Landfall Along The Chesapeake

As Schmidt circles the Bay counterclockwise from Jamestown, she explores Smith's encounters with Native Americans and the Bay's ecological changes over the past hundred years. On each river and creek, she quotes Smith's journals on matching wits with Powhatan, meeting Pocahontas, surviving thunderstorms, ambush, and a stingray's barb. Anchored on wild creeks, Schmidt observes swans and dragonflies, lightning and sunsets; in port she interviews colorful characters and working watermen about blue crabs and oysters.

As the site of the first permanent English settlement in North America, the birthplace of a presidential dynasty, and the gateway to western growth in the nation’s early years, Virginia can rightfully be called the “cradle of America.” Peter Wallenstein traces major themes across four centuries in a brisk narrative that recalls the people and events that have shaped the Old Dominion. The second edition is updated with new material throughout, including a new chapter on Virginia and world affairs from the Korean War through 9/11 and beyond, and, an expanded bibliography. Historical accounts of Virginia have often emphasized harmony and tradition, but Wallenstein focuses on the impact of conflict and change. From the beginning, Virginians have debated and challenged each other’s visions of Virginia, and Wallenstein shows how these differences have influenced its sometimes turbulent development. Casting an eye on blacks as well as whites, and on people from both east and west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he traces such key themes as political power, racial identity, and education. Bringing to bear his long experience teaching Virginia history, Wallenstein takes readers back, even before Jamestown, to the Elizabethan settlers at Roanoke Island and the inhabitants they encountered, as well as to Virginia’s leaders of the American Revolution. He chronicles the state’s dramatic journey through the Civil War era, a time that revealed how the nation’s evolution sometimes took shape in opposition to the vision of many leading Virginians. He also examines the impact of the civil rights movement and considers controversies that accompany Virginia into its fifth century. The text is copiously illustrated to depict not only such iconic figures as Pocahontas, George Washington, and Robert E. Lee, but also such other prominent native Virginians as Carter G. Woodson, Patsy Cline, and L. Douglas Wilder. Sidebars throughout the book offer further insight, while maps and appendixes of reference data make the volume a complete resource on Virginia’s history.

This book covers the gamut of coastal hazards that result from short-term low-frequency events and have high-magnitude and far-reaching impacts on coastal zones the world over. Much of the world’s population now lives in low-lying coastal zones that are inherently vulnerable to natural hazards such as flooding from hurricanes, tropical storms and northeastern storm surges; shoreline (beach and dune) erosion; cliff and bluff failures; and saltwater intrusion in coastal aquifers used for drinking water supplies. In addition to the usual range of hydrometeorological disasters in coastal zones, this book covers tsunami impacts and warning systems as well as global perspectives of sea-level rise impacts and human perceptions of potential vulnerabilities resulting from rip currents that cause many drownings each year on beaches. Today, the use of numerical models that help predict vulnerabilities and provide a basis for shore protection measures is important in modern scientific and engineering systems. Final considerations focus on human actions in the form of the urbanization and industrialization of the coast, shore protection measures, and indicate how environmental degradation around coastal conurbations exacerbates the potential for unwanted impacts. Strategies for environmental management in coastal zones, from low-lying wetlands to high cliffs and rocky promontories, are highlighted as a means of living in harmony with Nature and not trying to conquer it.

In November 1519, Hernando Cortés walked along a causeway leading to the capital of the Aztec kingdom and came face to face with Moctezuma. That story--and the story of what happened afterwards--has been told many times, but always following the narrative offered by the Spaniards. After all, we have been taught, it was the Europeans who held the pens. But the Native Americans were intrigued by the Roman alphabet and, unbeknownst to the newcomers, they used it to write detailed histories in their own language of Nahuatl. Until recently, these sources remained obscure, only partially translated, and rarely consulted by scholars. For the first time, in Fifth Sun, the history of the Aztecs is offered in all its complexity based solely on the texts written by the indigenous people themselves. Camilla Townsend presents an accessible and humanized depiction of these native Mexicans, rather than seeing them as the exotic, bloody figures of European stereotypes. The conquest, in this work, is neither an apocalyptic moment, nor an origin story launching Mexicans into existence. The Mexica people had a history of their own long before the Europeans arrived and did not simply capitulate to Spanish culture and colonization. Instead, they realigned their political allegiances, accommodated new obligations, adopted new technologies, and endured. This engaging revisionist history of the Aztecs, told through their own words, explores the experience of a once-powerful people facing the trauma of conquest and finding ways to survive, offering an empathetic interpretation for experts and non-specialists alike.

This newly released Chesapeake Bay cruising guide contains dozens of color aerial photographs of Bay anchorages, harbors, channels, ports of call and marinas. Accompanied by informative text helpful for Chesapeake Bay sailing and cruising, the photographs are invaluable for visually assisted navigation and planning your next cruise. The photographs feature text overlays which identify marinas, resorts, suggested navigation routes, attractions and other points of interest. The photographs are extremely useful when used with your Chesapeake Bay nautical charts. The cruising guide provides Chesapeake Bay sailing, boating and cruising coverage from its northern boundary at Chesapeake City and the C&D Canal to Norfolk at the south. The book is designed to be utilized by cruising boaters, coastal sailing cruisers and those on a Chesapeake Bay vacation. If you are planning a Chesapeake Bay charter boat voyage, this book will be especially helpful for your Bay sailing trip. Separate feature stories about the Chesapeake Bay and its history describe dozens of the most popular cruising destinations, ports of call and their unique and colorful communities. Among the Bay cruising destinations on the Western Shore are Chesapeake City, North East, Havre de Grace, Baltimore, Fell's Point, Annapolis, Herring Bay, Chesapeake Beach, Solomons, Deltaville, Urbanna, Irvington, Hampton, Portsmouth and Norfolk. Eastern Shore coverage includes the Sassafras River, Chestertown, Rock Hall, the Bay Bridge, Kent Island Narrows, St. Michaels, Tilgham Island, Oxford, Cambridge, Tangier and Smith Islands and Crisfield. This boating book is at home at the helm of your boat or on the coffee-table. It joins this series of digital and print cruising guides including the East Coast Of Florida Ports Of Call, the Florida Keys Ports of Call, the Southwest Florida Ports of Call and The Bahamas - Abaco Ports Of Call. Discover other features and boating news stories about Intracoastal Waterway cruising, Florida and Abaco the Bahamas cruising destinations, new cruising guide releases, fishing, diving, anchorages and sailing vacations at www.floridacruisingguides.com.