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Eight family-farm case studies display farm buildings' relationship to the land they sit on, their function on the farm, the materials they're made with, the farm enterprises themselves, and the families who own them. Photographs, plans, elevations, and sections of typical, exemplary traditional farm buildings show the aesthetic and architectural qualities of those types of buildings across the state.

The ways in which the buildings serve the productive activities of the farm, shelter and nourish the people and livestock, yield a living, and enable the aspirations of farm people are shown in the words and photographs of the farmers themselves. The buildings form a window into the lives of Michigan's family farms and into the hearts and minds of the people who have lived and worked in them their entire lives.

The continent of Africa is rich in minerals needed by Western economies, but rather than forming the basis for economic growth the mining industry contributes very little to African development

Investigating the impact of the 2003 Extractive Industries Review on a number of African countries, the contributors find that a key dimension of the problem lies in the regulatory frameworks imposed on the African countries by the IMF and World Bank. They aim to convince academics, governments and industry that regulation needs to be reformed to create a mining industry favourable to social and economic development and environmental protection.

The book takes a multidisciplinary approach and provides a historical perspective of each country, making it ideal for students of development studies and development organisations.

Examining 150 years of mining and mineral technology exhibits at the Smithsonian

Buried deep underground or cut into remote landscapes, mines are often dirty, dark, and dangerous places, located far from the everyday urban spaces that most Americans call home. Yet mining is foundational to the making of the United States, supplying the raw materials that built its infrastructure, powered its industries, and shaped its scientific institutions, even as the work itself has remained physically removed, technically complex, and culturally overlooked. Mining in the Museum reveals how Americans have encountered this vital industry not at the distant mine face, but in museum galleries. Tracing more than 150 years of mining and mineral technology exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, Eric C. Nystrom shows how curators transformed ore, instruments, models, and machinery into stories about progress, innovation, and national development, and how those interpretive choices shaped what the nation remembers—and forgets—about mining.

Using mining collections as a lens into institutional change, Nystrom offers a new history of the Smithsonian and its United States National Museum, examining how curators, administrators, and policymakers debated what museums were for, which kinds of knowledge they should produce, and what objects deserved display. He follows the shifting fortunes of mineral and mining exhibits across world’s fairs, scientific surveys, and changing exhibition philosophies, showing how display strategies evolved alongside professional science and public education. As mining’s place in the national imagination changed, so too did its presence in the federal museum, moving from a central scientific and technological showcase to a subject increasingly preserved by regional and local institutions closer to mining communities themselves. Grounded in extensive archival research, Mining in the Museum illuminates the evolving relationship among technology, public history, and the politics of display, demonstrating how museums help define which industries, and which kinds of work, become part of the American story.