can be whole again.

A story of re-discovery as told by a learner, Meander Scars will appeal to readers of literary nonfiction, river advocates, naturalists, and outdoor enthusiasts interested in sustaining healthy river systems for themselves, their children, and beyond.
[more]
cover of Men Met Along the Trail: Adventures in Archaeology

Men Met Along the Trail

Adventures in Archaeology

Neil M Judd

University of Utah Press, 2009

Originally published in 1968, this classic work by renowned archaeologist Neil M. Judd is a compilation of recollections and memories of his extensive career in archaeology. The stories told are truly those of “Men Met Along the Trail,” of the archaeologists, Mormons, Indians, prospectors, ranchers, and settlers that Judd encountered in his lifelong travels and work throughout the southwestern United States and beyond. There are meetings with leading American archaeologists such as “Dean” Byron Cummings, W. H. Holmes, and Charles D. Wallace, and famous Southwestern figures including Cass Hite, Dave Rust, and John Wetherill. Throughout are tales of early field work and typical camp life, from flooded canyons, run-ins with rattlesnakes, cumbersome pack trains, and early Model T Fords, to camp pranks, food shortages, and Zuñi dance celebrations.

Written at the request of young associates who felt Judd’s lifetime of experiences in the field could be both instructive and amusing, Men Met Along the Trail provides a glimpse of archaeology when it was an emerging field of study, evolving from simple curio collecting to technologically advanced radiocarbon dating and pollen analysis. Featuring more than thirty original photographs and a new foreword by Don D. Fowler, this book is entertaining and informative, offering readers a vibrant and colorful picture of the adventures to be found in early Southwestern archaeology.
[more]
cover of Mennonites of Southern Illinois: A Photographic Journal

Mennonites of Southern Illinois

A Photographic Journal

Jane Flynn, with forewords by Herbert K. Russell and Liz Wells

Southern Illinois University Press, 2024

WINNER, Certificate of Excellence in “Publications – Other” from the Illinois State Historical Society’s 2025 Best of Illinois History Awards!

“In the World But Not of It”

Offering a glimpse into a world largely misunderstood by mainstream society, this book documents the period of eight years that Jane Flynn practiced with Mennonites in two different Southern Illinois communities: Stonefort, and Mount Pleasant in Anna. Despite her status as an outsider, Flynn was welcomed and allowed to photograph the Mennonites in their homes, making applesauce, farming, and beekeeping.

Escaping persecution from the Catholic Church in Europe, the Mennonites arrived in America in 1683, settling in what is now Pennsylvania. Today, they live in almost all 50 states, Canada, and South America. To reflect the Mennonites’ manual-labor lifestyle, Flynn processed her black-and-white photographs by hand and hand-printed them in a dark room. The imagery explores the Mennonites’ labors, leisure, and faith by documenting their homes, places of work and worship, and the Illinois Ozark landscape they inhabit.

Similar to the Amish and the Quakers, Mennonites consider the Bible the supreme authority and insist on a separation between church and state. To enact that separation, they distinguish themselves from society in speech, dress, business, recreation, education, pacifism, and by refusing to participate in politics. They believe in nonconformity to the world, discipleship, and being born again through adult baptism. With Mennonites of Southern Illinois, Jane Flynn provides representation for these closed communities and illustrates the Mennonites’ struggle to find and maintain balance between rustic and modern life while remaining faithful to their religious beliefs. 

[more]
cover of Mexico’s Valleys of Cuicatlán and Tehuacán: From Deserts to Clouds

Mexico’s Valleys of Cuicatlán and Tehuacán

From Deserts to Clouds

David Yetman and Alberto Búrquez

University of Arizona Press, 2023

Mexico’s Valleys of Cuicatlán and Tehuacán: From Deserts to Clouds provides an accessible and photographic view of the culture, history, and environment of an extraordinary region of southern Mexico. The Valleys of Cuicatlán and Tehuacán are lauded by botanists for their spectacular plant life—they contain the densest columnar cacti forests in the world. Recent archaeological excavations reveal them also to be a formative Mesoamerican site as well. So singular is this region that it is home to the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Through firsthand experience and engaging prose, the authors provide a synthesis of the geology, ecology, history, and cultures of the valleys, showing their importance and influence as Mesoamerican arteries for environmental and cultural interchange through Mexico. It also reveals the extraordinary plant life that draws from habitats ranging from deserts to tropical forests.

