The Story of Vermont: A Natural and Cultural History (Middlebury Bicentennial Series in Environmental Studies)

Book Description

"Landscape history or natural history without humans is incomplete history," write authors Christopher McGrory Klyza and Stephen C. Trombulak. In their very readable portrayal of geological, biological, and cultural forces that produced the Vermont of today, they use interconnectedness as a lens to view the changing landscape. Sections such as "From Forestland to Farmland to Funland" describe reciprocal influences of ecosystems, humans, and topography over time. Sections on specific bioregions explain unique interactions of climate and the living world. Whether writing about the emergence of mountain ranges millennia ago, building interstate highways, encounters of indigenous cultures with Europeans, or Act 250's environmental impact, they make it clear that this is not a typical nature guide.

They describe the pre-human evolution of the area and its development into distinct biophysical regions, and then show how pre-Columbian inhabitants engaged and altered the landscape. They trace both the enormous effects of European settlement, as well as how the ecosystem influenced human habitation and activity. Finally, they examine Vermont's three natural communities: forest, open terrestrial, and aquatic. Throughout, they impart much specific knowledge about Vermont, speculate on its future, and foster an appreciation of the complex synergy of forces that produced this region.

Book Description

"Insight Guides", the world's largest visual travel guide series, in association with "Discovery Channel", the world's premier source of nonfiction entertainment, provides more insight than ever. From the most popular resort cities to the most exotic villages, "Insight Guides" capture the unique character of each culture with an Insider's perspective. Inside every "Insight Guide" you'll find: - Evocative, full-color photography on every page - Cross-referenced, full-color maps throughout - A brief introduction including a historical timeline - Lively essays by local writers on the culture, history, and people - Expert evaluations on the sights really worth seeing - Special features spotlighting particular topics of interest - A comprehensive Travel Tips section with listings of the best restaurants, hotels, and attractions, as well as practical information on getting around and advice for travel with children

Customer Reviews:

Great Guide to history, customs, what to see !.......2007-05-06

I love these insight guides; very interesting,& packed full of info and beautiful pictures. Gives the traveler a working knowledge of sites to see, customs, history, politics and the ideology of the people of a given region. It is not meant to be an extensive study of an area, but a useful travel guide, and for that purpose it earns 5 stars easily ! It is not a guide of where to stay or where to eat, but it gives useful information about each area covered so that a traveler knows what a locale has to offer and some background on each area. Great to pack in the suitcase or browse in the armchair !

Insight Pocket Guide Krakow (Insight Pocket Guides Krakow)

Average customer rating:

Not very motivating
Quite Useful

Insight Pocket Guide Krakow (Insight Pocket Guides Krakow)
Ian Wizniewski
Manufacturer: Insight Guides
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Europe | Travel | Subjects | Books

Insight Pocket Guide | Guidebook Series | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1585731730

Customer Reviews:

Not very motivating.......2006-03-22

It is an allright guide, but it did not get me pumped up to go to Krakow.

Quite Useful.......2006-03-15

My husband used this book more than I have, but it did answer a lot of questions we had about Krakow. We pretty much knew nothing about the city before using this guide. We were especially grateful to have a good map.

Insight Pocket Guide Bavaria (Insight Pocket Guides Bavaria)

Average customer rating:

Insight Pocket Guide-Bavaria

Insight Pocket Guide Bavaria (Insight Pocket Guides Bavaria)
Anne Midgette
Manufacturer: Langenscheidt Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Insight Pocket Guide | Guidebook Series | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0887298397

Customer Reviews:

Insight Pocket Guide-Bavaria.......2000-04-24

This is a nice basic guide to the major tourist sights in Bavaria. It also has short sections on lodging, dining, nightlife, special events and a short glossary of dining and other terms. The guide also contains some very nice color photographs of many of the attractions and has a nice foldout map of Bavaria, and detail maps of the larger cities. The guide is a very good start to a Bavarian holiday.

Insight Guide Frankfurt (Insight City Guides Frankfurt)

Average customer rating:

Insight Guide Frankfurt (Insight City Guides Frankfurt)
Wieland Giebel
Manufacturer: Langenscheidt Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Essays & Travelogues | Reference & Tips | Travel | Subjects | Books

Guidebooks | Reference & Tips | Travel | Subjects | Books

Reference | Reference & Tips | Travel | Subjects | Books

Insight Guide | Guidebook Series | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Reference | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Travel Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
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ASIN: 088729670X

Book Description

Insight Guide Berlin (Insight City Guides Berlin)

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Insight Guide Berlin (Insight City Guides Berlin)

Manufacturer: Langenscheidt Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Insight Guide | Guidebook Series | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1585731463

Book Description

One of over 400 titles in the Insight series, Compact Guide Bahamas. This 96-page book includes a chapter detailing the Bahamas' history and culture, 10 tours and excursions taking in sights ranging from cosmopolitan Nassau to unspoilt Crooked Island, leisure-time suggestions, and a comprehensive information section packed with essential contact addresses and numbers. Plus 161 complementary photographs and 9 maps.

