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New Materials: Towards a History of Consistency
Amy E. Slaton
Lever Press, 2020
Library of Congress TA403.N436 2020

This edited volume gathers eight cases of industrial materials development, broadly conceived, from North America, Europe and Asia over the last 200 years. Whether given utility as building parts, fabrics, pharmaceuticals, or foodstuffs, whether seen by their proponents as human-made or “found in nature,” materials result from the designation of some matter as both knowable and worth knowing about. In following these determinations we learn that the production of physical novelty under industrial, imperial and other cultural conditions has historically accomplished a huge range of social effects, from accruals of status and wealth to demarcations of bodies and geographies. Among other cases, New Materials traces the beneficent self-identity of Quaker asylum planners who devised soundless metal cell locks in the early 19th century, and the inculcation of national pride attending Taiwanese carbon-fiber bicycle parts in the 21st; the racialized labor organizations promoted by California orange breeders in the 1910s, and bureaucratized distributions of blame for deadly high-rise fires a century later. Across eras and global regions New Materials reflects circumstances not made clear when technological innovation is explained solely as a by-product of modernizing impulses or critiqued simply as a craving for profit. Whether establishing the efficacy of nano-scale pharmaceuticals or the tastiness of farmed catfish, proponents of new materials enact complex political ideologies. In highlighting their actors’ conceptions of efficiency, certainty, safety, pleasure, pain, faith and identity, the authors reveal that to produce a “new material” is invariably to preserve other things, to sustain existing values and social structures.

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Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe: Between Market and Laboratory
Edited by Ursula Klein and E. C. Spary
University of Chicago Press, 2010
Library of Congress TA403.6.M369 2010 | Dewey Decimal 670.940903

It is often assumed that natural philosophy was the forerunner of early modern natural sciences. But where did these sciences’ systematic observation and experimentation get their starts? In Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe, the laboratories, workshops, and marketplaces emerge as arenas where hands-on experience united with higher learning. In an age when chemistry, mineralogy, geology, and botany intersected with mining, metallurgy, pharmacy, and gardening, materials were objects that crossed disciplines.

Here, the contributors tell the stories of metals, clay, gunpowder, pigments, and foods, and thereby demonstrate the innovative practices of technical experts, the development of the consumer market, and the formation of the observational and experimental sciences in the early modern period. Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe showcases a broad variety of forms of knowledge, from ineffable bodily skills and technical competence to articulated know-how and connoisseurship, from methods of measuring, data gathering, and classification to analytical and theoretical knowledge. By exploring the hybrid expertise involved in the making, consumption, and promotion of various materials, and the fluid boundaries they traversed, the book offers an original perspective on important issues in the history of science, medicine, and technology.

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Cheap Quick & Easy: Imitative Architectural Materials
Pamela H. Simpson
University of Tennessee Press, 1999
Library of Congress TA403.6.S55 1999 | Dewey Decimal 691.09

In this innovative study, Pamela H. Simpson examines the architectural materials that proliferated between 1870 and 1930. Produced by new technology, promoted by new forms of advertising, and eagerly adopted by a new middle class, these “cheap, quick, and easy” materials helped to transform building practices in the United States and Great Britain.

As Simpson shows in fascinating detail, rockface concrete blocks, pressed metal imitations of stone, linoleum “marble” and “parquet,” and embossed wall coverings made available to the masses a host of ornamental effects that only the wealthy could previously have afforded. But, she notes, wherever these new materials appeared, a heated debate over the appropriateness of imitation followed. Were these materials merely tasteless shams? Or were they economical, durable alternatives that democratically extended the possibilities of ornamentation?

Simpson devotes chapters to each of the various ornamental materials, considering its precursors, invention, production, and distribution. In her final chapter, she traces the history of the aesthetic debate over imitation and analyzes the social meaning of the materials. Far from being “bad taste,” she concludes, these new ornamental forms reflected modernism, democracy, and progress—some of the most deeply held values of the period.

The Author: Pamela H. Simpson is Ernest Williams II Professor of Art History at Washington and Lee University. The author of numerous articles and exhibition catalogs, she is co-author (with Royster Lyle) of The Architecture of Historic Lexington. She was president, for the 1997–99 term, of the Vernacular Architecture Forum.

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Motion-Induced Eddy Current Techniques for Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation
Hartmut Brauer
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2019
Library of Congress TA417.2.B73 2018 | Dewey Decimal 620.1127

Non-destructive testing (NDT) analysis techniques are used in science, technology and medicine to evaluate the properties of a material, component or system, without causing damage or altering the article being inspected. It is a highly valuable technique that can save money and time in product evaluation, troubleshooting, and research. Well known and widely used in industrial applications since the 60s, the NDT market is developing and growing fast. This book focuses on electromagnetic NDT methods and more specifically on the motion induced eddy current testing and evaluation (MIECTE) techniques used for conductive materials via electromagnetic methods, focusing on the Lorentz force eddy current testing (LET) method which was introduced recently. The authors present the modelling and simulation of LET systems as well as the optimal design of the measurement setups. They also show the wide variety of applications of the LET method including defect identification and sigmometry to estimate electrical conductivity of the tested material.

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Nanovision: Engineering the Future
Colin Milburn
Duke University Press, 2008
Library of Congress TA418.9.N35M56 2008 | Dewey Decimal 620.5

The dawning era of nanotechnology promises to transform life as we know it. Visionary scientists are engineering materials and devices at the molecular scale that will forever alter the way we think about our technologies, our societies, our bodies, and even reality itself. Colin Milburn argues that the rise of nanotechnology involves a way of seeing that he calls “nanovision.” Trekking across the technoscapes and the dreamscapes of nanotechnology, he elaborates a theory of nanovision, demonstrating that nanotechnology has depended throughout its history on a symbiotic relationship with science fiction. Nanotechnology’s scientific theories, laboratory instruments, and research programs are inextricable from speculative visions, hyperbolic rhetoric, and fictional narratives.

