{"title":"Theodore Steinberg","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"slide-mountain-book-theodore-steinberg-9780520087637","title":"Slide Mountain","description":"The drive to own the natural world in twentieth-century America seems virtually limitless. Signs of this national penchant for possessing nature are everywhere - from suburban picket fences to elaborate schemes to own underground water, clouds, even the ocean floor. Yet, as Theodore Steinberg demonstrates in this compelling, witty look at Americans' attempts to master the environment, nature continually turns these efforts into folly. In a rich, narrative style recalling the work of John McPhee, Steinberg tours America to explore some of the more unusual dilemmas that have arisen in our struggle to possess nature.Beginning along the Missouri River, Steinberg recounts the battle for three thousand acres of land the river carved from a Nebraska Indian reservation and deposited in Iowa. Then he travels to Louisiana, where an army of lawyers butted heads over whether Six Mile Lake was actually a lake or a stream. He continues to Arizona to investigate who owned the underground, then to Pennsylvania's Blue Ridge Mountains to see who claimed the clouds. He ends in crowded New York City with Donald Trump's struggle for air rights.  Americans' obsession with owning nature was immortalized by Mark Twain in the tale of Slide Mountain, where a landslide-prone Nevada peak turned the American dream of real estate into dust. In relating these modern-day Slide Mountain stories, Steinberg illuminates what it means to live in a culture of property where everything must have an owner.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49591167877393,"sku":"GOR011384707","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0520087631.gif?v=1750846685"},{"product_id":"acts-of-god-book-theodore-steinberg-9780195142631","title":"Acts of God","description":"Incredibly, the ten most costly catastrophes in US history have all been natural disasters - seven of them hurricanes - and all have occurred since 1989, a period, ironically, that Congress has dubbed the Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. Why this tremendous plague on our houses? While some claim that nature is the problem, in fact, as environmental historian Ted Steinberg explains, historically speaking, much of the death and destruction has been well within the realm of human control. Surveying more than a century of losses from weather and seismic extremes, Steinberg exposes the fallacy of seeing such calamities as simply random events. Acts of God explores the unnatural history of natural calamity, the decisions of business leaders and government officials that have paved the way for the greater losses of life and property, especially among those least able to withstand such blows - America's poor, elderly, and minorities. Seeing nature or God as the primary culprit, Steinberg argues, has helped to paper over the fact that, in truth, some Americans are better protected from the violence of nature than their counterparts lower down the socioeconomic ladder. How else can we explain that the hardest hit areas have been mobile home parks and other low-income neighbourhoods? Beginning with the 1886 Charleston and 1906 San Francisco earthquakes, and continuing to the present, Steinberg spotlights the defective approach to natural hazards taken by real estate interests, the media, and policymakers. By understating the extent of storm damage in news reports and offering quick repairs and cosmetic solutions to damaged property, fundamental flaws in the status quo go unremedied, class divisions are maintained, and unsafe practices continue unquestioned. Even today, with our increased scientific knowledge, he shows that reckless building continues unabated in seismically active areas and flood-prone coastal plains, often at taxpayer expense. Sure to provoke discussion, Acts of God is a call to action that must be heard before the next disaster hits.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49660487663889,"sku":"GOR013692730","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49795433038097,"sku":"CIN0195142632G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50285365330193,"sku":"GOR002816502","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52153405178129,"sku":"GOR014497002","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0195142632.jpg?v=1751290697"},{"product_id":"down-to-earth-book-theodore-steinberg-9780195140095","title":"Down to Earth","description":"An innovative and provocative new approach to understanding  American history turns readers attention to nature as the primary force shaping the course of the United States.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49804613746961,"sku":"CIN0195140095G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50951696580881,"sku":"GOR014141609","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53402839023889,"sku":"CIN0195140095VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0195140095.jpg?v=1750812302"},{"product_id":"nature-incorporated-book-theodore-steinberg-9780521527118","title":"Nature Incorporated","description":"Nature Incorporated explores the Industrial Revolution in New England from an environmental perspective. The advent of the industrial age brought about significant changes in gender and class relations, and also in work and culture, but it also involved a fundamental change in the way the natural world was handled. Focusing on the legendary Waltham-Lowell style mills, this book examines how these textile factories brought water under their exclusive control. It examines the legal issues that arose in settling disputes over water. And it describes the far reaching ecological consequences of industrial change. Steinberg offers a reinterpretation of industrialization that centers on the struggle to control and master nature.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50483588661521,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50483589054737,"sku":"CIN0521527112G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52139441946897,"sku":"NLS9780521527118","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53108469104913,"sku":"NIN9780521527118","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521527112.jpg?v=1751135174"},{"product_id":"down-to-earth-book-theodore-steinberg-9780195140101","title":"Down to Earth","description":"In this ambitious and provocative text, environmental historian Ted Steinberg offers a sweeping history of our nation--a history that, for the first time, places the environment at the very center of our story. Written with exceptional clarity, Down to Earth re-envisions the story of America \"from the ground up.\" It reveals how focusing on plants, animals, climate, and other ecological factors can radically change the way that we think about the past. Examining such familiar topics as colonization, the industrial revolution, slavery, the Civil War, and the emergence of modern-day consumer culture, Steinberg recounts how the natural world influenced the course of human history. From the colonists' attempts to impose order on the land to modern efforts to sell the wilderness as a consumer good, the author reminds readers that many critical episodes in our history were, in fact, environmental events. He highlights the ways in which we have attempted to reshape and control nature, from Thomas Jefferson's surveying plan, which divided the national landscape into a grid, to the transformation of animals, crops, and even water into commodities. The text is ideal for courses in environmental history, environmental studies, urban studies, economic history, and American history.  Passionately argued and thought-provoking, Down to Earth retells our nation's history with nature in the foreground--a perspective that will challenge our view of everything from Jamestown to Disney World.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50779548123409,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50779548156177,"sku":"CIN0195140109VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51688215019793,"sku":"CIN0195140109G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":53351053885713,"sku":"CIN0195140109A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0195140109.jpg?v=1750908815"},{"product_id":"slide-mountain-book-theodore-steinberg-9780520207097","title":"Slide Mountain","description":"The drive to own the natural world in twentieth-century America seems virtually limitless. 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It shows how water came to be defined as private property. The book is a reminder of the contribution of interdisciplinary approaches to the heritage of an area.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52413134045457,"sku":"CIN0870239430G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53566556963089,"sku":"CIN0870239430VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":53601146503441,"sku":"CIN0870239430A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780870239434.jpg?v=1763483216"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/de-de\/collections\/autor-buecher-von-theodore-steinberg.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}