Cities Sagebrush And Solitude

Cities, Sagebrush, and Solitude explores the transformation of the largest desert in North America, the Great Basin, into America’s last urban frontier. In recent decades Las Vegas, Reno, Salt Lake City, and Boise have become the anchors for sprawling metropolitan regions. This population explosion has been fueled by the maturing of Las Vegas as the nation’s entertainment capital, the rise of Reno as a magnet for multitudes of California expatriates, the development of Salt Lake City’s urban corridor along the Wasatch Range, and the growth of Boise’s celebrated high-tech economy and hip urban culture. The blooming of cities in a fragile desert region poses a host of environmental challenges. The policies required to manage their impact, however, often collide with an entrenched political culture that has long resisted cooperative or governmental effort. The alchemical mixture of three ingredients—cities, aridity, and a libertarian political outlook—makes the Great Basin a compelling place to study. This book addresses a pressing question: Are large cities ultimately sustainable in such a fragile environment?

The first book on the great American landscape painter to focus primarily on his work in Nevada, capturing the beauty of the American West, its open spaces and the developing landscape at the dawn of the modern era. This is the first comprehensive publication on the paintings, letters, photographs, and poetry made by Maynard Dixon (1875–1946) while he was in Nevada. This large, landscape format book accompanies a blockbuster exhibition on this colorful western painter and illustrator. Although Dixon’s contributions as an artist are widely recognized throughout the American West, this significant publication surveys nearly 180 artworks he created in Nevada, Lake Tahoe, and the Eastern Sierra from 1901 to 1944. Dixon first visited the state of Nevada nearly 125 years ago; and while much has changed during the past century, one can still explore many of the same remote locales depicted in these paintings or drive across the state beneath what many like to refer to as a cloud-filled, “Maynard Dixon sky.” Richly illustrated, including a wealth of privately owned paintings never before reproduced, the volume includes by texts by scholar Donald J. Hagerty on Dixon’s Nevada journeys, a significant essay on the art of the Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam), and Dixon’s depictions of the workers who built the dam. The book has a 3-piece binding and gilded edges.

From the middle of the nineteenth century, as Euro-Americans moved westward, they carried with them long-held prejudices against people of color. By the time they reached the West Coast, their new settlements included African Americans and recent Asian immigrants, as well as the indigenous inhabitants and descendants of earlier Spanish and Mexican settlers. The Coveted Westside deals with the settlement and development of Los Angeles in the context of its multiracial, multiethnic population, especially African Americans. Mandel exposes the enduring struggle between Whites determined to establish their hegemony and create residential heterogeneity in the growing city, and people of color equally determined to obtain full access to the city and the opportunities, including residential, that it offered. Not only does this book document the Black homeowners’ fight against housing discrimination, it shares personal accounts of Blacks’ efforts to settle in the highly desirable Westside of Los Angeles. Mandel explores the White-derived social and legal mechanisms that created this segregated city and the African American-led movement that challenged efforts to block access to fair housing.

"Surveys the fire scene characteristic of Nevada, Utah, and western Colorado through a mixture of journalism, history, and literary imagination that moves the topic beyond the usual science and policy formulations"--Provided by publisher.

People Skills for Public Managers fills the need for a communication-focused book set in the public and nonprofit context. The authors combine just enough basic theory about communication with specific skill development in areas of immediate interest to those who work in the public sector. It also features a strong "practice" orientation, with plentiful boxed applications (Insights from the Field, Skill Development boxes, Case Studies). It concludes with an especially useful summary chapter that describes the ten essential skills for successful communication.

This book reveals how embedded beliefs more so than a lack of scientific knowledge and understanding are creating a cognitive bias toward information that coincides with personal beliefs rather than scientific consensus-and that this anti-science bias exists among liberals as well as conservatives. In 2010, an outbreak of whooping cough in California infected more than 8,000 people, resulting in the hospitalization of more than 800 people and the death of 10 infants. In 2015, an outbreak of the measles in Disneyland infected more than 125 people. Both the whooping cough and the measles are vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) that have been largely nonexistent in the United States for decades. As these cases demonstrate, individuals who prioritize ideology or personal beliefs above scientific consensus can impinge on society at large-and they illustrate how rejecting science has unfortunate results for public health and for the environment. When Ideology Trumps Science examines how proponents of scientific findings and the scientists responsible for conducting and communicating the applicable research to decision makers are encountering direct challenges to scientific consensus. Using examples from high-stakes policy debates centered on hot-button controversies such as climate change, GMO foods, immunization, stem cell research, abstinence-only education, and birth control, authors Wolters and Steel document how the contested nature of contemporary perspectives on science leads to the possibility that policymakers will not take science into account when making decisions that affect the general population. In addition, the book identifies ways in which liberals and conservatives have both contested issues of science when consensus diverges from their ideological positions and values. It is a compelling must-read for public policy students and practitioners.

This special edition of Political and Military Sociology: An Annual Review encompasses a full range of coverage on the European refugee crisis. Contributions include a focus on the characteristics and motivations of modern-day migrants, an analysis of the inconsistent standards displayed by the European Union, and the militarization happening across parts of Europe in response. The volume leads with a discussion on the identity of the refugees: who are they and what are their reasons for leaving their homelands? Following chapters cover the response across Europe in countries including Serbia, Greece, Turkey, and Italy. The penultimate chapter examines the European Union’s inadequate response to the unfolding crisis, and the book concludes with a central analysis of the agreements between the EU and transit countries with remarks on the unintended consequences that have emerged.

List of charter members of the society: v. 1, p. 98-99.