Milburn illuminates the practices of nanotechnology by examining an enormous range of cultural artifacts, including scientific research articles, engineering textbooks, laboratory images, popular science writings, novels, comic books, and blockbuster films. In so doing, he reveals connections between the technologies of visualization that have helped inaugurate nano research, such as the scanning tunneling microscope, and the prescient writings of Robert A. Heinlein, James Blish, and Theodore Sturgeon. He delves into fictive and scientific representations of “gray goo,” the nightmare scenario in which autonomous nanobots rise up in rebellion and wreak havoc on the world. He shows that nanoscience and “splatterpunk” novels share a violent aesthetic of disintegration: the biological body is breached and torn asunder only to be refabricated as an assemblage of self-organizing machines. Whether in high-tech laboratories or science fiction stories, nanovision deconstructs the human subject and galvanizes the invention of a posthuman future.

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Asbestos and Fire: Technological Tradeoffs and the Body at Risk
Maines, Rachel
Rutgers University Press, 2013
Library of Congress TA455.A6M33 2005 | Dewey Decimal 363.738494

For much of the industrial era, asbestos was a widely acclaimed benchmark material. During its heyday, it was manufactured into nearly three thousand different products, most of which protected life and property from heat, flame, and electricity. It was used in virtually every industry from hotel keeping to military technology to chemical manufacturing, and was integral to building construction from shacks to skyscrapers in every community across the United States. Beginning in the mid-1960s, however, this once popular mineral began a rapid fall from grace as growing attention to the serious health risks associated with it began to overshadow the protections and benefits it provided.

In this thought-provoking and controversial book, Rachel Maines challenges the recent vilification of asbestos by providing a historical perspective on Americans’ changing perceptions about risk. She suggests that the very success of asbestos and other fire-prevention technologies in containing deadly blazes has led to a sort of historical amnesia about the very risks they were supposed to reduce.

Asbestos and Fire is not only the most thoroughly researched and balanced look at the history of asbestos, it is also an important contribution to a larger debate that considers how the risks of technological solutions should be evaluated. As technology offers us ever-increasing opportunities to protect and prevent, Maines urges that learning to accept and effectively address the unintended consequences of technological innovations is a growing part of our collective responsibility.

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Surveying in Early America: The Point of Beginning, An Illustrated History
Dan Patterson and Clinton Terry
University of Cincinnati Press, 2020
Library of Congress TA521.P35 2020 | Dewey Decimal 526.9097309033

Living history is one of the most popular, and accessible ways for people of all ages to step back in time. From Colonial Williamsburg, to Mount Vernon, to signs along roadways identifying George Washington stopping points, living history continues to be an accessible way to learn about cultural, historical and political practice in early America.

In Surveying Early America: The Point of Beginning, An Illustrated History, award-winning photographer Dan Patterson and American historian Clinton Terry vividly and succinctly unpack the profession of surveying during the eighteenth century. Over 100 full color photographs exclusively shot for the book depict authentic and historically accurate reproductions of techniques and tools through the use of American reenactors from the Department of Geographer, which provide an interpretive look at surveying as a primary means to building the American nation.

Through the lens of Patterson’s camera and Terry’s narrative, readers see what Washington saw as he learned his trade, explored the vast American wilderness, and occasionally laid personal claim to great expanses of land. Readers are visually and intellectually immersed in the historically accurate details of the surveying practices of George Washington, Virginia’s first surveyor and his team.

Step-by-step, readers learn how early America, in particular the east to the Ohio River Valley was initially divided and documented. Terry characterizes both the profession and methods of land measurement and surveying in British colonial North America—techniques that did not substantially change until the invention of GPS technology 200 years later. Along the way Terry details the various tools of the trade early surveyors used.

Photographer Dan Patterson, working with the Department of the Geographer, restages Washington’s actual expeditions during his time with the Geographers to the Army, the technical staff department consisting of American and French soldiers, whose work in the field supported the Continental Army. Patterson brilliantly displays the processes and instruments Washington used 260 years ago.

Together Ohio based photographer and author team up to create a single story, expanding the understanding of primary source material for general readers and those with a passion for early American history.

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Shooting Polaris: A Personal Survey in the American West
John Hales
University of Missouri Press, 2005
Library of Congress TA533.H35A3 2005 | Dewey Decimal 526.9092

Shooting Polaris is John Hales’s fascinating and far-reaching account of working as a government surveyor in the southern Utah desert. In it, he describes his search for a place in the natural world, beginning with an afternoon spent tracking down a lost crew member who cracked up on the job and concluding with his supervising a group of at-risk teenagers on a backpacking trip in the Escalante wilderness. In between, he depicts a range of experiences in and outside nature, including hostile barroom encounters between surveyors and tourists, weekends spent climbing Navajo Mountain and floating what remains of Glen Canyon, and late-night arguments concerning the meaning and purpose of nature with the eccentric polygamist who ran the town in which the surveyors parked their bunk trailers.

Although this work is autobiographical, Shooting Polaris is so much more. It is a reflection on man’s relationship to nature and work, American history and the movement into the West, the desire to impose order and the contrary impulse for unmediated experience, the idealistic legacy of the sixties, the influence of the Mormon Church, and the often-antagonistic relationship of American capitalism to sound ecological management. Along the way, Hales introduces engaging characters and reveals the art, science, and history of surveying, an endeavor that turns out to be surprisingly profound.

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Aerial Aftermaths: Wartime from Above
Caren Kaplan
Duke University Press, 2018
Library of Congress TA593.2.K375 2017

From the first vistas provided by flight in balloons in the eighteenth century to the most recent sensing operations performed by military drones, the history of aerial imagery has marked the transformation of how people perceived their world, better understood their past, and imagined their future. In Aerial Aftermaths Caren Kaplan traces this cultural history, showing how aerial views operate as a form of world-making tied to the times and places of war. Kaplan’s investigation of the aerial arts of war—painting, photography, and digital imaging—range from England's surveys of Scotland following the defeat of the 1746 Jacobite rebellion and early twentieth-century photographic mapping of Iraq to images taken in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Throughout, Kaplan foregrounds aerial imagery's importance to modern visual culture and its ability to enforce colonial power, demonstrating both the destructive force and the potential for political connection that come with viewing from above.