Average customer rating:

Insight Guides Berlin (Berlin, 5th ed)
Wieland Giebel
Manufacturer: Langenscheidt Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Insight Guide | Guidebook Series | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0887296211

Insight Guides to Germany (Insight Guide Germany)

Average customer rating:

Insight Guides to Germany (Insight Guide Germany)
Insight Guides
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Insight Guide | Guidebook Series | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Travel Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 0133541274

Insight Compact Guide Munich (Insight Compact Guides Munich)

Average customer rating:

Basic guide, but intriguing and useful
Insight Pocket Guide: Munich

Insight Compact Guide Munich (Insight Compact Guides Munich)
Hans Latja
Manufacturer: Langenscheidt Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Europe | Travel | Subjects | Books

Insight Pocket Guide | Guidebook Series | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books

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ASIN: 0887295487

Customer Reviews:

Basic guide, but intriguing and useful.......2003-09-25

If you're planning on spending just a few days in Munich, then this compact little guide will be indispensible in locating the famous beerhalls and tourist sights. The maps are more than adequate and the walking descriptions to each locale are precise and accurate. There is also corresponding material on how to use the U-Bahn in the city and which station to take for each particular site. There is a separate chapter on the beerhalls of the city with a brief ranking system for the nosiest places, the friendliest, the cheapest beer, etc.

If you're planning a lengthy sojourn in Munich or if you already know the city well, then this book would not be as helpful. It is solely intended for the casual tourist and there is little, if any, information on the intriguing environs of Munich, including Bogenhausen, Haidhausen and areas of Schwabing. Many of the best sites are neglected because most tourists don't want to bother or simply don't have the time to stick around. Still, this is a thrifty guide you can stick in your pocket and consult when you need to find a restaurant, beer haunt or hotel. In short, if you're a first timer to Munich, enjoy the greatest city in Europe and be sure to tuck away Latja's guide.

Insight Pocket Guide: Munich.......2000-04-29

I love my Insight Guide to Germany (we use everywhere we travel here in Germany). In fact, no one will let me leave home without it! As a result, I purchased the Pocket Guide to Munich for this summer's round of weekend trips. Very helpful and informative. I appreciate the effort made to include historical points and the wonderful photos, along with sample agendas.

Average customer rating:

Bavaria Insight Pocket Guide

Manufacturer: APA Publications Pte Ltd,Singapore
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Europe | Travel | Subjects | Books

Guidebooks | Reference & Tips | Travel | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 9624215766

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Berlin (Insight guides)
Insight Guides
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Europe | Travel | Subjects | Books

Book Description

The book is the only scientific monograph dealing with coccinellids (i.e. ladybirds), a group of beetles which are beneficial predators of aphids, scale insects and mites, and are also one of the most popular insects. This volume is an updated and modified version of Biology of Coccinellidae (1973) 250 pp. Due to a vast increase in information, the book has become more voluminous (xvi + 464 pp. comprising 133 tables, 95 figures, 11 plates, 1692 references). While the information goes into enough detail for a researcher or university teacher, the book should also be easily readable for the naturalist who is interested in the background behind the observed phenomena. Extension agriculture specialists will find a friendly guide to the use of coccinellids in integrated pest management and biological control. The authors hope that the volume will thus help to make our environment safer both for humans and animals.

Average customer rating:
Chemical Reactor Theory: An Introduction
K. G. Denbigh , and J. C. R. Turner
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General & Reference | Chemistry | Science | Subjects | Books
Industrial & Technical | Chemistry | Science | Subjects | Books
General | Chemical | Engineering | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
General & Reference | Chemistry | Professional Science | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0521256453

Average customer rating:
Chemical Reactor Theory: an Introduction
K.G. Denbigh
Manufacturer: Cambridge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KSZ61A

Average customer rating:
Chemical Reactor Theory: an Introduction
K.G. Denbigh
Manufacturer: Cambridge,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000R0D3W0

