Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia River

Customer Reviews:

Nothwest Passage: The Great Columbia River.......2005-07-20

The shipping was fairly fast. The book was in mint condition.

Exceptional history, balanced perspective.......2000-07-11

I have taught Pacific Northwest History at high school and college levels, and found this book one of the best regional histories published. Although focused on the Columbia River, it presents more of the general history of the interior Northwest (east of the Interstate 5 corridor) than any other history of the region. Of course, the Columbia River and its tributaries are central to Northwest history from the fish that archaeologists discovered to be the core of Kennewick Man's diet to the present Kaiser Steelworkers lockout and the controversy over Snake River dams.

The story of human modification of the Columbia River is one of heroism and greed, boom and bust, promotion and fraud, and the winners and losers that go along with the competition among interest groups. Dietrich tells the story with drama, fairness to competing interests, and the kind of focus that requires a point of view. His history is honest, rather than objective; committed, rather than unbiased. It is rich in details, but doesn't lose sight of the big picture. This is newspaper-style feature writing at its best.

At the core of this book is a story of a peoples' faith in progress, the achievement this faith enabled, and the blind spots this faith nurtured. Immense benefits and enormous failures have resulted from this faith. Now, as Dietrich makes clear, we must reexamine our basic assumptions and redetermine our priorities.

Not every reader will agree with Dietrich's priorities and perspectives, but few can identify critical points that he missed. His facts are sound. My only complaint is that too little accommodation is made for readers who want to track down and verify some of his statements of fact. The book has a bibliography and index, but no endnotes. It is published by a university press, but lacks the usual scholarly apparatus.

A fascinating and well-told regional history.......1998-11-02

I knew next to nothing about the Pacific Northwest, having only spent a few days there as a kid for the Spokane World's Fair. William Dietrich's Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia River filled much of my knowledge gap with a fascinating and well-told story. Dietrich recounts the history of the Columbia, from its original creation through geologic forces and its discovery by Lewis and Clark and other explorers, to development of the river and the region by forestry, fishing, and industrial interests, harnessing of the river through multiple dams (including the huge Grand Coulee dam), decimation of the salmon population and later attempts by environmental and Native American interests to revive the salmons, and turf wars between various interest groups. Dietrich's book is extremely well researched and annotated, but reads not like laborious scholarship but like a labor of love. He clearly loves the region he writes about and is troubled by its many changes; he conveys both his enthusiasm and in-depth knowledge through this graceful book.

Great summary of history and river uses........1998-05-04

Really enjoyed reading the numerous stories of Columbia River history and the competing uses of the river. Towards the end the author gets a little too dramatic about wild salmon and native Americans and seems to lose the balanced views presented thoughout most of the book.

Northwest Passage - The Great Columbia River

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Northwest Passage - The Great Columbia River
William Dietrich
Manufacturer: Univ. Of Washington Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000K0BHRA

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Northwest Passage The Great Columbia River
William Dietrich
Manufacturer: Simon and Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J0Z4U2

Book Description

The accumulation of mycotoxins in plants and plant products represents a major threat to human health. Toxins accumulate in plants following infection by species of Fusarium, Aspergillus and Penicillium. It has been estimated that one quarter of the world's food crops, including many basic foods, are affected by mycotoxin-producing fungi. The toxins are responsible for many different toxicities in humans and animals, including the induction of cancers, and digestive, blood and nerve defects. There is an urgent need to understand the factors that facilitate the infection of crops by these fungi and how these affect the accumulation of toxins in the affected parts, and their subsequent accumulation during storage. This information should enable crops to be grown and stored under conditions that minimise production of the toxins.
This volume has gathered together specialist reports complied through EU-Cost Action 835: Agriculturally Important Toxigenic Fungi. The contents should be of particular interest to scientists concerned with the occurrence of mycotoxins and the environmental factors that lead to their accumulation in crops. It will also be of value to all those interested in epidemiological aspects of plant disease. The information will also be invaluable to those aiming to minimise the levels of mycotoxins in human and animal food products.