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Proving Grounds: Project Plowshare and the Unrealized Dream of Nuclear Earthmoving
Kirsch, Scott L
Rutgers University Press, 2005
Library of Congress TA748.K57 2005 | Dewey Decimal 624.152

Although unthinkable by today’s standards, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission spent hundreds of millions of dollars between 1957 and 1974 studying the feasibility of using nuclear explosions for so-called “peaceful” purposes under a program called Project Plowshare. Nuclear earthmoving, promoted by the famed physicist, defense strategist, and anticommunist Edward Teller, was the most notorious of Plowshare’s experimental programs. Teller and his colleagues proposed using nuclear explosions to build canals, dig harbors, and create dams and quarries. Such “constructive” uses of atomic weaponry, they believed, would help defuse Americans’ fears about radioactive fallout and nuclear testing and would encourage continued support for nuclear research programs.

In Proving Grounds, Scott Kirsch traces the rise and fall of this astonishing cold war initiative. He examines the work that went into making “geographical engineering” or “earthmoving” an imminent possibility as well as the public controversy, scientific uncertainty, and political opposition that kept it—with the exception of several massive craters in the Nevada desert—out of the landscape.

On one level, Kirsch demonstrates how the history of Project Plowshare was shaped by the specific issues and sentiments that influenced American nuclear and environmental policy during the 1950s and 1960s. But Kirsch also argues that the lessons learned from this case continue to hold relevance today. By exploring key issues of science and risk, Proving Grounds warns that knowledge production and environmental politics are still very much intimately, and dangerously, related.

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Watching the Traffic Go By: Transportation and Isolation in Urban America
By Paul Mason Fotsch
University of Texas Press, 2007
Library of Congress TA1023.F68 2007 | Dewey Decimal 388.40973

As twentieth-century city planners invested in new transportation systems to deal with urban growth, they ensured that the automobile rather than mass transit would dominate transportation. Combining an exploration of planning documents, sociological studies, and popular culture, Paul Fotsch shows how our urban infrastructure developed and how it has shaped American culture ever since. Watching the Traffic Go By emphasizes the narratives underlying our perceptions of innovations in transportation by looking at the stories we have built around these innovations. Fotsch finds such stories in the General Motors “Futurama” exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair, debates in Munsey’s magazine, films such as Double Indemnity, and even in footage of the O. J. Simpson chase along Los Angeles freeways. Juxtaposed with contemporaneous critiques by Lewis Mumford, Theodor Adorno, and Max Horkheimer, Fotsch argues that these narratives celebrated new technologies that fostered stability for business and the white middle class. At the same time, transportation became another system of excluding women and the poor, especially African Americans, by isolating them in homes and urban ghettos. A timely, interdisciplinary analysis, Watching the Traffic Go By exposes the ugly side of transportation politics through the seldom-used lens of popular culture.

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Politics Across the Hudson: The Tappan Zee Megaproject
Philip Mark Plotch
Rutgers University Press, 2015
Library of Congress TA1025.N49P56 2015 | Dewey Decimal 388.13209747277

Winner of the 2015 American Planning Association New York Metro Chapter Journalism Award

The State of New York built one of the world’s longest, widest, and most expensive bridges—the new Tappan Zee Bridge—stretching more than three miles across the Hudson River, approximately thirteen miles north of New York City. In Politics Across the Hudson, urban planner Philip Plotch offers a behind-the-scenes look at three decades of contentious planning and politics centered around this bridge, recently renamed for Governor Mario M. Cuomo, the state's governor from 1983 to 1994. He reveals valuable lessons for those trying to tackle complex public policies while also confirming our worst fears about government dysfunction.

Drawing on his extensive experience planning megaprojects, interviews with more than a hundred key figures—including governors, agency heads, engineers, civic advocates, and business leaders—and extraordinary access to internal government records, Plotch tells a compelling story of high-stakes battles between powerful players in the public, private, and civic sectors. He reveals how state officials abandoned viable options, squandered hundreds of millions of dollars, forfeited more than three billion dollars in federal funds, and missed out on important opportunities. Faced with the public’s unrealistic expectations, no one could identify a practical solution to a vexing problem, a dilemma that led three governors to study various alternatives rather than disappoint key constituencies.

This revised and updated edition includes a new epilogue and more photographs, and continues where Robert Caro’s The Power Broker left off and illuminates the power struggles involved in building New York’s first major new bridge since the Robert Moses era. Plotch describes how one governor, Andrew Cuomo, shrewdly overcame the seemingly insurmountable obstacles of onerous environmental regulations, vehement community opposition, insufficient funding, interagency battles, and overly optimistic expectations...

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Politics Across the Hudson: The Tappan Zee Megaproject
Philip Mark Plotch
Rutgers University Press, 2015
Library of Congress TA1025.N49P56 2015 | Dewey Decimal 388.13209747277

The State of New York is now building one of the world’s longest, widest, and most expensive bridges—the new Tappan Zee Bridge—stretching more than three miles across the Hudson River, approximately thirteen miles north of New York City. In Politics Across the Hudson, urban planner Philip Plotch offers a behind-the-scenes look at three decades of contentious planning and politics centered around this bridge, recently renamed for Governor Mario M. Cuomo, the state's governor from 1983 to 1994. He reveals valuable lessons for those trying to tackle complex public policies while also confirming our worst fears about government dysfunction.

Drawing on his extensive experience planning megaprojects, interviews with more than a hundred key figures—including governors, agency heads, engineers, civic advocates, and business leaders—and extraordinary access to internal government records, Plotch tells a compelling story of high-stakes battles between powerful players in the public, private, and civic sectors. He reveals how state officials abandoned viable options, squandered hundreds of millions of dollars, forfeited more than three billion dollars in federal funds, and missed out on important opportunities. Faced with the public’s unrealistic expectations, no one could identify a practical solution to a vexing problem, a dilemma that led three governors to study various alternatives rather than disappoint key constituencies.

Politics Across the Hudson continues where Robert Caro’s The Power Broker left off and illuminates the power struggles involved in building New York’s first major new bridge since the Robert Moses era. Plotch describes how one governor, Andrew Cuomo, shrewdly overcame the seemingly insurmountable obstacles of onerous environmental regulations, vehement community opposition, insufficient funding, interagency battles, and overly optimistic expectations.

