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Filtered through the lens of the North American and European media, the Caribbean appears to be a series of idyllic landscapes-sanctuaries designed for sailing, diving, and basking in the sun on endless white sandy beaches. Conservation literature paints a similarly enticing portrait, describing the region as a habitat for endangered coral reefs and their denizens, parrots, butterflies, turtles, snails, and a myriad of plant species.

In both versions, the image of the exotic landscape overshadows the rich island cultures that are both linguistically and politically diverse, but trapped in a global economy that offers few options for development. Popular depictions also overlook the reality that the region is fraught with environmental problems, including water and air pollution, solid waste mismanagement, destruction of ecosystems, deforestation, and the transition from agriculture to ranching.

Bringing together ten essays by social scientists and activists, Beyond Sun and Sand provides the most comprehensive exploration to date of the range of environmental issues facing the region and the social movements that have developed to deal with them. The authors consider the role that global and regional political economies play in this process and provide valuable insight into Caribbean environmentalism. Many of the essays by prominent Caribbean analysts are made available for the first time in English.

Cairo is a 1,400-year-old metropolis whose streets are inscribed with sagas, a place where the pressures of life test people's equanimity to the very limit. Virtually surrounded by desert, sixteen million Cairenes cling to the Nile and each other, proximities that color and shape lives. Packed with incident and anecdote Cairo: City of Sand describes the city's given circumstances and people's attitudes of response. Apart from a brisk historical overview, this book focuses on the present moment of one of the world's most illustrious and irreducible cities.

Cairo steps inside the interactions between Cairenes, examining the roles of family, tradition and bureaucracy in everyday life. The book explores Cairo's relationship with its "others", from the French and British occupations to modern influences like tourism and consumerism. Cairo also discusses characteristic styles of communication, and linguistic mêmes, including slang, grandiloquence, curses and jokes.

Cairo exists by virtue of these interactions, synergies of necessity, creativity and the presence or absence of power. Cairo: City of Sand reveals a peerless balancing act, and transmits the city's overriding message: the breadth of the human capacity for loss, astonishment and delight.

It is often difficult for young people facing an illness to verbalize their personal thoughts and feelings.  In the Child and Family Life department, at The University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, sand tray therapy is used to help this vulnerable population communicate with their healthcare team, families, and loved ones. Sand tray therapy is a window into the thoughts, feelings, and coping styles of youth struggling with life-altering illnesses and hospitalizations. It helps them process their past and present medical experiences, set goals, and teach others about their needs.
 
The sand trays and stories in this book were created by patients and families living with Cancer and Blood Disorders. Their expressions, created in the sand and conveyed through the written word, provide insight into their world. Sand tray therapy provides a sacred space to process experiences using symbols instead of language.
 
This collection of photos and personal stories was compiled so that other patients, their families, and their friends can share the authors’ journeys.
 

From the earliest days of their empire in the New World, the Spanish sought to gain control of the native peoples and lands of what is now Sonora. While missionaries were successful in pacifying many Indians, the Seris--independent groups of hunter-gatherers who lived on the desert shores and islands of the Gulf of California--steadfastly defied Spanish efforts to subjugate them. Empire of Sand is a documentary history of Spanish attempts to convert, control, and ultimately annihilate the Seris. These papers of religious, military, and government officials attest to the Seris' resilience in the face of numerous Spanish attempts to conquer them and remove them from their lands. Most of the documents are being made available for the first time, while the few that have been published are extremely difficult to find. They include early observations of the Seris by Jesuit missionaries; the collapse of the Seri mission system in 1748; accounts of the invasion of Tibur¢n Island in 1750 and the Sonora Expedition of 1767-1771; and reports of late-eighteenth-century Seri hostilities. Thomas Sheridan's introduction puts the documents in perspective, while his notes objectively clarify their significance. In a superb analysis of contact history, Sheridan shows through these documents that Spaniards and Seris understood one another well, and it was their inability to tolerate each other's radically different societies and cultures that led to endless conflict between them. By skillfully weaving the documents into a coherent narrative of Spanish-Seri interaction, he has produced a compelling account of empire and resistance that speaks to anthropologists, historians, and all readers who take heart in stories of resistance to oppression.

Salt in the Sand is a compelling historical ethnography of the interplay between memory and state violence in the formation of the Chilean nation-state. The historian and anthropologist Lessie Jo Frazier focuses on northern Chile, which figures prominently in the nation’s history as a site of military glory during the period of national conquest, of labor strikes and massacres in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, and of state detention and violence during World War II and the Cold War. It was also the site of a mass-grave excavation that galvanized the national human rights movement in 1990, during Chile’s transition from dictatorship to democracy. Frazier analyzes the creation of official and alternative memories of specific instances of state violence in northern Chile from 1890 to the present, tracing how the form and content of those memories changed over time. In so doing, she shows how memory works to create political subjectivities mobilized for specific political projects within what she argues is the always-ongoing process of nation-state formation. Frazier’s broad historical perspective on political culture challenges the conventional periodization of modern Chilean history, particularly the idea that the 1973 military coup marked a radical break with the past.