Mycotoxins in Plant Disease: Under the aegis of COST Action 835 "Agriculturally Important Toxigenic Fungi 1998-2003", EU Project (QLK1-CT-1999-01380), and ISPP "Fusarium Committee"

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Mycotoxins in Plant Disease: Under the aegis of COST Action 835 "Agriculturally Important Toxigenic Fungi 1998-2003", EU Project (QLK1-CT-1999-01380), and ISPP "Fusarium Committee"

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Horticulture | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

Agronomy | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

Crop Science | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

Toxicology | Pharmacology | Medicine | Subjects | Books

General | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Book Description

The accumulation of mycotoxins in plants and plant products is one of the most important consequences of plant diseases, especially those caused by species of Fusarium, Aspergillus and Penicillium. It has been estimated that 25% of world food crops, including many basic food crops, are affected by mycotoxins. The toxins are responsible for various toxicities in animals and humans, including carcinogenic and teratogenic effects, and digestive, blood and nerve disorders. There is thus an urgent need to understand the nature of the toxigenic fungi that are widespread on economically important plant products and the role of these toxic secondary metabolites in the development of disease, i.e. as virulence or pathogenicity factors, in order to minimise the accumulation of these products in a range of food products.
This volume has gathered together specialist reports compiled through EU-COST Action 835: Agriculturally Important Toxigenic Fungi. The contents should be of particular value to scientists interested in the occurrence and nature of mycotoxins, their importance in the development of disease and the molecular nature of plant-pathogen interactions. The information will also be invaluable to those responsible for determining the levels of mycotoxins in human and animal food and deciding upon regulatory limitations on the levels of mycotoxins in agricultural products.

Book Description

City Smart: Sacramento is useful and fun to read with entertaining "city favorites" lists from area residents giving you the inside scoop on where to go and what to do. Sacramento local Patrick Cosgrove recommends notable movie houses, dinner theaters, and comedy clubs, as well as specific attractions and activities for families and kids. With a calendar of special events such as the Sacramento Valley Boat Show, Festival de Familia, and Art on the River, this engaging guide introduces you to all that makes Sacramento unique and will have you feeling like a local in no time..

Book Description

An exciting look at one of the cutting-edge research areas in mathematical physics.

Conformal Field Theory consists of pedagogical lectures delivered at the Feza Gursey Institute, Istanbul, in the summer of 1998 on the following topics: "Non-perturbative dynamics of 4-dimensional Field theories" (P. Argyres, Cornell University), "2-Dimensional QCD, Grassmanians and M(atrix) Models" (S. Rajeev, University of Rochester), "Affine Kac-Moody algebras and CFT" (M. Walton, Lethbridge), "CFT and Vertex Operator algebras" (T. Gannon, York), and "Meromorphic CFT" (M. Gaberdiel, Cambridge). The book is suitable for advanced graduate students and researchers in theoretical particle or statistical physics as well as pure mathematicians.

Book Description

"An indispensable addition to the canon of Texas letters."—Steve Bennett, San Antonio Express News

A vast land combining the West, the South, and the Border, small dusty towns and gleaming modern cities, Texas has a history and identity all its own, and a mythology bigger than the Lone Star State itself. In this anthology, selected as a Southwest Book of the Year in 2003, Don Graham has rounded up a comprehensive collection of writings that provides an overview of the diversity and excellence of Texas literature and reveals its vital contribution to America's literary landscape. The result is a sometimes rowdy, always artful panorama of fable and truth, humor and pathos—all growing out of the state that continues to stimulate the collective imagination like no other.

Lone Star Literature: From the Red River to the Rio Grande: A Texas Anthology

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Pretty good survey of Texas literature
Deep in the Heart of Texas

Lone Star Literature: From the Red River to the Rio Grande: A Texas Anthology
Larry McMurtry
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0393050432

Book Description

The biggest collection of writing about Texas yet assembled.

A vast land combining the West, the South, and the Border, small dusty towns and gleaming modern cities, Texas has a history and identity all its own, and a mythology bigger than the Lone Star State itself. In this anthology, Don Graham has rounded up a comprehensive collection of writings that provides an overview of the diversity and excellence of Texas literature and reveals its vital contribution to America's literary landscape: from early accounts of life on the wild frontier told by the likes of Andy Adams and J. Frank Dobie to contemporary fiction by such well-known Texan authors as Larry McMurtry and Sandra Cisneros, as well as recent nonfiction by Molly Ivins, Mary Karr, Robert Caro, and Kinky Friedman. The result is a sometimes rowdy, always artful panorama of fable and truth, humor and pathos—all growing out of the state that continues to stimulate the collective imagination like no other.