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Roads Were Not Built for Cars: How cyclists were the first to push for good roads & became the pioneers of motoring
Carlton Reid
Island Press, 2015
Library of Congress TA1145.R445 2015 | Dewey Decimal 629.04

In Roads Were Not Built for Cars, Carlton Reid reveals the pivotal—and largely unrecognized—role that bicyclists played in the development of modern roadways. Reid introduces readers to cycling personalities, such as Henry Ford, and the cycling advocacy groups that influenced early road improvements, literally paving the way for the motor car. When the bicycle morphed from the vehicle of rich transport progressives in the 1890s to the “poor man’s transport” in the 1920s, some cyclists became ardent motorists and were all too happy to forget their cycling roots. But, Reid explains, many motor pioneers continued cycling, celebrating the shared links between transport modes that are now seen as worlds apart. In this engaging and meticulously researched book, Carlton Reid encourages us all to celebrate those links once again.

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Port Newark and the Origins of Container Shipping
Angus Kress Gillespie
Rutgers University Press, 2023
Library of Congress TA1215.G55 2023 | Dewey Decimal 627.3097493

Container shipping is a vital part of the global economy. Goods from all around the world, from vegetables to automobiles, are placed in large metal containers which are transported across the ocean in ships, then loaded onto tractor-trailers and railroad flatbeds. But when and where did this world-changing invention get started?

This fascinating study traces the birth of containerization to Port Newark, New Jersey, in 1956 when trucker Malcom McLean thought of a brilliant new way to transport cargo. It tells the story of how Port Newark grew rapidly as McLean’s idea was backed by both New York banks and the US military, who used containerization to ship supplies to troops in Vietnam. Angus Gillespie takes us behind the scenes of today’s active container shipping operations in Port Newark, talking to the pilots who guide the ships into port, the Coast Guard personnel who help manage the massive shipping traffic, the crews who unload the containers, and even the chaplains who counsel and support the mariners. Port Newark shines a spotlight on the unsung men and women who help this complex global shipping operation run smoothly.

Since McLean's innovation, Port Newark has expanded with the addition of the nearby Elizabeth Marine Terminal. This New Jersey complex now makes up the busiest seaport on the East Coast of the United States. Some have even called it “America’s Front Door.” The book tells the story of the rapid growth of worldwide containerization, and how Port Newark has adapted to bigger ships with deeper channels and a raised bridge. In the end, there is speculation of the future of this port with ever-increasing automation, artificial intelligence, and automation.

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Presumption: An Entertainment: A Sequel to Pride and Prejudice
Julia Barrett
University of Chicago Press, 1995
Library of Congress TA1501.J68 | Dewey Decimal 621.3660947

This witty sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice follows the fate of Georgiana Darcy, Mr. Darcy's younger sister, who must choose between two suitors, a well-placed navy captain and a brash young architect. Masterfully adapted to Austen's original nineteenth-century style, Presumption brings back to life the book's most memorable characters, the Bennets, Darcys, Collins, and de Bourghs.

"An elegant emulation and continuation of Pride and Prejudice. . . . Jointly composed by two admirers of Jane Austen, the book often achieves crisp replication of her style. . . . Presumption shows how sequel-writing can, like parody, be a sharp exercise in literary appreciation."—Peter Kemp, Times Literary Supplement

Julia Barrett is a pseudonym for Julia Braun Kessler and Gabrielle Donnelly.

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The Birth of Computer Vision
James E. Dobson
University of Minnesota Press, 2023
Library of Congress TA1634.D63 2023 | Dewey Decimal 006.3709

A revealing genealogy of image-recognition techniques and technologies

Today’s most advanced neural networks and sophisticated image-analysis methods come from 1950s and ’60s Cold War culture—and many biases and ways of understanding the world from that era persist along with them. Aerial surveillance and reconnaissance shaped all of the technologies that we now refer to as computer vision, including facial recognition. The Birth of Computer Vision uncovers these histories and finds connections between the algorithms, people, and politics at the core of automating perception today.

James E. Dobson reveals how new forms of computerized surveillance systems, high-tech policing, and automated decision-making systems have become entangled, functioning together as a new technological apparatus of social control. Tracing the development of a series of important computer-vision algorithms, he uncovers the ideas, worrisome military origins, and lingering goals reproduced within the code and the products based on it, examining how they became linked to one another and repurposed for domestic and commercial uses. Dobson includes analysis of the Shakey Project, which produced the first semi-autonomous robot, and the impact of student protest in the early 1970s at Stanford University, as well as recovering the computer vision–related aspects of Frank Rosenblatt’s Perceptron as the crucial link between machine learning and computer vision.

Motivated by the ongoing use of these major algorithms and methods, The Birth of Computer Vision chronicles the foundations of computer vision and artificial intelligence, its major transformations, and the questionable legacy of its origins.

Cover alt text: Two overlapping circles in cream and violet, with black background. Top is a printed circuit with camera eye; below a person at a 1977 computer.

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Intelligent Distributed Video Surveillance Systems
Sergio A. Velastin
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2006
Library of Congress TA1634.I56 2006 | Dewey Decimal 006.37

There is a growing interest in the development and deployment of surveillance systems in public and private locations. Conventional approaches rely on the installation of wide area CCTV (Closed Circuit Television), but the explosion in the numbers of cameras that have to be monitored, the increasing costs of providing monitoring personnel and the limitations that humans have to maintain sustained levels of concentration severely limit the effectiveness of these systems. Advances in information and communication technologies, such as computer vision for face recognition and human behaviour analysis, digital annotation and storage of video, transmission of video/audio streams over wired and wireless networks, can potentially provide significant improvements in this field.

