Trees capture our imagination because they are rooted solidly in the earth but point ethereally toward the sky. They occupy a dimension that has as much to do with time and patience as with place and landscape. They are vertical beings to whom we attribute qualities both divine and human. Since 1991, photographer Barbara Bosworth has been on a quest to photograph America's "champion" trees -- trees that are the biggest of their species, as recorded in the National Register of Big Trees, a list established and maintained by the nonprofit conservation organization American Forests. She has traveled down highways and up back roads, walked through forests and across clear-cut land, sometimes led by local tree enthusiasts, sometimes alone, to photograph trees that are remarkable not only for their size but for their endurance.Bosworth finds champion trees in backyards, fields, and forests, near roadways, power lines, and sidewalks. Her photographs document the trees' magnificence but also show how they are markers of a changing landscape. The yellow poplar, for example, stands on the fringes of a suburban housing development, in the center of a park for the enjoyment and relaxation of residents. The western red cedar stands alone in the middle of a clear-cut, saved from logging only because it is recorded in the Register as the biggest of its kind. The trees and their surroundings tell us about our relationship with nature and the land.Bosworth captures the ineffable grace and dignity of trees with clarity and directness: the green ash that shades a midwestern crossroads, the common pear that blooms in a Washington field, and the Florida strangler fig with its mass of entwining aerial roots. Her photographs, panoramic views taken with an 8 x 10 camera, show the immensity of the largest species and the hidden triumphs of the smallest. Some trees are dethroned each year because of sickness or destruction, but more often simpy because a new and bigger specimen is discovered; only three trees from the original Register in 1940 are still living today. Bosworth's 70 photographs of champion trees are not only a collection of tree portraits but the story of an American adventure as well.A copublication with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson.

Trees: National Champions Photographs

Arts & Photography

Stilgoe, John R.

Nickel, Douglas R.

Bosworth, Barbara

Photography & Video

Mit Pr

A lexicon and guide for discovering the essence of landscape.
“Mr. Stilgoe does not ask that we take his book outdoors with us; he believes that reading and experiencing landscapes are activities that should be kept separate. But, as I learned in his book, the hollow storage area in a car driver's door was once a holster, the 'secure nesting place of a pistol.' I recommend you stow your copy there.” ―The Wall Street Journal
Landscape, John Stilgoe tells us, is a noun. From the old Frisian language (once spoken in coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany), it meant shoveled land: landschop. Sixteenth-century Englishmen misheard or mispronounced this as landskep, which became landskip, then landscape, designating the surface of the earth shaped for human habitation. In What Is Landscape? Stilgoe maps the discovery of landscape by putting words to things, zeroing in on landscape's essence but also leading sideways expeditions through such sources as children's picture books, folklore, deeds, antique terminology, out-of-print dictionaries, and conversations with locals. (“What is that?” “Well, it's not really a slough, not really, it's a bayou...”) He offers a highly original, cogent, compact, gracefully written narrative lexicon of landscape as word, concept, and path to discoveries.
What Is Landscape? is an invitation to walk, to notice, to ask: to see a sandcastle with a pinwheel at the beach and think of Dutch windmills―icons of triumph, markers of territory won from the sea; to walk in the woods and be amused by the Elizabethans' misuse of the Latin silvaticus (people of the woods) to coin the word savages; to see in a suburban front lawn a representation of the meadow of a medieval freehold.
Discovering landscape is good exercise for body and for mind. This book is an essential guide and companion to that exercise―to understanding, literally and figuratively, what landscape is.

What Is Landscape?

Architecture

A lexicon and guide for discovering the essence of landscape.

What Is Landscape? (Mit Press)

The MIT Press

Looks at the ways Americans have altered the landscape from the arrival of early Spanish settlers to the beginning of the country's rapid urbanization

Common Landscape of America, 1580 to 1845

History

Americas

Yale Univ Pr

Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads and the American Scene

Pathbreaking examination of the impact of railroads on American culture and the built environment. Prof. Stilgoe focuses on how the railroads created metropolitan corridors that not only shaped the landscape but also American attitudes towards industrial might, exploration of the countryside and Nature, and the possibility of an ordered and beautiful future. Illustrated throughout with black and white photos as well as drawings. With extensive notes. 397 pages with index.

