Over the past 300 years, settlement patterns, geography, and climate have greatly affected the ecology of the south Texas landscape. Drawing on a variety of interests and perspectives, the contributors to On the Border probe these evolving relationships in and around San Antonio, the country's ninth-largest city.Spanish, Mexican, and American settlers required open expanses of land for agriculture and ranching, displacing indigenous inhabitants. The high poverty traditionally felt by many residents, combined with San Antonio's environment, has contributed to the development of the city's unusually complex public health dilemmas. The national drive to preserve historic landmarks and landscapes has been complicated by the blight of homogenous urban sprawl. But no issue has been more contentious than that of water, particularly in a city entirely dependent on a single aquifer in a region of little rain. Managing these environmental concerns is the chief problem facing the city in the new century.

This book presents over sixty papers, the proceedings of the International Congress on the History of the Arctic and Sub-Arctic region held in Rekjavik, 18th-21st June 1998. The contributions are by scholars from eleven countries and deal with a wide variety of subjects.

Plant-centred issues are fundamental in the definitions and explanations of the Neolithic as a phenomenon.The meeting of the Neolithic Studies Group from which this volume developed aimed to provide a forum for the wide range of approaches now applied to Neolithic archaeobotany at site and landscape scales of resolution.

Papers from the 1993 Association for Environmental Archaeology conference at Durham. The themes of the conference were taphonomy and interpretation, to encourage spreakers to go beyond data acquisition and description. This volume looks at how material (pollen, insects, bones etc. ) came to be deposited in the context from which they were recovered), how surviving material might compare with what existed in the past. Furthermore, how our methodologies can bias our results and how material might be interpreted in terms of past human activities and environmental processes. These themes are relevant to all archaeological and palaeo-ecological enquireies, regardless of the type of material studied. The archaeological periods studied range from the Bronze Age to the 19th century AD and include rural, urban and buiral sites. Several contributors recommend the use of multiple lines of enquiry as a means of counteracting the biases inherent in any one type approach or group of material. Several papers are concerned with the nature of of the recovered archaeological data, looking for patterns that might be interpretable in terms of past environments or taphonomic process.

An overview of contemporary environmental affairs, from 1940s to the present—with an emphasis on nature in an urbanized society, land developments, environmental technology, the structure of environmental politics, environmental opposition, and the results of environmental policy.

The papers in this book were first presented at the Association for Environmental Archaeology conference at Newcastle upon Tyne in 1998. The aim of the conference was to encourage contributors to examine the inter-relationships between classes of data that have increasingly come to be treated in isolation and to encourage thinking about theory in environmental archaeology. Authors have focused on explicit development of theory, others on bridging barriers between different fields of study or classes of evidence. The notion that people are influenced, but not necessarily determined, by the environments in which they live, may seem like a truism, but an ecodynamic perspective however requires us to question the human impact on the environment, disregarding agrecultural influences. Human Ecodynamics discuss how people have been affecting, and affected by environmental variables around them since the biginning of time. Archaeologists are peculiarly well placed to link culture and nature together as the discipline decerns thriving socio-cultural and biological traditions. This thinking is applied to the way in which we conduct our studies of the world around us, and to the boundaries between the various disciplines and sub-disciplines into which we sub-divide the subject matter of investigation.

A collection of short papers and abstracts from the 4th, 5th and 6th proceedings of the Osteological Research Group, held in April and November 1996 and June 1997. The papers cover a wide range of subjects including technical information, evidence derived from bone assemblages and specific individual examples. Studies are presented on archaeozoology, domesticated animal bone assemblages, evidence of violence and stress indicators, measurement and statistical analysis and current research in the field of osteoarchaeology.

