Char Miller
Auteur van Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism (Pioneers of Conservation)
Over de Auteur
Char Miller is the W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis and History at Pomona College in Claremont, California. His most recent books include Ogallala: Water for a Dry hand (2018), San Antonio: A Tricentennial History (2018), Where There's Smoke: The Environmental Science, Public Policy, toon meer and Politics of Marijuana (2018), and The Nature of Hope: Grassroots Organizing, Environmental Justice, and Political Change (2019). toon minder
Fotografie: Char Miller
Werken van Char Miller
Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism (Pioneers of Conservation) (2001) 42 exemplaren
Urban Texas: Politics and Development (Texas A & M Southwestern Studies (Paperback)) (2000) 8 exemplaren
Where There's Smoke: The Environmental Science, Public Policy, and Politics of Marijuana (2018) 7 exemplaren
West Side Rising: How San Antonio's 1921 Flood Devastated a City and Sparked a Latino Environmental Justice Movement (2021) 6 exemplaren
The Nature of Hope: Grassroots Organizing, Environmental Justice, and Political Change (Intersection in Environmental… (2019) 5 exemplaren
Fathers and Sons, the Bingham Family and the American Mission (American Civilization) (1982) 4 exemplaren
West Side Rising: How San Antonio's 1921 Flood Devastated a City and Sparked a Latino Environmental Justice… (2022) 3 exemplaren
Selected writings of Hiram Bingham (1814-1869), missionary to the Hawaiian islands : to raise the Lord's banner (1988) 2 exemplaren
Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Geslacht
- male
Leden
Besprekingen
Hetch Hetchy: A History in Documents: (From the… door Char Miller
A thorough history of the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park -- from its use by indigenous peoples to its flooding by the City of San Francisco as a secure source of water (and power). Many view the battle over Hetch Hetchy as the birth of the modern environmental movement, as "birthed" by John Muir. Miller also includes information on a 2012 ballot proposal in San Francisco to remove the dam and restore the valley, which lost in a landslide. However, the controversy lives on . . .
With a forward by Julián Castro
4****
Subtitle: How San Antonio's 1921 Flood Devastated a City and Sparked a Latino Environmental Justice Movement
I grew up in San Antonio. The all-girls boarding school I attended from kindergarten through 7th grade was downtown, on the banks of the San Antonio River. Still visible on the limestone walls of the main building’s second floor was a watermark from “the great flood.” I learned when I was in high school that the city’s famous River Walk was a WPA project begun as part of an effort for flood control.
I also grew up on the city’s West side. And each summer, the torrential rains so common in that season would flood our street, sometimes resulting in a raging torrent that carried cars for blocks.
This book explores not only the results of the city’s founding in a flood plain, but the political decisions – motivated by class and racial prejudice – that ensured that the areas poorest citizens would continue to suffer for centuries despite contributing tax dollars to help the wealthy stay dry. And how, a group of those West Side residents, fueled by yet another flood, marshalled their collective political power to achieve major changes.
Miller did extensive research, and it shows. But the parts of the book I most enjoyed were those that dealt directly with the 1921 disaster and its aftermath. I wanted more of the personal stories, but they went unrecorded for the most part. While I was interested in the political struggle to change the city’s focus on its majority minority population (and Miller does a great job of detailing the successful efforts of organizations such as COPS - Communities Organized for Public Service), the compelling disaster story seemed to fade.
One of Miller’s sources was a 64-page report written shortly after the disaster, titled “La tragedia de la inundación de San Antonio. Here is a section of Miller’s book that quotes extensively from that report:
The “San Antonio River hit the rich – it affected the big stores on Avenida C. The powerful houses of Houston and Commerce St. It must be said in its honor that it was greedy – it wanted riches and destroyed estates.” By contrast, Alazán Creek – “an imitation of a brook, a laughable pantomime, a thin and flexible snake” – proved ravenous. “It was the taker of lives – it was a cruel executioner who wiped out every poor soul it encountered.” Put differently, the river “swallowed pianos velvet rugs, Venetian moons of unparalleled beauty and wealth. Alazán Creek drowned children, killed women, knocked down men. And it was our people, the Mexican people, that succumbed defeated, whose poverty did not allow (them) to reside in a house in a pious neighborhood, a street near the center and out of danger. The sons of Mexico were the ones that fell asleep, unperturbed by danger, to wake up in the hands of a monster.”