Customer Reviews:

Pretty good survey of Texas literature.......2004-02-12

As someone who has recently been turned on the fascinating history and culture of the Lone Star state, I got my hands on this book shortly after it was published. The anthology's editor thoughtfully divides the pieces into four sections based on the major geographical regions of Texas. There is a wide range of authors represented, from Dobie and McMurtry to Cisneros and Glib. My only problem with Lone Star Literature is that while Don Graham includes works from dozens of authors, he leaves out pieces from, in my opinion, two of the best novelists to ever produce Texas fiction: Cormac McCarthy and James Carlos Blake. It is possible that these two simply did not want to be included, but I don't think the anthology is complete with out them. All in all, Graham has created a great, thick volume of Texas literature that will provide hours of reading entertainment.

Deep in the Heart of Texas.......2004-01-05

This humongous book - 733 pages - is of the un-put-downable kind. Except you can put it down when you absolutely HAVE to and then pick up easily where you left off because it consists of many short pieces, each entire of itself. In fact, it's the kind of book you can dip into. But what will happen, or at least what happened with me, is that you'll think you're going to read a selection or two from, say, the 'West' section and will look up two hours later and realize that your coffee got cold, that the phone had gone unanswered several times or that you're only going to get three hours sleep before you have to be back at work.

The editor of this jewel is Don Graham, who is the J. Frank Dobie Professor of American and English Literature at the Univerity of Texas in Austin, a man who probably knows more about Texas writers than anyone. J. Frank Dobie, of course, was the Texas writer who put Texas history on the map back in the middle years of last century (it still seems funny saying 'last century,' doesn't it?). There's a piece of Dobie's, 'Bogged Shadows,' that is a great place to start; it tells of a yarn-spinner of the quintessential Texas cowboy sort, and is funnier than all getout.

The book primarily consists of 20th-century writing and is divided into logical sections: 'The West,' 'The South,' 'The Border,' and 'Town and City.' Each section is ordered chronologically. For me, the selections from memoirs are the most arresting, but there are also short stories, humor pieces and essays covering everything from pioneer days to the JFK assassination and beyond. There are many well-known writers here--like O. Henry ('Art and the Bronco,' with a funny O. Henry ending), John A. Lomax (from 'Adventures of a Ballad Hunter'), Robert A. Caro (not a Texan, but the honored writer of the multivolume LBJ biography, here represented by 'The Sad Irons,' from Volume I), Larry McMurtry (from 'The Last Picture Show'), Sandra Cisneros ('La Fabulosa: A Texas Operetta'), Katherine Anne Porter ('The Grave'), Molly Ivins ('Texas Women: True Grit and All the Rest'), Donald Barthelme (the hilarious 'I Bought a Little City'), and Kinky Friedman (the equally hilarious 'Social Studies'). And there's much more that I don't have room to list. For instance, there is an excerpt from 'The Wind,' by Dorothy Scarborough that was the basis for Lillian Gish's greatest silent movie of the same name set in the unrelenting harshness of the Panhandle.

The real discoveries, as I've said, are the raw and veristic memoirs. There is 'The Bride,' by Hallie Crawford Stillwell, who tells of being an 18-year-old bride taken by her new husband to live on his godforsaken ranch forty miles from the nearest town. Cowpoke James Emmitt McCauley's 'Headed for the Setting Sun,' gives a gritty yet funny picture of life on the cattle trail. C. C. White's 'No Quittin' Sense,' recalls life as a boy of color in East Texas in the early years of the century.

Most arresting of all is the excerpt from the memoir of Gertrude Beasley, 'My First Thirty Years,' written in the mid-1920s in language that is still shocking today. When the book was published in Paris (France, not Texas) it was banned in England because of its sensational content. Still, it fairly throbs with the reality of growing up in a dirt-poor household, one of eleven children, and the product of a rape. I'll say no more; you really must read this. I, for one, am going to see if I can't find the complete book--it's THAT good.

For someone like I, who grew up in rural Oklahoma (and felt a kinship with Texas partly because half our family were and are Texans) the scenes and situations in this collection were at least vaguely familiar, yet I learned things on every page. For someone with no connection with Texas there will be discoveries that at least partly dispel the notion that Texas is nothing but George W. Bush and Enron. Texas is a real, honest-to-goodness place that fairly vibrates with energy, that is populated with some of the wryest, kindest, orneriest, most independent people on earth.

Heartily recommended.

Scott Morrison

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