As she did in Appalachian Spring and Appalachian Autumn, Bonta offers a day-by-day account of the natural life of one place--her 648-acre property in south central Pennsylvania. In Appalachian Summer, Bonta's first grandchild spends her first summer on earth, and her growth is compared with that of the forest animals. Another important event in this Appalachian summer is the disappearance of a local girl. As the mountain is thoroughly searched, Bonta poses questions about the safety of women in the woods. Do women stay out of the woods because they fear attack by men, or wild creatures and the unknown? Should they have such fears? In her minute observations of one place, one season, Marcia Bonta lays bare the connections we retain to the natural world, which is, finally, our own.

The relevance and importance of Samuel P. Hay's book, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency, has only increased over time. Written almost half a century ago, it offers an invaluable history of the conservation movement's origins, and provides an excellent context for understanding contemporary enviromental problems and possible solutions. Against a background of rivers, forests, ranges, and public lands, this book defines two conflicting political processes: the demand for an integrated, controlled development guided by an elite group of scientists and technicians and the demand for a looser system allowing grassroots impulses to have a voice through elected government representatives.

Women have traditionally been expected to tend the sick as part of their domestic duties; yet throughout history they have faced an uphill struggle to be accepted as healers outside the household.In this provocative anthology, twelve essays by historians and literary scholars explore the work of women as healers and physicians. The essays range across centuries, nations, and cultures to focus on the ideological and practical obstacles women have faced in the world of medicine. Each examines the situation of women healers in a particular time and place through cases that are emblematic of larger issues and controversies in that period.The stories presented here are typical of different but parallel facets of women's history in medicine. The first six concern the controversial relationship between magic and medicine and the perception that women healers can harm or enchant as well as cure. Women frequently were banished to the edges of medical practice because their spiritualism or unorthodoxy was considered a threat to conventional medicine. These chapters focus mainly on the Middle Ages and the Renaissance but also provide continuity to women healers in African American culture of our own time. The second six essays trace women healers' efforts to seek professional standing, first in fifth-century Greece and Rome and later, on a global scale, in the mid-nineteenth century. In addition to actual case studies from Germany, Russia, England, and Australia, these essays consider treatments of women doctors in American fiction and in the writings of Virginia Woolf.Women Healers and Physicians complements existing histories of women in medicine by drawing on varied historical and literary sources, filling gaps in our understanding of women healers and nulling social attitudes about them. Although the contributions differ dramatically, all retain a common focus and create a unique comparative picture of women's struggles to climb the long hill to acceptance in the medical profession.

Throughout history some areas have been less attractive for living and farming than others. These areas are identified as marginal because of environmental, economic or socio-political factors. How can we recognise marginality in the archaeological record? How particularly can environmental remains be interpreted? And how can we interpret human strategies when faced with a marginal environment? Most of the papers in this volume focus on Scottish contexts, reflecting their origins at the 1992 meeting of the Association for Environmental Archaeology in Edinburgh. However Greek pastoralism and the problems of food supply in the Egyptian and Syrian deserts are also examined.

It is hard to believe that at one time burley tobacco was not the chief cash crop in Kentucky. Yet for more than half a century hemp dominated the state's agricultural production.James Hopkins surveys the hemp industry in Kentucky from its beginning through its complete demise at the end of World War II, describing the processes of seeding and harvesting the plant, and marketing manufactured goods made of the fiber. With debate presently raging over the legalization of industrial hemp, it is essential that an accurate portrait of this controversial resource be available. Although originally published in 1951, Hopkins's work remains remarkably current as hemp manufacturing today is little changed from the practices the author describes. This edition includes an updated bibliography of recent publications concerning the scientific, economic, and political facets of industrial hemp.

The Butterflies of West Virginia and Their Caterpillars describes 128 species of butterflies found in the state, along with their caterpillars and pupae. Each species account provides a description and information on distribution, habitat, life history, nectar sources, and larval host plants. Butterflies, their caterpillars and pupae are featured in hundreds of color illustrations, as well as detailed drawings and maps. Written for scientists and general enthusiasts alike, the book also includes chapters on studying butterflies and butterfly gardening.