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Distributed Feedback Semiconductor Lasers
John Carroll
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 1998
Library of Congress TA1700.C367 1998 | Dewey Decimal 621.366

Distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor lasers emit light in a single mode which is essential to providing the carrier in long haul high bit-rate optical communication systems. This comprehensive research monograph provides:

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Selected Topics in Advanced Solid State and Fibre Optic Sensors
S.M. Vaezi-Nejad
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2000
Library of Congress TA1815.S45 2000 | Dewey Decimal 681.2

New techniques and technologies for sensors are developing fast and being applied in a wide range of fields for measurement and instrumentation, both for research and commercial purposes. This book aims to provide advanced students and practising engineers with a selective tour of highlights in the topical field of sensors for measurement. The authors provide descriptions of the operation, characteristics and applications of the sensors on which they work, together with recent advances and prospects for the future. The chapters cover both fibre optic and solid state sensing, applied across a wide range of applications.

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The Corps and the Shore
Orrin H. Pilkey and Katharine L. Dixon
Island Press, 1996
Library of Congress TC223.P55 1996 | Dewey Decimal 353.0086

For more than a century, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been building fortifications along the American coastline in an effort to protect our vulnerable shores. With the prospect of seaborne invasion becoming increasingly unlikely, the Corps has turned its attention to a more subtle but no less dangerous threat: the insidious effects of coastal erosion.In The Corps and the Shore, Orrin H. Pilkey, the nation's most outspoken coastal geologist, and Katharine L. Dixon, an educator and activist for national coastal policy reform, provide a comprehensive examination of the impact of coastal processes on developed areas and the ways in which the Corps of Engineers has attempted to manage erosion along America's coastline.Through detailed case studies of large-scale projects in Texas, Maine, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and South Carolina, the authors demonstrate the shortcomings of the Corps's underlying assumptions and methodology. As they discuss the role of local citizens in the project process, they highlight the interaction between local Corps offices and community officials and residents. By focusing on different types of problems in various regions of the country, Pilkey and Dixon clearly show how the Corps has repeatedly failed to act in the best interest of those most affected by the projects. As well as criticizing Corps practices, the authors provide numerous suggestions for reforming the Corps and making it both more scientifically accountable and more accountable to the citizens it is intended to serve.The Corps and the Shore is essential reading for coastal residents, environmentalists, planners, and coastal city officials as well as geologists, civil engineers, marine scientists, and anyone concerned with the impact of human society on our shorelines.

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The Pacific Northwest Coast: Living with the Shores of Oregon and Washington
Paul D. Komar
Duke University Press, 1998
Library of Congress TC223.8.K66 1997 | Dewey Decimal 627.5809797

While the coast of the Pacific Northwest becomes populated with houses, condominiums, motels, and restaurants, its beaches and cliffs continue to be altered by ocean currents and winter storms. A companion volume to Living with the Shore of Puget Sound and the Georgia Strait, The Pacific Northwest Coast serves as a source of information about the coast of the Pacific Northwest, its geological setting, the natural responses of beaches and cliffs to ocean processes, and the ever-present problem of erosion.
In this guide, Paul D. Komar, one of the nation’s leading coastal oceanographers, examines the lessons taught by ages of geological and cultural history. With explanations of the area’s geological evolution, including natural shoreline erosion and sea-cliff landsliding, Komar details human interaction with the coast: erosion caused by early settlers, the development and destruction of Bayocean Spit, the disastrous effects caused by the 1982–1983 El Niño, and the notorious failure of a construction project on the picturesqueæbut unstableæbluffs at Jump-Off Joe. Emphasizing the actual and potential harm to human projects and to the natural heritage of the coast, Komar provides the knowledge necessary for finding a safe home near the shore while preserving the beauty that draws us to it.

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A Moveable Shore: The Fate of the Connecticut Coast
Peter C. Patton and James M. Kent
Duke University Press, 1992
Library of Congress TC224.C8P38 1992 | Dewey Decimal 333.91709746

The Connecticut shoreline is made up of varying landscapes--the sandy coastline at Madison, the rocky shore at Branford, the replenished beach at Greenwich, and the erosion at Old Saybrook. A Moveable Shore offers a general user’s guide to the Connecticut shore. In a town-by-town journey down the 254-mile coastline, Peter C. Patton and James M. Kent explore in detail the history of specific sites, the climatic and geological forces that shape the shore, and regulations regarding land-use development. In addition, they provide a guide to coastal field trips.
Beginning with the hurricane of 1938, the biggest natural disaster to strike Connecticut since its settlement by Europeans, the authors demonstrate the continuing pattern of development of coastal land prone to flooding and high winds. Although the Connecticut coast faces Long Island and Block Island sounds, it is subject to the same natural hazards, land-use risks, and regulations as opean ocean shorelines. Global climatic events--glaciation, global warming, and rising sea levels--influence the shape and composition of the Connecticut shoreline, as do small-scale forces such as wind, waves, and tides.
Patton and Kent seek to instill a respect for the force of natural events and provide a guide for lessening the dangers of construction and development. A practical question-and-answer chapter explains what homeowners need to know to meet land-use regulations along the coast. In a state where the entire population lives within 100 miles of the coast, this important book will serve as a citizens’ guide to living with the Connecticut shore and will be of interest to coastal residents, developers, geologists, policymakers, and vacationers.

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Living with Florida's Atlantic Beaches: Coastal Hazards from Amelia Island to Key West
David M. Bush, William J. Neal, Norma J. Longo, Kenyon C. Lindeman, Deborah F. Pilkey, Luciana Slomp Esteves, John D. Congleton, and Orrin H. Pilkey
Duke University Press, 2004
Library of Congress TC224.F6B87 2004 | Dewey Decimal 333.91709759

From Amelia Island just south of Georgia to Key West's southern tip, beaches are one of Florida's greatest assets. Yet these beaches are in danger: rapid structural development on a highly erodible coast make them vulnerable to some of nature's greatest storms. The same development that has been driven by the attraction of beautiful beaches and coastal amenities now threatens those very resources. In turn, coastal structures are at risk from sea-level rise, shoreline retreat, winter storms, and hurricanes. Most of the methods for reducing losses associated with storms protect property only in the short term—at a growing cost in dollars and loss of natural habitat in the long term.