The authors, both experts in their respective fields, begin with a general description of the geography of the valleys, followed by an introduction to climate and hydrology, a look at the valleys’ often bewildering geology. The book delves into cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the valleys and discusses archaeological sites that that encapsulate the valleys’ fascinating history prior to the arrival of Europeans. The book concludes by describing the flora that makes the region so singular.
[more]
cover of Michigan Free: Your Comprehensive Guide to Free Travel, Recreation, and Entertainment Opportunities

Michigan Free

Your Comprehensive Guide to Free Travel, Recreation, and Entertainment Opportunities

Eric Freedman

University of Michigan Press, 1993

Whether your preference is for indoor or outdoor activities, whether you live in-state or are just planning to visit, whether you are traveling with children, as a couple, or singly, Michigan Free lists an abundance of cost-free or inexpensive activities from Detroit to the remote reaches of the Upper Peninsula, for all seasons. Michigan Free provides detailed information about free or inexpensive concerts, plays, museums, wildlife preserves, national parks and forests, live theater and dance, musical performances, nature centers, festivals, walking tours, and more. Also provided is an in-depth look at a variety of free attractions such as the annual Labor Day walk across the Mackinac Bridge. Each listing includes a description of the attraction, its location, and its hours of operation.
[more]
cover of Michigan One-Room Schoolhouses

Michigan One-Room Schoolhouses

Mary Keithan

University of Michigan Press, 2008

Nostalgic reminders of a time now past, one-room schoolhouses are deeply embedded in our heritage. Decades after their original purpose and inhabitants have vanished, they dot the rural landscape in all conditions, from neglected and near collapse to handsomely renovated places repurposed into a new existence as living quarters. Today no matter their state they stand as miniature gems of nineteenth-century American history as well as charming examples of rural architecture---above all, things to be treasured and preserved. Mary Keithan's Michigan One-Room Schoolhouses is a beautifully illustrated chronicle that details nearly a hundred of the state's early schoolhouses. Together with information about each schoolhouse's architecture and history, including interviews with former students and teachers, Keithan's photographs bring these structures back to life and assure their place in history.

Mary Keithan is a professional photographer living in Ray, Michigan. Her previous books include Michigan's Heritage Barns and A Time in Michigan: A Photographic Series. New York Times critic Vicki Goldberg selected Keithan's 1995 image "Desert Storm Barn" for the Light Impression Biennial.

[more]
cover of Michigan's County Courthouses

Michigan's County Courthouses

John Fedynsky

University of Michigan Press, 2011

John Fedynsky documents in narrative and photos every county courthouse of Michigan's eighty-three counties, as well as the Michigan Hall of Justice. These buildings are symbols: physically they stand, but figuratively they speak. They embody the purposes for which they were created: law, order, justice, and the promise of a better tomorrow.

Fedynsky tells the story of each building. For Michigan, the typical evolution begins in the cabin, tavern, or hotel of a prominent local settler and progresses through incarnations of simple log or wooden clapboard, and then opulent stone or brick, before the structure arrives in modern and utilitarian form. But there are myriad exceptions to this rule, and they add to the diversity of Michigan's county courthouses.

In Fedynsky's descriptions, verifiable facts and local lore weave together in dramatic tales of outrageous crime, courtroom intrigue, backroom dealing, jury determination, and judicial prerogative. Released jail inmates assist with evacuating and extinguishing a courthouse fire, residents during a natural disaster seek and find physical refuge behind the sure walls of the courthouse, and vigilant legions of homebound defenders are stationed in wartime throughout the courthouse towers scanning the skies for signs of foreign aircraft.