Book Description

When a dynamical system has a large number of parameters it is not possible to get a completely comprehensive picture of all the types of behavior that it may display and one must be content with surveying the system along various corridors of lower dimension. Using an example with three differential equations and six parameters it is shown how the available methods of singularity theory, bifurcation analysis, normal forms, etc. can be used to build up a picture of varied and interesting behavior. The model is a generalization of the Gray-Scott reaction scheme in a single stirred vessel to a two-phase reactor consisting of a reaction chamber and a reservoir communicating with each other through a semi-permeable membrane. Two forms exist according as to whether A is fed to the reactor and B to the reservoir or vice-versa, and show interesting differences of behavior. Both models undergo Hopf bifurcations, pitchfork transitions, have homoclinic orbits, take the period doubling route to chaos and one gets there by intermittency. Besides being of interest to mathematicians as an ecological study of a differentiable system, it is hoped that, though idealized, the fact that it corresponds closely to a real type of reactor will make it attractive to control engineers and others as a testing ground for their various methods and devices. This book will be of particular interest to students and researchers in mathematics and engineering , particularly those working in bifurcation or chaos theory.

Average customer rating:

21st century American history written in advance?

East-European History 101

one of the best historical novels ever

Literature of the highest quality

With Fire and Sword, Vol. 1
Henryk Sienkiewicz , and Samuel A. Binion
Manufacturer: Fredonia Books (NL)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Historical | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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With Fire and Sword, Vol. 2: A Tale of the Past

Pan Michael

The Trilogy Companion: A Reader's Guide to the Trilogy of Henryk Sienkiewicz

On the Field of Glory

Pan Tadeusz/English and Polish Text

ASIN: 141010057X

Book Description

The period embraced in this set is "one of the most dramatic and fruitful of results in European Annals - remarkable for work and endeavor, especially in the Slav world," the author writes. Among Western Slavs, the great events were the Hussite Wars and the union of Lithuania and Polant. The Hussite Wars were caused by ideas of race and religion (born in Bohemia.) The period of Bohemian activity began in 1403 and ended in 1434, with the battle of Lipan. Known for their great narrative power and contain vivid characterizations, Sienkiewicz' work includes the great trilogy of historical novels began to appear in 1883. It is composed of With Fire and Sword (1884), The Deluge (1886), and Pan Michael (1887-88). Set in the later 17th century, the trilogy describes Poland's struggles against Cossacks, Tatars, Swedes, and Turks, stressing Polish heroism in a vivid style of epic clarity and simplicity. Henryk (Adam Alexander Pius) Sienkiewicz (1846-1916) was a novelist, born in Wola Okrzejska, Poland. He studied at Warsaw, traveled in the USA, and in the 1870s began to write articles, short stories, and novels. His major work was a war trilogy about 17th-c Poland, beginning with Ogniem i mieczem (1884, With Fire and Sword), but his most widely known book is the story of Rome under Nero, Quo Vadis? (1896), several times filmed, notably in 1951 by Mervyn Le Roy (1900-87). He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1905. Translated by Samuel A. Binion, who was also the translator of Quo Vadis.

Customer Reviews:

21st century American history written in advance?.......2007-01-05

Actually it's a trilogy: Fire and Sword. Deluge. Fire in the Steppes. You can read it as an epic historical novel about 17th century Poland, and what an epic it is! I don't think Hollywood with its cast of thousands and all its money could tell this story vividly as did Sienkiewicz using only the printed word. Believe me, from page 1 you are there.

But I wish this was the only reason to read this book.

Unfortunately, you can't help noticing parallels with Poland then and the USA now, which are many and disquieting. Two constitutional politcal systems; one a republic, the other an elective monarchy--both relatively pluralistic and tolerant in hostile and violent time. Circling foreign powers. Short sighted quarreling and wrangling among the leaders. A huge border problem; large and less than 100% loyal minorities. Holding all this in check are massively powerful militaries. In Poland's case, this wasn't enough. Poland so exhausted itself fighting internal rebellions and foreign invasions that it was easy prey for partitioning in the next century.

So it's a good old fashioned read and a very sobering read at the same time.