Living with Florida's Atlantic Beaches is a guide to mitigating or reducing losses of property, human life, and natural resources by living with, rather than just at, the shore. This illustrated volume provides an introduction to coastal processes and geology as well as a brief history of coastal hazards and short-sighted human responses. This is the first volume in the Living with the Shore series to discuss the significant long-term impact of dredge-and-fill beach construction on living marine resources. Guidance is provided for long-term risk reduction in the form of tips on storm-resistant construction and site evaluation; maps for evaluating relative vulnerability to hazards are also included. A brief review of coastal regulations will help property owners understand and navigate the various permit requirements for developing coastal property. Living with Florida's Atlantic Beaches is an invaluable source of information for everyone from the curious beach visitor to the community planner, from the prudent property investor to the decision-making public official.

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Living on the Edge of the Gulf: The West Florida and Alabama Coast
David M. Bush, Norma J. Longo, William J. Neal, Luciana S. Esteves, Orrin H. Pilkey, Deborah F. Pilkey, Craig A. Webb
Duke University Press, 2001
Library of Congress TC224.F6L575 2001 | Dewey Decimal 333.91709759

The Gulf coast of Florida and Alabama is a fragile combination of barrier islands, low-lying marshes, and highly erodable mainland shores. In addition to sea-level rise, winter storms, and altered sediment supplies, hurricanes frequently damage or destroy the human developments and infrastructures that line this coast. Indeed, a single storm can cause billions of dollars in losses. Memories of such hurricanes as Camille, Frederic, Opal, and Andrew cause great concern for residents and property owners alike; events of equal magnitude are always just beyond the horizon and the uninformed have much to lose.

The authors of Living on the Edge of the Gulf seek to counteract potential loss by providing an illustrated introduction to coastal processes, a history of hazards for the region, and risk-reduction guidance in the form of site evaluations, community mitigation techniques, and storm-resistant construction practices. Risk maps that focus on individual coastal beaches are designed to assist property owners, community planners, and officials in prudent decision making, while a review of coastal regulations helps owners to understand and navigate various permit requirements.

This latest book in the Living with the Shore series replaces the earlier guide Living with the West Florida Shore and supplements the Alabama portion of Living with the Alabama/Mississippi Shore.

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Living with the East Florida Shore
Orrin H. Pilkey, Dinesh Sharma, Harold Wanless, Larry Doyle, Orrin H. Pilkey Sr., William J. Neal, and Barbara Gruver
Duke University Press, 1984
Library of Congress TC224.F6L58 1984 | Dewey Decimal 333.9171609759

More than one transplanted Floridian has paid $150,000 for a beautiful condominium with a sea view only to learn that, to keep the building from becoming part of the view, considerable additional money must be spent to build and repair seawalls or to pump up new beaches by dredging sand from offshore.

Most of Florida's beachfront property lies on narrow strips of sand called barrier islands, which are low in elevation and subject to flooding during storms and hurricanes. Some of the construction is poor, adding to the problems facing homeowners, most whom came from other parts of the country with little awareness of the hazards of beaches. In Living with the East Florida Shore, Orrin H. Pilkey, Jr., of Duke University, along with his co-authors, has described the varied problems that confront the east shore of Florida today.

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Living with the Louisiana Shore
Joseph T. Kelley, Alice R. Kelley, Orrin Pilkey Sr., and Albert Clark
Duke University Press, 1984
Library of Congress TC224.L8L58 1984 | Dewey Decimal 333.9171609763

Nowhere in America is there a more beautiful, more varied, or more endangered shoreline than in Louisiana. Because of its setting at the mouth of the Mississippi River, Louisiana differs from other coastal states. In addition to long stretches of sandy beach there are 12,000 square miles of marsh along the coast. Although the state's shoreline has not yet experienced the urban sprawl of a New Jersey or Florida, two-thirds of all Louisianans now live within a two-hour drive of salt marsh. The oil industry is expanding and competing for space and resources.

But the most striking feature of Louisiana's coastline is rapidly accelerating change, which means (1) some coastal parishes may literally disappear by the year 2000; (2) the loss of marshland will damage the prolific seafood industry; (3) a retreating coastline could cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues from offshore oil facilities; (4) present and potential shoreline residents will face many new problems and possibilities.

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Living with the Coast of Maine
Joseph T. Kelley and Alice R. Kelley
Duke University Press, 1989
Library of Congress TC224.M2K45 1989 | Dewey Decimal 333.91709741

Maine is known for its rockbound coast and pristine shoreline. Yet there is more to this shore than rocky cliffs. This book describes the origin of the more common "soft coast" of eroding bluffs, sand beaches, and salt marshes. A central theme is the formation of the present shoreline during the current ongoing rise in sea level and the ways in which coastal residents can best cope with the changes to come. Although it is not widely known, Maine is experiencing a rapid, uneven drowning of its shore at the same time that coastal development is at an all-time high. The authors explain how the shoreline is changing and provide a series of highly detailed maps that show the relative safety of particular locations on the coast.

Specific guidelines for recognizing various safe and unsafe coastal settings are presented, as are recommendations for sound construction techniques in hazardous coastal areas. Photographs and drawings illustrate the danger of living too near the shoreline, and an up-to-date review of Maine's regulations governing coastal construction is simply and readably described. A bibliography of important coastal literature is also included, as well as a guide to federal, state, and local sources of information.

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Living with the Chesapeake Bay and Virginia's Ocean Shores
Larry G. Ward, Peter S. Rosen, William J. Neal. Orrin H. Pilkey Jr., Orrin H. Pilkey Sr., Gary L. Anderson, and Stephen J. Howie
Duke University Press, 1989
Library of Congress TC224.M3L58 1989 | Dewey Decimal 333.91716097521

This volume in the Living with the Shore series provides practical and specific information on the status of the nation's coast and useful guidelines that enable residents, visitors, and investors to live with and enjoy the shore without costly and futile struggles against the forces of nature.

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Coastal Hazard Management: Lessons and Future Directions from New Jersey
Psuty, Norbert P.
Rutgers University Press, 2002
Library of Congress TC224.N5P78 2002 | Dewey Decimal 333.9170609749

As with most shorelines around the world, New Jersey beaches are slowly, but inexorably, being eroded, threatening coastal structures and development. In some years more sand is deposited than removed, but all of the state’s monitoring devices show that sea level is gradually rising and pushing the New Jersey shoreline inland. The shore is a valuable resource, and its natural, cultural, and economic attractions draw a multitude of permanent and temporary residents each year, extending housing and commercial development onto areas that were once swampland. Not surprisingly, development at the water’s edge has been accompanied by an increasing exposure to the natural hazards of the coastal zone--erosion, flooding, and wind damage.