Then there are the homey touches that emphasize the "house" half of Michigan's courthouses: local folks dropping off plants in the courthouse atrium to use it as a winter greenhouse, cows grazing on the public square, county fairs in or near the courthouse, and locally made artwork hanging in public hallways. The courthouses bear within their walls a richness of soul endowed by the good people who make each one special.

Cover design by Heidi Dailey

Cover photos: John Fedynsky

[more]
cover of Michigan's Town and Country Inns, 5th Edition

Michigan's Town and Country Inns, 5th Edition

Susan Newhof

University of Michigan Press, 2013

The fifth edition of Michigan’s Town & Country Inns is a guide to more than 50 inns, bed-and-breakfast homes, and historic lodgings in the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan.

Choose from lighthouses anchored to the rugged shores of Lake Superior, Victorian mansions built by lumber and mining barons, rustic log lodges, and romantic small town hideaways. Meet the innkeepers themselves, who range from retired military officers and corporate heads to artists and poets. You’ll find detailed descriptions of the accommodations along with information about rates, suitability for children, and policies on smoking and pets. Get a sense of the flavor and mood of each and learn about fun things to do in the surrounding areas. Numerous photos enhance the descriptions and provide a visitor’s-eye view of some of the most unusual and delightful places to stay in Michigan.

[more]
cover of Minnesota’s Best Breweries and Brewpubs: Searching for the Perfect Pint

Minnesota’s Best Breweries and Brewpubs

Searching for the Perfect Pint

Robin Shepard

University of Wisconsin Press, 2011

Based on four years of travel and research, Minnesota’s Best Breweries and Brewpubs is a welcome addition to Robin Shepard’s series of guides to the best of the Midwest’s beer industries. From large-scale breweries such as Cold Spring, to chains like Granite City, to individual brewpubs like Fitger’s Brewhouse, Shepard provides commentary for more than thirty beer makers and three-hundred Minnesota beers. Accessible enough for people at all stages in their journeys to discover great-tasting beer, the information-packed guidebook also features a list of helpful books and websites, as well as information on Minnesota’s beer tastings and festivals.
    For each brewery and brewpub site you’ll find:
    • a description and brief history, plus many “don’t miss” features
    • a description of beers on tap and a list of seasonal and specialty beers
    • a space for the brewmaster’s autograph
    • notes on the pub food, with recommendations
    • suggestions of nearby sights and activities
    • general directions to the location
    • Shepard’s personal ratings of the experience, plus room to add your own.

[more]
cover of Mizzou Today

Mizzou Today

Edited by Karen Flandermeyer Worley, Text by Richard L. Wallace, & Photos by RobHill

University of Missouri Press, 2007

    Picture the adrenalin-pumping excitement of hoop action on Norm Stewart Court. Now envision the tranquillity of a late summer day, with a half moon rising in a blue sky over the Columns. These photos tell the same story: it’s not two different worlds—it’s Mizzou!

            The University of Missouri’s rich record of accomplishment and service to Missouri, the nation, and the world has been captured in this pictorial history—more than 140 full-color photos that provide a visual record of living and learning at the University of Missouri–Columbia. From the beauty of the historic Columns on Francis Quadrangle to the academic prowess of the faculty to gridiron thrills at Memorial Stadium, the book faithfully reflects a place where discovery happens every day.

            Rob Hill has been photographing Mizzou’s people, landmarks, and events for nearly twenty years, and his images bring the campus to life. Chancellor Emeritus Richard Wallace, whose service to the University spans four decades, recounts MU’s growth since World War II in his accompanying text. Assembled by MIZZOU magazine editor Karen Worley, Mizzou Today reflects everything that is the University of Missouri.

            Wallace provides timelines of key events that span the entire history of the University, tracing major events from its establishment in 1839 to the cancer research of the twenty-first century. Noted along the way are such events as the opening of University Hospital, the creation of new campuses, even the installation of the nation’s first automated library circulation system in Ellis Library, and some of the generous gifts that have made the University’s growth possible. The book also recalls all of the major milestones in sports, from the first intercollegiate football game in 1890 to Ben Askren’s national wrestling championships in 2006 and 2007.