Engineering & Transportation

Transportation

“A first-rate introduction to a still largely extant North America away from the great cities. This 400-page documentary by a dedicated exploring scholar explains how and why the landscape changed between the times of the early Spanish settlers and the impact of industrialization.”―House and Garden “A remarkable book. John Stilgoe has provided us with a panorama of American land development that is unique in the literature of this filed. In the process he has sharpened the reader’s perception of the historic struggle between those who would tend the land and those who would exploit it, thus making a significant statement about issues in the forefront at the present day. Stilgoe’s global vision over time, combined with his remarkable facility for involving a great variety of elements into one coherent system of thought and feeling, makes this a deeply important and timely work.”―Edmund N. Bacon “Recalls how Europeans shaped this country’s landscape out of wilderness and, by the way, helped to create our sense of beauty, comfort, and appropriateness…A book that will change the way its readers look about them.”―The New Yorker “Focusing on vernacular design and its evolution, Stilgoe effectively demonstrates how builders (rather than professional designers) passed on their traditions from one generation to the next―in so doing shaping America’s enduring attitudes towards landscape. An original and fascinating study.”―H. Ward Jandl, Library Journal Winner of the 1982 Francis Parkman Prize for Literary Distinction in the Writing of History.

Common Landscape of America, 1580-1845

Yale University Press

Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include companion materials, may have some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, may not include CDs or access codes. 100% money back guarantee.

Portrays the American suburbs from their beginnings in the mid-1800s to the onset of World War II and focuses on their appearance, people's reaction to them and their importance to society

Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820-1939

This fascinating “prehistory” of the American Suburb traces its evolution from the mid-1800’s to the onset of World War II. Using a rich array of contemporary written and pictorial sources, prize-winning historian John R. Stilgoe guides us through the early suburbs of Manhattan, Boston, Chicago, and other cities, showing us not only how they looked but what life was like for the men and women who lived there. “In chronicling this great exodus and its impact―on culture, women architecture, and myriad other aspects of American society―Stilgoe displays with, scholarship, and insight, as well as delight in searching out meanings in his sources…The book itself is handsome and well illustrated, blessed with a lively text, saturated with evocative and vivid detail.”―David Slovic, Philadelphia Inquirer “Stilgoe’s research is thorough, his approach original and engaging, and his book a delight to read, filled with illustrations―pictorial and verbal―that help illustrate the phenomenon more clearly and deeply.”―Merle Rubin, Christians Science Monitor “A provocative look at American culture…Borderland makes serious social history accessible and engaging.”―Caryn James, New York Times “Borderland offers a fresh perspective on the zone between rural space and urban residential rings, and it challenges our assumptions about what constitutes a good life.”―Kenneth Jackson, Progressive Architecture John R. Stilgoeis the Robert &amp; Lois Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape at Harvard University. He is also the author of Common Landscape of American, 1580 to 1845 and Metropolitan Corridor. Railroads and the American Scene.

Outside Lies Magic is a book about the acute observation of ordinary things, about becoming aware in everyday places, about seeing in utterly new ways, about enriching your life unexpectedly. For more than 20 years, John R. Stilgoe has developed and practiced the art of exploring the everyday world around us, where so much lies hidden just beneath the surface, offering uncommon knowledge if we but know what to look for. In this remarkable book, Stilgoe inspires us to become explorers on our own–on foot or on bicycle–and by so doing to reap the benefits of escaping, even temporarily, the traps of our programmed lives.
"Exploration encourages creativity, serendipity, invention," he writes. And while sharing his insights on how to explore, Stilgoe provides a fascinating pocket history of the American landscape, as striking in its originality as it is revealing. Stilgoe dissects our visual surroundings; his observations will transform the way you see everything. Through his eyes, an abandoned railroad line is redolent of history and future promise; front lawns recall our agrarian past; vacant lots hold cathedrals of potential.
From the electrical grid overhead to fences, malls, and main streets, Stilgoe offers a fresh understanding of the links and fractures in our society. After reading Outside Lies Magic, your world will never look the same again.

Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places

Politics & Social Sciences

Anthropology

Walker Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stilgoe, John R.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Stilgoe, John R.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stilgoe, John R.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Trees: National Champions Photographs

What Is Landscape?

What Is Landscape? (Mit Press)

Common Landscape of America, 1580 to 1845

Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads and the American Scene

Common Landscape of America, 1580-1845

Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads and the American Scene

Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820-1939

Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820-1939

Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places