Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics, and Promise of the American Prairie

Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics, and Promise of the American Prairie
ISBN-10
0670853429
ISBN-13
9780670853427
Category
Nature / Ecology
Pages
306
Language
English
Published
1995
Publisher
Viking
Author
Richard Manning

Description

"In Grassland, journalist and nature writer Richard Manning takes a critical look at the largest and most misunderstood biome in our country, the grasslands of the American West and Midwest, which encompass a full 40 percent of the land. Manning traces the expansion of America and explains how, through farming and industry, we have habitually imposed our romantic ideals onto the land with little interest in understanding and learning from that land. The repercussions of our abuses of the grassland systems run far and deep. The grass provides not only our last connection to the natural world, but a vital link to our prehistoric roots, and to our history and culture, from roads, railroads, and agriculture to the literature of the plains." "Over the course of the book, which is framed by the story of a remarkable elk whose mysterious wanderings seem to reclaim his ancestral plains, Manning looks back 12,000 years to this continent's earliest settlers, and farther, to know more about our native - and long extinct - mammals and why they perished and the invaders survived. He considers our attempts over the last 200 years to control unpredictable land through plowing, grazing, and landscaping. He introduces botanists and biologists who are restoring native grasses, literally follows the first herd of buffalo restored to wild prairie, and even visits Ted Turner's progressive - and controversial - Montana ranch."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Other editions

Similar books

  • Miracle Under the Oaks: The Revival of Nature in America
    By William K. Stevens

    This compelling story of heroism and tenacious human spirit— the first book to look at this momentous new movement—brings alive one of its most astonishing victories.

  • Design for Human Ecosystems: Landscape, Land Use, and Natural Resources
    By John Tillman Lyle

    The designer was Major John Wesley Powell , a man Any number of levels of scale might emerge in the future , whom one does not usually think of as a shaper of landscapes but for the present , all we can do is group the possible or even ...

  • Encyclopedia of Human Ecology: A-H
    By Julia R. Miller

    Amy Griffin Monica Mouton Sanders M.Angela Casady Jennifer Smith Burden Tom Luster See also: Adolescent Pregnancy and Prevention; Prenatal Decision Making by Adolescents; Sexual Abstinence References and Further Reading Child Trends.

  • Environment, Energy, and Society: Exemplary Works
    By Craig R. Humphrey, Tammy L. Lewis, Frederick H. Buttel

    We also present the Pearson r coefficient on the same two relationships , which will facilitate the comparison we will make next . In using the Pearson r statistic , these two economic trade - off questions continue to be positively ...

  • Saving California's Coast: Army Engineers at Oceanside and Humboldt Bay
    By Susan Pritchard O'Hara, Gregory Graves

    For more than a century the history of the American Frontier, particularly the West, has been the speciality of the Arthur H. Clark Company.

  • How to Read a North Carolina Beach: Bubble Holes, Barking Sands, and Rippled Runnels
    By Orrin H. Pilkey, William J. Neal, Tracy Monegan Rice

    Three leading coastal geologists provide a guidebook to North Carolina beach characteristics created specifically to enhance trips to the beach for tourists and residents. Original.

  • 中国地理经典故事(下)
    By 于薇, 徐牧心

    ... 与灵隐寺并称“西湖两大名刹”。净慈寺大雄宝殿西侧有一座济祖殿,殿内至今还供奉着济公像。相传有一年,净慈寺遭了火灾被毁,济公巧借寺里的古井从四川运来一批又粗又大的木头,使净慈寺得以重建。宋代诗人杨万里写过组诗《晓出净慈寺送林子方 ...

  • 世界地理经典故事(上)
    By 于薇, 徐牧心

    就在峰回路转的地方,一块块梯田星罗棋布,一方方秧苗染翠峻岭,它们下临峡谷,上接云霄,层层排列,呈现出一个人类向大自然努力谋求生存的奇观。由于山势陡峭,这些梯田面积最大的只有2500平方米,最小的仅4平方米左右。为了防止水土流失,梯田的外壁几乎全部用石 ...

  • STRATOSPHERIC OZONE & MAN STRATOSPHERIC OZONE
    By Frank A. Bower, Richard B. Ward

    Sridharan , U. C. , Reimann , B. , and Kaufman , F. , Kinetics of the reaction OH + H , O , HO , + H , O , J. Chem . ... Luther , F. M. , Chang , J. S. , Duewer , W. H. , Penner , J. E. , Tarp , R. L. , and Wuebbles , D. J. , Potential ...

  • The Changing Mile Revisited: An Ecological Study of Vegetation Change with Time in the Lower Mile of an Arid and...
    By Janice Emily Bowers, Raymond M. Turner, Robert H. Webb

    This new book updates the classic by adding recent photographs to the original pairs, providing another three decades of data and showing even more clearly the extent of change across the landscape.