            These magnificent photos will bring back memories for alumni as surely as they will preserve them for today’s students—from the dance steps of Truman the Tiger to the avid consumption of Tiger Stripe ice cream, from the solemnity of Tap Day ceremonies to fraternity brothers raising money for Hurricane Katrina relief. You’ll get a glimpse of dorm life in Hatch Hall and a peek into the law library’s rare-book room, a look over the shoulders of a trauma team saving a patient at University Hospital and of a fisheries student studying salamanders in the wild. And of course there are images of some of the heart-stopping action that Mizzou sports fans have come to expect.

            People, landmarks, events—it’s all here in a superb volume that, like Jesse Hall, will stand the test of time. Mizzou Today is a keepsake for anyone who loves MU and a lasting record of a great university’s accomplishments.

[more]
cover of Mobile Subjects: Transnational Imaginaries of Gender Reassignment

Mobile Subjects

Transnational Imaginaries of Gender Reassignment

Aren Z. Aizura

Duke University Press, 2018

The first famous transgender person in the United States, Christine Jorgensen, traveled to Denmark for gender reassignment surgery in 1952. Jorgensen became famous during the ascent of postwar dreams about the possibilities for technology to transform humanity and the world. In Mobile Subjects Aren Z. Aizura examines transgender narratives within global health and tourism economies from 1952 to the present. Drawing on an archive of trans memoirs and documentaries as well as ethnographic fieldwork with trans people obtaining gender reassignment surgery in Thailand, Aizura maps the uneven use of medical protocols to show how national and regional health care systems and labor economies contribute to and limit transnational mobility. Aizura positions transgender travel as a form of biomedical tourism, examining how understandings of race, gender, and aesthetics shape global cosmetic surgery cultures and how economic and racially stratified marketing and care work create the ideal transgender subject as an implicitly white, global citizen. In so doing, he shows how understandings of travel and mobility depend on the historical architectures of colonialism and contemporary patterns of global consumption and labor.
[more]
cover of Modern Muslims: A Sudan Memoir

Modern Muslims

A Sudan Memoir

Steve Howard

Ohio University Press, 2016

Steve Howard departed for the Sudan in the early 1980s as an American graduate student beginning a three-year journey in which he would join and live with the Republican Brotherhood, the Sufi Muslim group led by the visionary Mahmoud Mohamed Taha. Taha was a religious intellectual who participated in the early days of Sudan’s anticolonial struggle, but quickly turned his movement into a religious reform effort based on his radical reading of the Qur’an. He was executed in 1985 for apostasy. Decades after returning to the life of an academic in the United States, Howard brings us this memoir of his time with the Republican Brotherhood, who advocated, among other things, equality for women. Modern Muslims describes Howard’s path to learning not only about Islam and Sufism but also about Sudan’s history and culture. When the Brotherhood was thrust into confrontation with Sudan’s then-president Jaafar Nimeiry, Howard had a front-line perspective on the difficult choices communities make as they try to reform and practice their faith freely. As well as a story of personal transformation, the book offers an insider’s perspective on a modernist nonviolent Islamic movement that thrived and was brutally suppressed. An important book for our times, Modern Muslims yields significant insights for our understanding of modern Islam, African history, and contemporary geopolitics.
[more]
cover of Monsoon Postcards: Indian Ocean Journeys

Monsoon Postcards

Indian Ocean Journeys

David H. Mould

Ohio University Press, 2019

In Monsoon Postcards, journalist David H. Mould, notebook in hand, traverses the Indian Ocean—from Madagascar through India and Bangladesh to Indonesia. It’s an unpredictable journey on battered buses, bush taxis, auto-rickshaws, and crowded ferries. Mould travels from the traffic snarls of Delhi, Dhaka, and Jakarta to the rice paddies and ancestral tombs of Madagascar’s Central Highlands; from the ancient kingdom of Hyderabad to India’s so-called chicken neck—the ethnically diverse and underdeveloped northeast; and from the textile factories and rivers of Bangladesh to the beaches of Bali and the province of Aceh—ground zero for the 2004 tsunami.