In this book, Norbert Psuty and Douglas Ofiara incorporate perspectives from the areas of coastal sciences, economics, public policy, and land-use planning in creating a systematic plan for coastal management and protection. It has been more than a decade since New Jersey developed the nation’s first state shore protection plan, and this volume provides a timely evaluation of its achievements and future challenges. This self-contained book provides all of the relevant theories, models, and examples so the reader will not need to refer to any other literature to gain an understanding of the issues and policies surrounding shore protection. It is the authoritative handbook for practitioners and policy makers in many fields, including coastal science and management and engineering, as well as public policy and economics.

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The North Carolina Shore and Its Barrier Islands: Restless Ribbons of Sand
Orrin H. Pilkey, William J. Neal, Stanley R. Riggs, Craig A. Webb, David M. Bush, Deborah F. Pilkey, Jane Bullock, and Brian A. Cowan
Duke University Press, 1998
Library of Congress TC224.N8N67 1998 | Dewey Decimal 333.9175097561

The North Carolina Shore and Its Barrier Islands is the latest volume in the series, Living with the Shore. Replacing an earlier volume, this thoroughly new book provides a diverse guide to one of America’s most popular shorelines. As is true for all books in the series, it is based on the premise that understanding the changing nature of beaches and barrier islands is essential if we are to preserve them for future generations.
Evidence that the North Carolina shore is changing is never hard to find, but recently the devastation wrought by Hurricane Fran and the perilous situation of the historic lighthouse at Cape Hatteras have reminded all concerned of the fragility of this coast. Arguing for a policy of intelligent development, one in which residential and commercial structures meet rather than confront the changing nature of the shore, the authors have included practical information on hazards of many kinds—storms, tides, floods, erosion, island migration, and earthquakes. Diagrams and photographs clearly illustrate coastal processes and aid in understanding the impact of hurricanes and northeasters, wave and current dynamics, as well as pollution and other environmental destruction due to overdevelopment. A chapter on estuaries provides related information on the shores of back barrier areas that are growing in popularity for recreational residences. Risk maps focus on the natural hazards of each island and together with construction guidelines provide a basis for informed island management. Lastly, the dynamics of coastal politics and management are reviewed through an analysis of the controversies over the decision to move the Cape Hatteras lighthouse and a proposed effort to stabilize Oregon Inlet.
From the natural and historic perspective of the opening chapters to the regional discussions of individual barrier islands, this book is both a primer on coastal processes for the first time visitor as well as a guide to hazard identification for property owners.

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Living with the Shore of Puget Sound and the Georgia Strait
Thomas A. Terich
Duke University Press, 1987
Library of Congress TC224.W2T47 1987 | Dewey Decimal 333.917097977

This volume in the Living with the Shore series provides practical and specific information on the status of the nation's coast and useful guidelines that enable residents, visitors, and investors to live with and enjoy the shore without costly and futile struggles against the forces of nature.

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Living with Long Island's South Shore
Larry McCormick, William Neal, Orrin Pilkey Jr., and Orrin Pilkey, Sr.
Duke University Press, 1984
Library of Congress TC225.L59L59 1984 | Dewey Decimal 333.917160974721

The south shore of Long Island, one of New York's greatest recreational assets, is receding at the rate of up to six feet per year. In many cases, efforts to halt this erosion actually have increased it. Buildings cone thought safely constructed back from high tidemarks today protrude far into the water.

Even more, the number of homes an facilities built too close to the sea's edge has dramatically increased, making the south shore probably less ready to withstand a major storm than at the time of the cataclysmic hurricane of 1938.

Thus, the question of what to do now to overcome and avoid these hazards takes on real urgency. Pointing to past mistakes, many Long Islanders insist that only by acting in an informed reasonable way can safe and environmentally sound development be possible for everyone.

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Living with the Puerto Rico Shore
David M. Bush, Richard M. T. Webb, José González Liboy, Lisbeth Hyman, and William J. Neal
Duke University Press, 1995
Library of Congress TC233.P9L57 1995 | Dewey Decimal 333.91716097295

In this, the eighteenth title in Duke University Press's Living With the Shore series, the authors present a "user's guide" to the coastal zone of Puerto Rico. Presenting a geological appraisal of the history, dynamics, and hazards of the island's coastline, Living With the Puerto Rico Shore is the first in the series to examine a tropical region and the first to examine an area outside the continental United States.
The book provides detailed descriptions of the entire shoreline, noting the specific coastal hazards of each coastal reach. These hazards include coastal erosion, storm surge flooding, and potential damage from earthquakes. Where high-density development or significant roads and utilities are particularly at risk, these are also noted. The effects that sand mining, seawalls, jetties, and other attempts at coastal engineering have had on the island are examined. Finally, the authors discuss historical and legal aspects of coastal planning in Puerto Rico, presenting guidelines for selecting building sites.
Of interest to all concerned with protecting our shores and beaches and useful to the coastal planner and manager, Living With the Puerto Rico Shore contains an extensive bibliography and a list of agencies involved in coastal issues.

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A New Coast: Strategies for Responding to Devastating Storms and Rising Seas
Jeffrey Peterson
Island Press, 2019
Library of Congress TC330.P47 2019 | Dewey Decimal 627.4

“This is a timely book… [It] should be mandatory reading..." — Minnesota Star Tribune

More severe storms and rising seas will inexorably push the American coastline inland with profound impact on communities, infrastructure, and natural systems. In A New Coast, Jeffrey Peterson draws a comprehensive picture of how storms and rising seas will change the coast. Peterson offers a clear-eyed assessment of how governments can work with the private sector and citizens to be better prepared for the coming coastal inundation.

