Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics and Promise of the American Prairie

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In an exploration of the grasslands of North America that is both sweeping and intimate, Manning makes interesting connections between economics, botany, farming, and democracy. His discussion of the impact of romantic ideals of landscapes upon this biome is insightful, and his travels with botanists, biologists, buffalo and a visit to Ted Turner's ranch put faces and feet on the story. The message: by a careful reading of nature's design, we can more successfully inhabit this and all landscapes. Recommended.

Customer Reviews:

Audacious, Quirky Proposal - Warrants Serious Consideration.......2005-09-10

I have encountered few books like Richard Manning's Grassland. Manning's manifesto - reserved for the final chapters - is audacious, even quirky. Grassland's subtitle, The History, Biology, Politics, and Promise of the American Prairie, suggests a reasoned, broad-based analysis, and that is what Richard Manning provides. Nonetheless, his conclusions are breath-taking in their originality. My initial skepticism remains, but Manning does have me thinking about his proposal. Maybe, just maybe, he is on the right track.

The mountain wildernesses with their "charismatic megafauna", deserts, wild rivers, forests, seashores, and wetlands have little difficulty attracting environmental advocates, but how do the grasslands, the largest single biome in North America, fit into this picture?

Manning is slow to unfold his unorthodox proposals, preferring first to educate his readers. Thankfully, Manning's style is more narrative and anecdotal than pedagogical. His topics are wide ranging: Indian cultures, exotic weeds, Pleistocene extinctions, Jefferson's agrarian theory, disappearing aquifers, buffalo hunting, and industrialized farming.

Manning has definite opinions, but he is surprisingly fair; he clearly outlines and explains contrary ideas. I questioned some of his interpretations and occasionally even his facts, but all in all Manning's thesis appears credible.

I had some qualms about revealing Manning's manifesto in absence of his preparatory discussions. Even in context, his proposals are unexpectedly original. With caution, I proceed:

Richard Manning advocates eliminating large scale, industrialized farming and cattle ranching on America's extensive arid and semi-arid grasslands. Intensive single crop farming, largely wheat and corn production, is replaced by lower impact, multi-crop farming restricted to areas requiring less irrigation. Extensive irrigation stops. Intense fertilization stops. Land management concepts change. Free roaming bison replace cattle in the food chain. Non-native grasses that have largely displaced native species are eliminated.

Grassland is an exceptionally interesting book. As an earlier reviewer noted, Grassland will change the way we think.

Absolutely incredible piece of work.......2005-07-10

This is just a wonderful book on a part of our country that is "foreign" to many.I have recently been preparing a program on photograghy of the Great Plains and it"s as though the information in Grasslands is an answer to my prayer.It is literally packed with so much material so well presented that it should be required reading for all of our children and POLICY MAKERS IN GOVERNMENTS {particularly our current administration!!}.

Very interesting, a lot of information, can be slow reading.......2005-06-15

Part autobiographical (Manning writing about his travels around the nation learning about prarie restoration efforts), part biology textbook (telling about the types of flora & fauna that developed on the praries over time- and what has become of them),and part history ( the story of human involvement with the ecosystem).
Mr. Manning writes about the effects humans have had on the grasslands over the centuries, most of the really bad part coming since the railroad days and what is being done to remedy the effects of agricultural and other practices not really suited to the Plains. There is quite a bit of science in his writing, but it isn't too complicated, and a lot of opinion too. Manning does favor the use, in some cases, of chemicals to battle foreign plant species. He doesn't have much use for modern grain farming (not suited to the normal moisture patterns or maybe even the terrain) and considers beef cattle far too destructive for the land (he describes some of the effects the herds have had on the land- and what the buffalo(he favors hunting them but not to extinction) were like). He mentioned that while the old free range cattle ranching was harder on the environment that the buffalo herds (I think he advocated returning them) at least it was better than the current fenced in, likely to overgraze system.
I especially appreciated the details of how the buffalo herds were hunted down in the 19th century.
If the science is even half right (I feel that it probably is) something needs to be done to restore things in the Plains. I know that I've read in agricultural magazines that the west is experiencing a severe, and growing, groundwater shortage. You won't get the country to admit it ( he writes about the special interests) but so much of the land out there isn't suited for anything past what nature was doing with it we need to work with nature, not against it.
Anyone interested in the western grasslands and/ or the buffalo should consider getting a copy of this book.

Despite minor flaws, this book will change the way you think.......2005-03-17

First and most important, this book will change the way you think about the American prairie. I live here at the edge of the prairie near Indianapolis, and there are a few spots maintained as native prairie. Manning isn't talking about these little islands but about a huge, free ecosystem and the horrors that we have inflicted upon it and its fauna and flora. I confess that the image of grizzlies chasing elk calves across the grassland is beguiling, and illustrates what we are missing. He makes a persuasive case that we need lots and lots and lots of grassland, maintained as such. Manning has a good story-telling sense, and a good eye for explaining the grassland. You will not look at the prairie in the same way again.