Along the way, in markets, shops, roadside cafes, and classrooms, he meets journalists, professors, students, aid workers, cab drivers, and other everyday residents to learn how they view their past and future. Much like its predecessor, Mould’s Postcards from Stanland,Monsoon Postcards offers witty and insightful glimpses into countries linked by history, trade, migration, religion, and a colonial legacy. It explores how they confront the challenges of climate change, urban growth, economic development, land, water and natural resources, and national and ethnic identity.

[more]
cover of Monsters In The Woods: Backpacking With Children

Monsters In The Woods

Backpacking With Children

Tim Hauserman

University of Nevada Press, 2007

How and why you should take your children backpacking

Despite America’s enthusiasm for outdoors activities like hiking and backpacking, most books on these subjects focus on adults. Backpacking, however, is an ideal activity for the entire family. Tim Hauserman, who is both an experienced outdoors guide and the father of two daughters, now offers a handbook for parents who would like to introduce their children to backpacking and camping. Hauserman provides practical, humorous advice for families new to the outdoors and for trail-savvy parents planning to take their children along for the first time: how to prepare, what to bring, who carries what, how far to walk, what to do in camp, safety precautions, dealing with mishaps, and proper trail and campground etiquette. He includes guidance about appropriate distances and pack weights for every age level of child, as well as tips about backpacking with an infant and bringing the family dog along on the adventure. He even suggests appealing destinations in the Sierra Nevada appropriate for various age groups and recounts some of his (and his daughters’) favorite hikes. Hauserman’s down-to-earth encouragement is based on decades of backpacking and camping with his own children, their friends, and other groups of youngsters. He is candid about his experiences and the lessons he learned from his own mistakes and how he dealt with them. Ultimately, the reward of sharing a special adventure and the peace and beauty of the outdoors makes all the effort worthwhile.

[more]
cover of More Curious

More Curious

By Sean Wilsey

University of Texas Press, 2015

“More Curious begins by making you wonder what kind of book it is, exactly, and ends by reminding you that categories are nonsense when you’re enjoying something this much.”—Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad“Mr. Wilsey can write in a range of emotional octaves, moving from the comic to the philosophical to the streetwise with ease, while putting body language on his prose to give the reader an almost synesthetic sense of what he’s saying.”—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times“More Curious captures the dizzying absurdity of contemporary America.”—Vanity Fair“Sean Wilsey’s witty essays from his cross-country adventures form a portrait of the weird side of contemporary America.”—Los Angeles Times“When Wilsey is at his best, and he often is in More Curious, his prose has a barely contained energy that makes his work both informative and entertaining. And often, whether his subject is rats or NASA or skateboarding or soccer, that work is provocative and huge-hearted.”—Alex Lemon, Dallas Morning News“Sometimes he’s funny and self-deprecating and sometimes he’s somber; sometimes his scope is as sweeping as our country, and other times it’s as narrow as Buzz Aldrin’s taste in wristwatches. There’s one through-line from beginning to end, though: those careful, thoughtful, perfect sentences.”—Alison Hallett, Portland Mercury“Generation-defining . . . a welcome chronicle of our age.”—David Kurlander, San Francisco Bay Guardian
[more]
cover of Morocco: In the Labyrinth of Dreams and Bazaars

Morocco

In the Labyrinth of Dreams and Bazaars

Walter M. Weiss

Haus Publishing, 2016

While much of the Middle East is now engulfed in conflict and repression, Morocco remains a curious anomaly: peaceful and open to the West, it has provided refuge for artists and writers for generations, and it remains an exotic destination for many curious travelers. The country has been influenced by an incredible variety of peoples—Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Berbers, Muslims, Jews, and most of Europe’s colonizers have played a role—and modern Moroccan society is no less rich and varied.