Drawing on four decades of experience at the Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Senate, Peterson presents the science behind predictions for coastal impacts. He explains how current policies fall short of what is needed to effectively prepare for these changes and how the Trump Administration has significantly weakened these efforts. While describing how and why the current policies exist, he builds a strong case for a bold, new approach, tackling difficult topics including: how to revise flood insurance and disaster assistance programs; when to step back from the coast rather than build protection structures; how to steer new development away from at-risk areas; and how to finance the transition to a new coast. Key challenges, including how to protect critical infrastructure, ecosystems, and disadvantaged populations, are examined. Ultimately, Peterson offers hope in the form of a framework of new national policies and programs to support local and state governments. He calls for engagement from the private sector and local and national leaders in a “campaign for a new coast.”

A New Coast is a compelling assessment of the dramatic changes that are coming to America’s coast. Peterson offers insights and strategies for policymakers, planners, and business leaders preparing for the intensifying impacts of climate change along the coast.

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Water Resources
Shimon Anisfeld
Island Press, 2011
Library of Congress TC409.A73 2010 | Dewey Decimal 333.91

In this concise introduction to water resources, Shimon Anisfeld explores the fundamental interactions between humans and water, including drinking, sanitation, irrigation, and power production. The book familiarizes students with the current water crisis and with approaches for managing this essential resource more effectively in a time of rapid environmental and social change. Anisfeld addresses both human and ecological problems, including scarcity, pollution, disease, flooding, conflicts over water, and degradation of aquatic ecosystems. In addition to providing the background necessary to understand each of these problems, the book discusses ways to move towards better management and addresses the key current debates in the water policy field.

In the past, water development has often proceeded in a single-sector fashion, with each group of users implementing its own plans without coordination with other groups, resulting in both conflict and inefficiency. Now, Anisfeld writes, the challenge of water management is figuring out how to balance all the different demands for water, from sanitation to energy generation to ecosystem protection.

For inquiring students of any level, Water Resources provides a comprehensive one-volume guide to a complex but vital field of study.

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Floodplain Management: A New Approach for a New Era
Bob Freitag, Susan Bolton, Frank Westerlund, J.L.S. Clark
Island Press, 2009
Library of Congress TC423.F635 2009 | Dewey Decimal 627.4

A flooding river is very hard to stop. Many residents of the United States have discovered this the hard way. Right now, over five million Americans hold flood insurance policies from the National Flood Insurance Program, which estimates that flooding causes at least six billion dollars in damages every year. Like rivers after a rainstorm, the financial costs are rising along with the toll on residents. And the worst is probably yet to come. Most scientists believe that global climate change will result in increases in flooding.

The authors of this book present a straightforward argument: the time to stop a flooding rivers is before is before it floods. Floodplain Management outlines a new paradigm for flood management, one that emphasizes cost-effective, long-term success by integrating physical, chemical, and biological systems with our societal capabilities. It describes our present flood management practices, which are often based on dam or levee projects that do not incorporate the latest understandings about river processes. And it suggests that a better solution is to work with the natural tendencies of the river: retreat from the floodplain by preventing future development (and sometimes even removing existing structures); accommodate the effects of floodwaters with building practices; and protect assets with nonstructural measures if possible, and with large structural projects only if absolutely necessary.

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Embracing Watershed Politics
Edella Schlager
University Press of Colorado, 2008
Library of Congress TC423.S33 2008 | Dewey Decimal 333.73

As Americans try to better manage and protect the natural resources of our watersheds, is politics getting in the way? Why does watershed management end up being so political? In Embracing Watershed Politics, political scientists Edella Schlager and William Blomquist provide timely illustrations and thought-provoking explanations of why political considerations are essential, unavoidable, and in some ways even desirable elements of decision making about water and watersheds. With decades of combined study of water management in the United States, they focus on the many contending interests and communities found in America's watersheds, the fundamental dimensions of decision making, and the impacts of science, complexity, and uncertainty on watershed management.

Enriched by case studies of the organizations and decision making processes in several major U.S. watersheds (the Delaware River Basin, San Gabriel River, Platte River, and the Columbia River Basin), Embracing Watershed Politics presents a reasoned explanation of why there are so few watershed-scale integrated management agencies and how the more diverse multi-organizational arrangements found in the vast majorities of watersheds work. Although the presence of multiple organizations representing a multitude of communities of interest complicates watershed management, these institutional arrangements can-under certain conditions-suit the complexity and uncertainty associated with watershed management in the twenty-first century.

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Structures in the Stream: Water, Science, and the Rise of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
By Todd Shallat
University of Texas Press, 1994
Library of Congress TC423.S49 1994 | Dewey Decimal 333.91150973

As the Mississippi and other midwestern rivers inundated town after town during the summer of 1993, concerned and angry citizens questioned whether the very technologies and structures intended to "tame" the rivers did not, in fact, increase the severity of the floods. Much of the controversy swirled around the apparent culpability of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the builder of many of the flood control systems that failed.

In this book, Todd Shallat examines the turbulent first century of the dam and canal building Corps and follows the agency's rise from European antecedents through the boom years of river development after the American Civil War. Combining extensive research with a lively style, Shallat tells the story of monumental construction and engineering fiascoes, public service and public corruption, and the rise of science and the army expert as agents of the state.

More than an institutional history, Structures in the Stream offers significant insights into American society, which has alternately supported the public works projects that are a legacy of our French heritage and opposed them based on the democratic, individualist tradition inherited from Britain. It will be important reading for a wide audience in environmental, military, and scientific history, policy studies, and American cultural history.

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Instream Flow Protection: Seeking A Balance In Western Water Use
David M. Gillilan and Thomas C. Brown
Island Press, 1997
Library of Congress TC423.6.G55 1997 | Dewey Decimal 333.9100978

Instream Flow Protection is a comprehensive overview of Western water use and the issues that surround it. The authors explain instream flow and its historical, political, and legal context; describe current instream flow laws and policies; and present methods of protecting instream flow. They provide numerous examples to illustrate their discussions, with case studies of major river systems including the Bitterroot, Clark's Fork, Colorado, Columbia, Mimbres, Mono Lake, Platte, Snake, and Wind.

Policymakers, land and water managers at local, state, and federal levels, attorneys, students and researchers of water issues, and anyone concerned with instream flow protection will find the book enormously valuable.

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