There are some nicely provocative bits. His vision of the prairie rests on bison ranching, with the animals eating native grasses without irrigation, fertilizer, or other capitalist agriculture. As if that's not controversial enough, he makes a serious case that a meat-and-leather prairie economy rests easier on the land than food crops such as wheat or corn. These crops have destroyed the prairie and harm the broader environment because of the extensive irrigation and fertilization required. Obviously, this strategy of making our agriculture conform to the land instead of forcing the land to conform to our agriculture would be a major change for Americans and others around the world..

Manning is not afraid to take the next logical step, and he makes a principled argument against vegetarianism. Eating free-range bison raised on natural grasslands, he argues, would sit more lightly on the ground and would probably use less (petroleum-based) energy. This is not your conventional environmentalist, to say the least.

Despite those strengths, the book is weakened by a modest number of trivial errors of fact. These come in sidebar comments about irrelevant matters and have nothing to do with grassland, so I'd rather not list them here. They did make me question the accuracy of his reporting on grassland, though. I wouldn't rely on this book as your sole source of facts, but Manning's vision and wonderful writing make it an invaluable book nonetheless.

Excellent, unassuming, deftly woven.......2004-03-11

I picked up this book on a whim from The Book Thing of Baltimore, where I work as a volunteer shelving donated books so our patrons can find what they want (we give away books for free). Its cover caught my eye. I am so glad I did, because what I found was a fascinating and gripping book on something I never had really given two thoughts to: America's grasslands.

At first I wondered how on earth you could write an entire book about grassland. Now I wonder how he managed to fit so much information in such an easy to digest book. Manning is not just passionate about conservation (and the right kind of conservation), he's a tremendously writer as well, and he weaves the story of middle America's lands into an amazing tapestry. You can tell his point of view on all of the subjects, but he doesn't let it interfere with the quality of the work -- he does not demonize "the bad guys," but portrays them as normal humans struggling to survive. Somehow he starts off with very early ecological history, the beginnings of human civilizations in northern America, and ends up with modern day efforts to bring back the grasslands and all the while keeping the story lively and the reader interested.

I highly recommend this book. It will open your eyes.

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Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics and Promise of the American Prairie
Richard Manning
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJ4RLK

Customer Reviews:

Look Elsewhere.......2005-04-29

If you are looking for a legal reference book, look eleswhere. After purchasing this book expecting a "legal guide" I was etremely disapointed. This book is nothing more than a collection of mainly common sense travel tips, most of which are well known to anyone who has traveled a few time. There is no analysis of case law or statutes and the "legal" content mainly consists of suggestions to "see a lawyer" in certain situations. For example, if you have been discriminated against in air travel, the book suggest you should "see a lawyer." If you have any experience in traveling, stay away from this book. Perhaps for a young person going on their first trip, this book maybe helpful. For all others you will be amazed someone could write so much and convey so little useful information.

Book Description

Now that the regular season has ended, the playoffs begin, and the major-league teams are duking it out . Boston is aiming for a place at the top, but Chicago is coming on strong, and L.A. is a sure bet for the play-offs. No matter who wins, there's goingto be some great baseball in the field!

Customer Reviews:

A one of a kind!.......1997-03-21

This is a great book! I recamend it to everybody!! an easy fun loving book to reed!¡¡¡

Book Description

There has been very considerable progress in research into low-mass stars, brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets during the past few years, particularly since the fist edtion of this book was published in 2000. In this new edtion the authors present a comprehensive review of both the astrophysical nature of individual red dwarf and brown dwarf stars and their collective statistical properties as an important Galactic stellar population. Chapters dealing with the observational properies of low-mass dwarfs, the stellar mass function and extrasolar planets have been completely revised. Other chapters have been significantly revised and updated as appropriate, including important new material on observational techniques, stellar acivity, the Galactic halo and field star surveys. The authors detail the many discoveries of new brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets made since publication of the first edition of the book and provide a state-of-the-art review of our current knowledge of very low-mass stars, brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets, including both the latest observational results and theoretical work.

NEW LIGHT ON DARK STARS Red Dwarfs, Low-Mass Stars, Brown Dwarfs

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NEW LIGHT ON DARK STARS Red Dwarfs, Low-Mass Stars, Brown Dwarfs

Manufacturer: Praxis Publishing/Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Red Dwarf | Media | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000HNNVHE

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New Light on Dark Stars: Red Dwarfs, Low-Mass Stars, Brown Dwarfs
Neill Reid
Manufacturer: Springer-Verlag New York, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Red Dwarf | Media | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000MBOPEE

New Light on Dark Stars: Red Dwarfs, Low-Mass Stars, Brown Dwarfs (Springer-Praxis Series in Astronomy and Astrophysics)

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New Light on Dark Stars: Red Dwarfs, Low-Mass Stars, Brown Dwarfs (Springer-Praxis Series in Astronomy and Astrophysics)
Neill I. Reid
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Red Dwarf | Media | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000MU6V3I

Book Description

This book deals with the electron density distribution in molecules and solids as obtained experimentally by X-ray diffraction. It is a comprehensive treatment of the methods involved, and the interpretation of the experimental results in terms of chemical bonding and intermolecular interactions. Inorganic and organic solids, as well as metals, are covered in the chapters dealing with specific systems. As a whole, this monograph is especially appealing because of its broad interface with numerous disciplines. Accurate X-ray diffraction intensities contain fundamental information on the charge distribution in crystals, which can be compared directly with theoretical results, and used to derive other physical properties, such as electrostatic moments, the electrostatic potential and lattice energies, which are accessible by spectroscopic and thermodynamic measurements. Consequently, the work will be of great interest to a broad range of crystallographers and physical scientists.