In Morocco, Walter M. Weiss brings extensive knowledge of the region to bear as he travels the breadth and depth of the country’s social and geographical contrasts. Berber villagers of the mountains are for the most part still illiterate and consider their king to be divinely chosen, while businessmen in Casablanca’s towering offices dream of closer ties to the European Union. Weiss visits the settings of modern legends, such as Tangier, as well as the two medieval centres Fès and Meknès, and sees earthen kasbahs and Marrakech’s bazaar. On the way, he meets acrobats, Sufi musicians, pilgrims, craftsmen, beatniks, rabbis, and Berber farmers—a kaleidoscope of variety and cultural influence.
[more]
cover of Motorcycling Alabama: 50 Ride Loops through the Heart of Dixie

Motorcycling Alabama

50 Ride Loops through the Heart of Dixie

David Haynes

University of Alabama Press, 2011

A much-needed guidebook for one of the most beautiful states to explore on two wheels. 

David Haynes offers fifty ride loops of between 75 and 150 miles in length throughout every region of the state. The start and stop points for each ride are identical and easy to locate. This handy guide, which is designed to fit in a tank bag, features both streetbike and dual-sport rides. Also included are detailed, color-coded maps of the routes and turn-by-turn directions. Stunning full-color photographs accompany each ride description, highlighting scenes and points of interest along the way. There are introductory chapters on motorcycle safety, gear, and the use of global positioning devices, as well as pointers on motorcycle camping. 

Motorcycle touring is one of the fastest-growing outdoor recreational pursuits in the country. For both the in-state and out-of-state motorcycle enthusiast, Motorcycling Alabama is a valuable and complete guide to a state rich in diverse types of scenery and with many unsung treasures yet to be discovered. 

Published in cooperation with the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum, Birmingham.

[more]
cover of Mount Sinai: A History of Travellers and Pilgrims

Mount Sinai

A History of Travellers and Pilgrims

George Manginis

Haus Publishing, 2016

A mountain peak above Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt, Mount Sinai is best known as the site where Moses received the Ten Commandments in the biblical Book of Exodus. Mount Sinai brings this rich history to light, exploring the ways in which the landscape of Mount Sinai’s summit has been experienced and transformed over the centuries, from the third century BCE to World War I.

As an important site for multiple religions, Mount Sinai has become a major destination for hundreds of visitors per day. In this multifaceted book, George Manginis delves into the natural environment of Mount Sinai, its importance in the Muslim tradition, the cult of Saint Catherine, the medieval pilgrimage phenomenon, modern-day tourism, and much more. Featuring notes, a bibliography, and illustrations from nineteenth-century travelers’ books, this deft blend of historical analysis, art history, and archaeological interpretation will appeal to tourists and scholars alike.
[more]
cover of Mountains of Fire: The Menace, Meaning, and Magic of Volcanoes

Mountains of Fire

The Menace, Meaning, and Magic of Volcanoes

Clive Oppenheimer

University of Chicago Press, 2023

Meeting with volcanoes around the world, a volcanologist interprets their messages for humankind.
 
In Mountains of Fire, Clive Oppenheimer invites readers to stand with him in the shadow of an active volcano. Whether he is scaling majestic summits, listening to hissing lava at the crater’s edge, or hunting for the far-flung ashes from Earth’s greatest eruptions, Oppenheimer is an ideal guide, offering readers the chance to tag along on the daring, seemingly-impossible journeys of a volcanologist.

In his eventful career as a volcanologist and filmmaker, Oppenheimer has studied volcanoes around the world. He has worked with scientists in North Korea to study Mount Paektu, a volcano name sung in national anthems on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone. He has crossed the Sahara to reach the fabled Tiéroko volcano in the Tibesti Mountains of Chad. He spent months camped atop Antarctica’s most active volcano, Mount Erebus, to record the pulse of its lava lake.

