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This highly readable, spectacularly illustrated compendium is an ecological journey into a wondrous land of extremes. The California Deserts explores the remarkable diversity of life in this harsh yet fragile quarter of the Golden State. In a rich narrative, it illuminates how that diversity, created by drought and heat, has evolved with climate change since the Ice Ages. Along the way, we find there is much to learn from each desert species-- whether it is a cactus, pupfish, tortoise, or bighorn sheep--about adaptation to a warming, arid world. The book tells of human adaptation as well, and is underscored by a deep appreciation for the intimate knowledge acquired by native people during their 12,000-year desert experience. In this sense, the book is a journey of rediscovery, as it reflects on the ways that knowledge has been reclaimed and amplified by new discoveries. The book also takes the measure of the ecological condition of these deserts today, presenting issues of conservation, management, and restoration. With its many sidebars, photographs, and featured topics, The California Deserts provides a unique introduction to places of remarkable and often unexpected beauty.
Evoking the mystery and magic of southern California's desert, this collection of tales weaves fact and fancy into a tapestry of lost mines, Indian myths, historic vignettes, and legendary characters.
The sotry of how underpaid, underfunded volunteers fought to protect the last large area of wild land left in California, culminating in the enactment of the California Desert Protection Act of 1994.
The cult-y pocket-size field guide to the strange and intriguing secrets of the Mojave—its myths and legends, outcasts and oddballs, flora, fauna, and UFOs—becomes the definitive, oracular book of the desert For the past five years, Desert Oracle has existed as a quasi-mythical, quarterly periodical available to the very determined only by subscription or at the odd desert-town gas station or the occasional hipster boutique, its canary-yellow-covered, forty-four-page issues handed from one curious desert zealot to the next, word spreading faster than the printers could keep up with. It became a radio show, a podcast, a live performance. Now, for the first time—and including both classic and new, never-before-seen revelations—Desert Oracle has been bound between two hard covers and is available to you. Straight out of Joshua Tree, California, Desert Oracle is “The Voice of the Desert”: a field guide to the strange tales, singing sand dunes, sagebrush trails, artists and aliens, authors and oddballs, ghost towns and modern legends, musicians and mystics, scorpions and saguaros, out there in the sand. Desert Oracle is your companion at a roadside diner, around a campfire, in your tent or cabin (or high-rise apartment or suburban living room) as the wind and the coyotes howl outside at night. From journal entries of long-deceased adventurers to stray railroad ad copy, and musings on everything from desert flora, rumored cryptid sightings, and other paranormal phenomena, Ken Layne's Desert Oracle collects the weird and the wonderful of the American Southwest into a single, essential volume.
High in the Inyo Mountains, between Owens Valley and Death Valley National Park, lies the ghost town of Cerro Gordo. Discovered in 1865, this silver town boomed to a population of 3,000 people in the hands of savvy entrepreneurs during the 1870s. As the silver played out and the town faded, a few hung on to the dream. By the early 1900s, Louis D. Gordon wandered up the Yellow Grade Road where freight wagons once traversed with silver and supplies and took a closer look at the zinc ore that had been tossed aside by early miners. The Fat Hill lived again, primarily as a small company town. By the last quarter of the 20th century, Jody Stewart and Mike Patterson found themselves owners of the rough and tumble camp that helped Los Angeles turn into a thriving metropolis because of silver and commercial trade. Cerro Gordo found new life, second to Bodie, as California's best-preserved ghost town.
In the 1940s, Marshal South chronicled his family's controversial primitive lifestyle on Ghost Mountain, in what is now Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in southern California, through popular monthly articles written for Desert Magazine. This is the complete collection, along with never-before-published photos of the family.
This is a true story of a city and its people, seemingly making a wrong turn on the road to a better life, and having to live it while hoping for change. The story reads like a B-Movie with high crime, political corruption, illicit sex and bank robberies, mixed with violence, mystery, myth and Indian lore. While laughable at times, the story profiles many of the people and the experiences associated with them, as abject lessons in perseverance, faith and determination in overcoming adversities in their city. Desert Hot Springs is a historical place in the Imperial Desert of California high above the Desert floor identified today as Coachella Valley. The area, once roamed by the Cahuilla and Agua Caliente Indians, became home to Cabot Yerxa, one of the Valley's earliest known settlers in 1913, whose adobe house still stands as a museum and monument to the pioneering spirit of America. According to public records, the local Chamber of Commerce and Mission Springs Water District, the area boasts some of the finest drinking water in the United States, and an abundance of underground mineral spring water rushing to the surface from 105 degrees to 125 degrees in 44 Boutique spas. It is also a place where local lore and some enthusiasts believe there is an "Energy Vortex" in the center of the city creating mystic powers for residents and visitors. Most early settlers of the area were homesteaders, who qualified and secured their 160-acre parcel ownership by constructing the required one-hundred square foot "home" as established by the Homestead Act of the U.S. Government and signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862. The law took effect on January 1, 1863. Now, the city within its boundaries is financially, and infrastructure challenged. There is a small but very active constituency of citizens working as volunteers on civic projects throughout the city, many of whom believe the "natural wonders" of the medicinal quality of "miracle hot spring waters"; the pure drinking water and the "Energy Vortex" will bring prosperity to the city. So far, this hasn't happened.
“A California classic . . . California, it should be remembered, was very much the wild west, having to wait until 1850 before it could force its way into statehood. so what tamed it? Mr. Starr’s answer is a combination of great men, great ideas and great projects.”—The Economist From the age of exploration to the age of Arnold, the Golden State’s premier historian distills the entire sweep of California’s history into one splendid volume. Kevin Starr covers it all: Spain’s conquest of the native peoples of California in the early sixteenth century and the chain of missions that helped that country exert control over the upper part of the territory; the discovery of gold in January 1848; the incredible wealth of the Big Four railroad tycoons; the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906; the emergence of Hollywood as the world’s entertainment capital and of Silicon Valley as the center of high-tech research and development; the role of labor, both organized and migrant, in key industries from agriculture to aerospace. In a rapid-fire epic of discovery, innovation, catastrophe, and triumph, Starr gathers together everything that is most important, most fascinating, and most revealing about our greatest state. Praise for California “[A] fast-paced and wide-ranging history . . . [Starr] accomplishes the feat with skill, grace and verve.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “Kevin Starr is one of california’s greatest historians, and California is an invaluable contribution to our state’s record and lore.”—MarIa ShrIver, journalist and former First Lady of California “A breeze to read.”—San Francisco
A comprehensive history of San Diego from the time of the indigenous people to the controversial mayoral election of 2004. Chapters cover the Spanish, Mexican, Victorian, WWI and WWII eras, and the post-war boom. Includes a 25-page chronology of events, plus bibliography and index.
Originally published in 1903, this classic nature book by Mary Austin evokes the mysticism and spirituality of the American Southwest. Vibrant imagery of the landscape between the high Sierras and the Mojave Desert is punctuated with descriptions of the fauna, flora and people that coexist peacefully with the earth. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.