East-European History 101.......2006-08-17

For students of East-European history, a sort of thoughtful GONE WITH THE WIND with footnotes. This Victorian-era, historical romance belongs to an eminent tradition that begins with Walter Scott, a tradition that includes Victor Hugo, Dumas (here the main influence), Pushkin, Tolstoi, etc., etc. Of special note, for a fuller perspective on the subject--the unraveling in the 17c of the grand Polish empire ("commonwealth")--read Gogol's Ukranian perspective in TARAS BULBA (made into a silly Hollywood movie, naturellement, with Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis), Isaac Singer's Polish-Jewish lament in SATAN IN GORAY (calamities effectuate religious enthusiasm, or haven't you noticed?), Daniel Defoe's Anglo-gloating in MEMOIRS OF A CAVALIER, and even Isaac Babel's RED CAVALRY (does the horror of the plunder scene in Kosinski's PAINTED BIRD plunder the gleeful horrors in Sienkiewicz's narrative?; the latter never misses an impalement). The treatment, by the author of QUO VADIS?, will eventually inform Hollywood's world-view: super heroes, super damsels in eminent distress, super villains and sort-of villains (unlike Hollywood, the author follows the aristocratic tradition of granting a brave and skillful enemy his due), no sex (save "Tartar fashion"), and lots and lots of blood and guts (literally; after all, this is East Europe). As I said, Hollywood. Essential reading--along with THE DELUGE (mighty!! Sweden picks on sweet, peace-loving Poland) and FIRE IN THE STEPPE (the mighty Turk picks on peace-loving Western civilization)--for students of European history, especially of East European. The collapse of Poland in the 17c would lead to the rise of two great European powers--Germany via Prussia, and Romanoff Russia. In tone and theme WITH FIRE AND SWORD prepares the reader for 20c European history. Incidentally, tho written by a Polish patriot in the 19c, there is very little of the religious issue either as it may have been felt in Poland or as it helped precipitate the war (rebellion) in the Ukraine (the lords of Poland failed to show sensitivity to the religious sensibilities of Cossacks): a curious omission in a portrait of Eastern Europe in the 17c (but compare with the sequel, THE DELUGE, wherein the shoe is on the other foot). Another aside: Sienkowiewicz's persistent adoration of the decorums of feudalism as a 19c romantic imagined them, tho risible to a 21st century North American (and quite sinister and ominous, unless one trusts NPR), is somewhat in a European tradition that would endure until, and thro, the Great War (WW I); think of Tennyson's "kind hearts and coronets" or read the boys magazines published in England, 1914 - 1918 (or watch Masterpiece Theatre). To cite just one example from our author: on the eve of battle with Sweden's army (in THE DELUGE), the inert, effete Polish nobility (according to the author) suddenly pulse as one with that "inborn capacity of the nobles for war." (For an eminent rejoinder, read Conrad's LORD JIM.) As I said, somewhat risible but sinister and ominous from a contemporary perspective up here. (Have you watched Polish national television lately?) Rendered in a lively, brisk, popular style well suited to the magazine serialization that marked the book's first appearance (as with Dickens).

one of the best historical novels ever.......2006-04-11

If you've read only "Quo Vadis" (or not even that one) by Sienkiewicz, you must read this one. It's not set in the same time but much later, in the Medieval Poland, a strange mix of civilisation (it was the only real democracy in those times' Europe - even the king was elected by poll!) and savagery. The Chistian Pollons - the most fervent of Catholics even now - of the Middle Eve show alternate sensibility and cruelty, are capable of the most gentle love but could butcher carelessly an opponent, are trustworthy or the biggest liars - and all of them breathe in the pages of this novel. You might have problems with the names - but this is to be expected; you don't have to learn Polish in order to love this book...
Young "polkovnik" (equiv. colonel) Skrzetuski falls inlove with a panni (miss) he's only spoken to for a little time. The girl's guardians promise him the maiden's hand in marriage... But as soon as he's away , the Tartars destroy the mansion and all knowledge of the inhabitants is lost. Kept a prisoner by the Tartars, allied with the Kosaks, Skrzetuski is freed only to find his lover gone. The Kosak Bohun, also inlove with Helena, kidnaps the girl and carries her away. As much as he'd want to go to her rescue, Skrzetuski has military duties to fulfill and will go to war instead of finding his heart's desire. But as he desperately tries to put love aside (and never really succeeds) his loyal friends go in search of Helena. Pan Zagloba, the biggest braggart of all times, and young Michal Wollodijowski manage to rescue her from her keepers and even wound Bohun. But after they hide her in a monastery in a protected city, and give the good news to the delighted Skrzetuski, they learn that the city was overtaken by the enemies and the monasteries sacked, the maidens there raped and murdered. Devastated, the young colonel decides to try to find death as a hero or join a monks order, if he'll survive all battles...

this is only the mainline and could tell nothing of the beauty of the prose... You actually are transported back in time, all the characters have substance and are credible. You'll want more - and there are more of them. Just have one try... You'll never regret it.

Literature of the highest quality.......2004-11-10

Sinkiewicz is a genius with a pen. These stories are so complete, so indepth, the character development so real, the plots so intricate - this is writing of superb quality awaiting a miniseries

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