Mountains of Fire reveals how volcanic activity is entangled with our climate and environment, as well as our economy, politics, culture, and beliefs. These adventures and investigations make clear the dual purpose of volcanology—both to understand volcanoes for science’s sake and to serve the communities endangered and entranced by these mountains of fire. 
[more]
cover of Mrs. Shipley's Ghost: The Right to Travel and Terrorist Watchlists

Mrs. Shipley's Ghost

The Right to Travel and Terrorist Watchlists

Jeffrey Kahn

University of Michigan Press, 2014

Today, when a single person can turn an airplane into a guided missile, no one objects to rigorous security before flying. But can the state simply declare some people too dangerous to travel, ever and anywhere? Does the Constitution protect a fundamental right to travel? Should the mode of travel (car, plane, or boat) or itinerary (domestic or international) make a constitutional difference? This book explores the legal and policy questions raised by government travel restrictions, from passports and rubber stamps to computerized terrorist watchlists.

In tracing the history and scope of U.S. travel regulations, Jeffrey Kahn begins with the fascinating story of Mrs. Ruth Shipley, a federal employee who almost single-handedly controlled access to passports during the Cold War. Kahn questions how far national security policies should go and whether the government should be able to declare some individuals simply too dangerous to travel. An expert on constitutional law, Kahn argues that U.S. citizens’ freedom to leave the country and return is a fundamental right, protected by the Constitution.

[more]
cover of Mumbai To Mecca: A Pilgrimage to the Holy Sites of Islam

Mumbai To Mecca

A Pilgrimage to the Holy Sites of Islam

Ilija Trojanow

Haus Publishing, 2017

‘”From the very first moment they realize that the Hajj—the pilgrimage to Mecca—is among the duties of each and every Muslim, the faithful long to go.”

This book presents Ilija Trojanow’s journey from Mumbai to Mecca in the tradition of the rihla, one of the oldest genres of classical Arabic literature, describing the Hajj, the pilgrimage to the holy sites of Islam. Every Muslim, regardless of geographical location, is implored by tradition to undertake the Hajj at least once in their life if they are able. Trojanow, with the help of his friends, donned the ihram, the traditional garb of the pilgrim, and joined the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who each year go on the Hajj. Over the course of a mere three weeks he experienced a tradition dating back over a thousand years. This personal and enlightening account will provide insights not only for Muslims who have yet to embark on the Hajj, but for those who have already made the journey and want to see a different perspective on it. Mumbai to Mecca also presents a unique glimpse into this pivotal tradition for those non-Muslims who remain barred from the most holy Muslim sites.
the pilgrimage to the holy sites of Islam, through the eyes of a Westener, but with the heart of a Muslim.
[more]
cover of Musashino in Tuscany: Japanese Overseas Travel Literature, 1860–1912

Musashino in Tuscany

Japanese Overseas Travel Literature, 1860–1912

Susanna Fessler

University of Michigan Press, 2004

By the late Meiji period Japanese were venturing abroad in great numbers, and some of those who traveled kept diaries and wrote formal travelogues. These travelogues reflected a changing view of the West and changing artistic sensibilities in the long-standing Japanese literary tradition of travel writing (kikoōbungaku). This book shows that overseas Meiji-period travel writers struck out to create a dynamic new type of travel literature, one that had a solid foundation in traditional Japanese kikōbungaku yet also displayed influence from the West.
Musashino in Tuscany specifically examines the poetic imagery and allusion in these travelogues and reveals that when Japanese traveled to the West in the mid-nineteenth century, the images they wrote about tended to be associated not with places initially discovered by the Japanese traveler but with places that already existed in Western fame and lore. And unlike imagery from Japanese traveling in Japan, which was predominantly nature based, Japanese overseas travel imagery was often associated with the manmade world.
[more]
cover of Museum Matters: Making and Unmaking Mexico’s National Collections

Museum Matters

Making and Unmaking Mexico’s National Collections

Edited by Miruna Achim, Susan Deans-Smith, Sandra Rozental

University of Arizona Press, 2021

This is a book about objects. Stones, ruins, bones, mummies, mannequins, statues, photographs, fakes, instruments, and natural history specimens all formed part of Mexico’s National Museum complex at different moments across two centuries of collecting and display.