A storm sewer drainage system was finally put into my parents’ neighborhood in the late 1990s. Every year, still, there are drownings in San Antonio as a result of flood waters – usually people who try to drive their cars through water covering the road and get swept away by the current.
For images of the various creeks – looking innocent when NOT in flood stage – visit
https://www.westsidecreeks.com/about-the-creeks/ In the green bar at the top of the page, hover your cursor on the “about the creeks” link and you can visit each creek in turn. Hard to imagine these little “imitation of a brook” waterways can rage into killer torrents – but they can, and do.… (meer)
4****
Subtitle: How San Antonio's 1921 Flood Devastated a City and Sparked a Latino Environmental Justice Movement
I grew up in San Antonio. The all-girls boarding school I attended from kindergarten through 7th grade was downtown, on the banks of the San Antonio River. Still visible on the limestone walls of the main building’s second floor was a watermark from “the great flood.” I learned when I was in high school that the city’s famous River Walk was a WPA project begun as part of an effort for flood control.
I also grew up on the city’s West side. And each summer, the torrential rains so common in that season would flood our street, sometimes resulting in a raging torrent that carried cars for blocks.
This book explores not only the results of the city’s founding in a flood plain, but the political decisions – motivated by class and racial prejudice – that ensured that the areas poorest citizens would continue to suffer for centuries despite contributing tax dollars to help the wealthy stay dry. And how, a group of those West Side residents, fueled by yet another flood, marshalled their collective political power to achieve major changes.
Miller did extensive research, and it shows. But the parts of the book I most enjoyed were those that dealt directly with the 1921 disaster and its aftermath. I wanted more of the personal stories, but they went unrecorded for the most part. While I was interested in the political struggle to change the city’s focus on its majority minority population (and Miller does a great job of detailing the successful efforts of organizations such as COPS - Communities Organized for Public Service), the compelling disaster story seemed to fade.
One of Miller’s sources was a 64-page report written shortly after the disaster, titled “La tragedia de la inundación de San Antonio. Here is a section of Miller’s book that quotes extensively from that report:
The “San Antonio River hit the rich – it affected the big stores on Avenida C. The powerful houses of Houston and Commerce St. It must be said in its honor that it was greedy – it wanted riches and destroyed estates.” By contrast, Alazán Creek – “an imitation of a brook, a laughable pantomime, a thin and flexible snake” – proved ravenous. “It was the taker of lives – it was a cruel executioner who wiped out every poor soul it encountered.” Put differently, the river “swallowed pianos velvet rugs, Venetian moons of unparalleled beauty and wealth. Alazán Creek drowned children, killed women, knocked down men. And it was our people, the Mexican people, that succumbed defeated, whose poverty did not allow (them) to reside in a house in a pious neighborhood, a street near the center and out of danger. The sons of Mexico were the ones that fell asleep, unperturbed by danger, to wake up in the hands of a monster.”
A storm sewer drainage system was finally put into my parents’ neighborhood in the late 1990s. Every year, still, there are drownings in San Antonio as a result of flood waters – usually people who try to drive their cars through water covering the road and get swept away by the current.
For images of the various creeks – looking innocent when NOT in flood stage – visit
https://www.westsidecreeks.com/about-the-creeks/ In the green bar at the top of the page, hover your cursor on the “about the creeks” link and you can visit each creek in turn. Hard to imagine these little “imitation of a brook” waterways can rage into killer torrents – but they can, and do.… (meer)
Masterful collection of scholarship on Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-sixth president of the United States, and his multifaceted experiences as a writer, rancher, policy-maker, reader, hiker, camper, explorer, and overall promoter of nature. Much attention is also given to analyzing his experiences in and identification with the west.
Lijsten
Prijzen
Misschien vindt je deze ook leuk
Statistieken
- Werken
- 36
- Leden
- 293
- Populariteit
- #79,900
- Waardering
- 3.8
- Besprekingen
- 3
- ISBNs
- 67
- Talen
- 1