Analyzing multiple memories of state violence, Frazier innovatively shapes social and cultural theory to interpret a range of sources, including local and national government archives, personal papers, popular literature and music, interviews, architectural and ceremonial commemorations, and her ethnographic observations of civic associations, women's and environmental groups, and human rights organizations. A masterful integration of extensive empirical research with sophisticated theoretical analysis, Salt in the Sand is a significant contribution to interdisciplinary scholarship on human rights, democratization, state formation, and national trauma and reconciliation.

Sand in a Whirlwind is a dramatic account of the events surrounding hostilities between settlers and Pyramid Paiutes in the spring of 1860. Thirty years after its publication Ferol Egan’s now classic tale continues to enlighten and engage readers.

Sand, Wind, and War records the work, travels and adventures of one of the last of the great British explorers, a man who served in both world wars and carved out a special niche in science through his studies of desert sands.
 
Ralph Alger Bagnold was born in 1896 into a military family and educated as an engineer. Posted to Egypt in 1926, he was one of a group of officers who adapted Model T Fords to desert travel and in 1932 made the first east-west crossing—6,000 miles—of the Libyan desert. Bagnold established such a name for himself that in World War II he was again posted to Egypt where he founded and trained the Long Range Desert Group that was to confound the German and Italian armies.
 
Bagnold’s fascination with the desert included curiosity over the formation of dunes, and beginning in 1935 he conducted wind tunnel experiments with sand that led to the book The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes. Eventually, he was to see his findings called on by NASA to interpret data on the sands of Mars. He devoted subsequent research to particle flow in fluids, and also served as a consultant to Middle Eastern governments concerned with the interference of sand flow in oil drilling.

Sand, Wind, and War is the life story of a man who not only helped shape events in one part of the world but also contributed to our understanding of it. It is a significant benchmark not only in the history of science, but also in the annals of adventure.
 

The North Carolina Shore and Its Barrier Islands is the latest volume in the series, Living with the Shore. Replacing an earlier volume, this thoroughly new book provides a diverse guide to one of America’s most popular shorelines. As is true for all books in the series, it is based on the premise that understanding the changing nature of beaches and barrier islands is essential if we are to preserve them for future generations.
Evidence that the North Carolina shore is changing is never hard to find, but recently the devastation wrought by Hurricane Fran and the perilous situation of the historic lighthouse at Cape Hatteras have reminded all concerned of the fragility of this coast. Arguing for a policy of intelligent development, one in which residential and commercial structures meet rather than confront the changing nature of the shore, the authors have included practical information on hazards of many kinds—storms, tides, floods, erosion, island migration, and earthquakes. Diagrams and photographs clearly illustrate coastal processes and aid in understanding the impact of hurricanes and northeasters, wave and current dynamics, as well as pollution and other environmental destruction due to overdevelopment. A chapter on estuaries provides related information on the shores of back barrier areas that are growing in popularity for recreational residences. Risk maps focus on the natural hazards of each island and together with construction guidelines provide a basis for informed island management. Lastly, the dynamics of coastal politics and management are reviewed through an analysis of the controversies over the decision to move the Cape Hatteras lighthouse and a proposed effort to stabilize Oregon Inlet.
From the natural and historic perspective of the opening chapters to the regional discussions of individual barrier islands, this book is both a primer on coastal processes for the first time visitor as well as a guide to hazard identification for property owners.

Rocco C. Siciliano broke new ground as the first Italian-American to serve in the White House as an assistant to the president, Dwight D. Eisenhower. At 31, "Ike’s Youngest" attained a prominence not suggested in his humble beginnings in Salt Lake City, Utah. But his upbringing in the Mormon-dominated community, where he balanced the heritage of his striving immigrant parents with his own aspirations for success, prepared him for a wide variety of service. This service includes leading a special weapons platoon in the 10th Mountain Division in World War II, bringing Martin Luther King Jr. to meet with President Eisenhower, and becoming a recognized business leader in California.

Siciliano used his expertise in labor, personnel management, and business to contribute substantively to the J. Paul Getty Center, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, the Committee for Economic Development, and the "Volcker" Commission on Public Service, among others.

The variety of Siciliano’s experiences reinvigorates our understanding of the forgotten art of public service. Walking on Sand emphasizes the role that public service can play for corporations, communities, states, and the nation. This story is a gift from the Greatest Generation to the many people who serve America today and will serve her tomorrow.