Museum Matters traces the emergence, consolidation, and dispersal of this national museum complex by telling the stories of its objects. Objects that have been separated over time are brought back together in this book in order to shed light on the interactions and processes that have forged things into symbols of science, aesthetics, and politics. The contributors to this volume illuminate how collections came into being or ceased to exist over time, or how objects moved in and out of collections and museum spaces. They explore what it means to move things physically and spatially, as well as conceptually and symbolically.

Museum Matters unravels the concept of the national museum. By unmaking the spaces, frameworks, and structures that form the complicated landscape of national museums, this volume brings a new way to understand the storage, displays, and claims about the Mexican nation’s collections today.

Contributors
Miruna Achim, Christina Bueno, Laura Cházaro, Susan Deans-Smith, Frida Gorbach, Haydeé López Hernández, Carlos Mondragón, Bertina Olmedo Vera, Sandra Rozental, Mario Rufer

 
[more]
cover of My African Horse Problem

My African Horse Problem

William F. S. Miles

University of Massachusetts Press, 2008

In February 2000, William Miles set off from Massachusetts for a Muslim village in West Africa with his ten-year-old son Samuel to settle an inheritance dispute over a horse. National Public Radio was so intrigued with this story that All Things Considered broadcast his pre-departure testament, as well as a follow-up commentary on what actually happened.

My African Horse Problem recounts the intricacies of this unusual father-son expedition, a sometimes harrowing two-week trip that Samuel joined as "true heir" to the disputed stallion. It relates the circumstances leading up to the dispute and describes the intimacy of a relationship spanning a quarter century between William Miles and the custodians of his family horse—Islamic village friends eking out a precarious existence along the remote sub-Saharan borderline between Nigeria and Niger.

My African Horse Problem is a multi-layered narrative—part memoir, part ethnography—reaching back to Miles's days as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger in the 1970s and a Fulbright scholar in the 1980s. At a deeper level, the story juxtaposes the idealistic and sometimes irresponsible tendencies of a young university graduate with the parental concerns of a middle-aged, tenured professor. Miles wonders if he was justified in exposing Sam to some of the worst health risks on earth, mainly to restore tenuous ties with long-ago friends in the African bush. Was it reckless to make his son illegally cross international boundaries, in a quixotic quest for justice and family honor? My African Horse Problem is more than an adventurer's tale with a unique story line: it is a father-son travel rumination, leavened by Sam's journal entries that help his father see Africa anew through a child's fresh eyes. In this era of religious and racial tensions, it is also a reaffirmation—within a black Muslim context—of the basic human imperative of trust.
[more]
cover of My Car in Managua

My Car in Managua

By Forrest D. Colburn

University of Texas Press, 1991

Histories of revolutions often focus on military, political, or economic upheavals but sometimes neglect to connect these larger events to the daily lives of "ordinary" people. Yet the peoples' perception that "things are worse than before" can topple revolutionary governments, as shown by the recent defeat of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua and the governments of Eastern Europe. Providing the kind of prosaic, revealing details that more formal histories have excluded, My Car in Managua offers an objective, often humorous description of the great difficulties and occasional pleasures of life in Nicaragua during the Sandinista revolution.

During a year's work (1985-1986) at the Instituto Centroamericano de Administración de Empresas (INCAE), Forrest Colburn purchased a dilapidated car—and with it an introduction to everyday life in Nicaragua. His discoveries of the length of time required to register the car (approximately six weeks), the impossibility of finding spare parts (except when U.S. dollars were applied to the search), and the fact that "anyone getting into a car in Managua can be charged a small fee [for car watching] by anyone else" all suggest the difficulties most Nicaraguans faced living in a devastated economy.

Drawing on experiences from visits throughout the revolutionary period (1979-1989), Colburn also sheds light on how the Revolution affected social customs and language, gender roles and family relationships, equality and authority, the availability of goods and services, the status of ethnic minorities, and governmental and other institutions. Illustrations by Nicaragua's celebrated political cartoonist Róger Sánchez Flores enliven the lucid text.

[more]