The core dilemma in environmental advocacy may be illustrated by the question, "When we communicate about the world, should we stress what we know or what we feel?" The contributors to The Symbolic Earth argue that it is more important to decide how we should talk about what we know and feel. In their view, the environment is larely a product of how we talk about the world. Because the environment is a social construction, the only hope we have of preserving it is to understand and alter the fundamental ways we discuss it. This collection first examines the ways in which discourse creates environment perceptions. Subjects discussed range from the description of natural scenery to the advocacy of political interest groups, from the everyday interactions of citizens facing environmental crises to the greenwashing of corporate imagemakers, and from the psychology of the mass public to the social constructions of the mass media. The authors include nationally known scholars of environmental history, rhetorical theory, ethnography, communication and journalism studies, public policy, and media criticism.

The potential of environmental evidence in the archaeological record for investigating the links between towns and their rural hinterlands is the focus of this volume. Most papers use evidence from Roman and Medieval Britain but there are also case studies from Paris, medieval Holland, and Oslo. Essential reading for specialists, this book also amply demonstrates the relevance of environmental evidence to central theoretical debates in historic archaeology. Contributors include: E Schia (Urban Oslo and its relation to rural production in the hinterland: An archaeological view) ; R I Macphail (The reworking of urban stratigraphy by human and natural processes) ; M Hill (Insect assemblages as evidence for past woodlands around York) ; H Kenward & E Allison (Rural origins of the urban insect fauna) ; H van Haaster (Plant resources and environment in late medieval Luebeck) ; M Maltby (The meat supply in Roman Dorchester and Winchester) ; Bob Wilson (Mortality patterns, animal husbandry and marketing in and around medieval and post-medieval Oxford) ; B Noddle (The under-rated goat) ; D Brothwell (On the possibility of urban-rural contrasts in human population palaeobiology) ; P Ciezar et al (In Suburbano: New data on the immediate surroundings of Roman and early medieval Paris) ; W Groenman van Waateringe (The menu of different classes in Dutch medieval society) .

This exciting work by a nationally known fitness and health expert is a realistic and practical guide to a healthier and happier lifestyle. Dr. Bryant Stamford, author of the highly acclaimed Fitness Without Exercise and a syndicated health columnist, and co-author Becca Coffin, a registered nurse, show how making the right choices in diet can improve health and reduce fat while allowing people to enjoy a fuller and more varied diet than other weight-loss plans permit. Americans are obsessed with diets and dieting, and yet we grow fatter every year. Traditional diets offer only temporary weight loss through loss of water and muscle and do not address the real problems of dietary fat and poor eating habits. Fat is sinister, wreaking havoc on every system of the body. Eating fat results in fat people, but it also clogs the arteries, raises blood pressure, overloads the bowels, and causes diabetes. To avoid the dangers of dietary fat, we need to change our eating habits. Happily, we don't have to eat less; we just need to make smarter choices about what we eat.The Jack Sprat diet plan uses a guided day-by-day approach geared to gender, size, and physical activity level. Each of the four weeks in the plan starts with a complete grocery list, including daily menus that have been analyzed to show how many calories and grams of fat will be consumed. All menus have been analyzed also to assure fulfillment of RDA guidelines. Recipes are provided for all home-prepared items in the plan, and specially designed "On-Your-Own" tables help with substitutions in the daily menus. There are even sections for including fast foods and a system of "controlled cheating."To help ensure success, Stamford and Coffin provide not only day-by-day and meal-by-meal details of what to eat but also insightful scientific background that explains why. These chapters include information on how much fat one should eat, how to make smart choices when choosing a menu, and the benefits of light exercise. The authors also present a wealth of more specific information on physiology and metabolism, hormones, antioxidants, and phytochemicals, as well as on frauds such as cellulite-reducing creams and diet pills.Stamford and Coffin do not offer miracles or magic, but they do provide sound advice and practical guides that will be invaluable to anyone interested in losing weight and making positive lifestyle changes.