Book Description

Ever since the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton introduced quaternions in the nineteenth century--a feat he celebrated by carving the founding equations into a stone bridge--mathematicians and engineers have been fascinated by these mathematical objects. Today, they are used in applications as various as describing the geometry of spacetime, guiding the Space Shuttle, and developing computer applications in virtual reality. In this book, J. B. Kuipers introduces quaternions for scientists and engineers who have not encountered them before and shows how they can be used in a variety of practical situations.

The book is primarily an exposition of the quaternion, a 4-tuple, and its primary application in a rotation operator. But Kuipers also presents the more conventional and familiar 3 x 3 (9-element) matrix rotation operator. These parallel presentations allow the reader to judge which approaches are preferable for specific applications. The volume is divided into three main parts. The opening chapters present introductory material and establish the book's terminology and notation. The next part presents the mathematical properties of quaternions, including quaternion algebra and geometry. It includes more advanced special topics in spherical trigonometry, along with an introduction to quaternion calculus and perturbation theory, required in many situations involving dynamics and kinematics. In the final section, Kuipers discusses state-of-the-art applications. He presents a six degree-of-freedom electromagnetic position and orientation transducer and concludes by discussing the computer graphics necessary for the development of applications in virtual reality.

Customer Reviews:

All four elements..........2007-09-17

Quaternions are not as intuitive as 3x3 matrices however this book give a strong understanding of quaternions so that the reader can let go of the 3x3 matrix and successfully, in my case at least, change over to only using quaternions. This has proven useful in my simulations for, and firmware code for, satellite attitude determination and control. In the version I have of this book, there are some mistakes that hopefully will be corrected, but the mistakes are obvious and easy to overlook. I hate quaternions but they are powerful tools in solving real world problems. This book made quaternions interesting and bearable. If you already have a really good understanding of quaternions, this book might help, but it has a long introduction into quaternions so you might want to review the book using the online outline to see if it actually covers more than what you might already know.

Quaternions for you.......2007-07-14

This is an excellent book, it's right up there with Gilbert Strang's Linear Algebra texts.
Want to understand quaternions and rotational matrices, well this is the book for you. Starts with the basics, coordinated transformations and such, and moves at a reasonable pace into quaternions. Others at work, looking at this book felt that they understood the text. Interestingly these were software engineers that never really gotten basic college calculus. Never could understand why many software people are so light on math. Different part of the brain I guess. Author vs. engineer.

Excellent - But for Position-Level Kinematics Only.......2007-06-20

This is a very thorough and user-friendly book for understanding quaternions. However, to my disappointment, it covers only position-level kinematics. On the applications part, I find that the absence of velocity-level, and acceleration-level kinematics, and the relations to the angular-velocity and angular-acceleration vectors, are completely missing in action, and prevent this book from becoming a real practical text to support some real applications. Add these, and I believe this will become the textbook for the topic.

Great for fixed rotations, bad for simulation.......2007-03-11

This book would be hard to beat for its clear and simple discussion of matrix rotations. It goes through practical derivations, and give a golden equation at the end. Additionally these equations are re-referenced and re-used many times. Excellent style! After a great introductory review, three different useful rotations are discussed:
Aerospace sequence: matrix rotations given heading, pitch and roll
Orbit Ephemeris: figure out where a satellite will be given 3 parameters
Great Circle Navigation: get a surface heading to any point on the earth

Sequences, however, means the combination fixed rotation components and NOT time series. For someone trying to do physics simulation, this book offers nothing on angular velocities, angular momentum or the representation of multi-modal or harmonic rotational inertia. Topics that involve movement under inertia are not discussed (e.g. the tumble of a spinning satellite, or the similar "Feymann Frisbee" which provided the simple insight that lead to the Nobel Prize). For this, I recommend *also* getting "Introduction to Space Dynamics" by Thomson which is harder to read, but includes more advanced examples. These two books combined will give you the basis of writing your own physics simulation software.

Simply put, this book alone would be all you need for a basic flight simulator game, but it won't help simulate an airplane tumbling out of control (under angualar momenutum, objects can and often do rotate in more than one inertial axis).

Truly this work will be a classic.......2006-02-09

This book is one of the very few mathematical, engineering, physics texts that I have come across in my 37 year career that stands out as a classic to be. I read the entire book and because it is so good, it is one of the few that I actually retained.
The book SAVES TIME. It saves time because you can learn the material without second guessing what the author is trying to say, because he wrote the book to TEACH you the material, not so you could stand in awe at his skill.
Because he took this topic and made it understandable in a way that so few books of its type do, his skill is evident in his clarity.
Anyone who can teach a subject like this in a book, with no classroom instruction knows his subject cold.
This is a winner. Big time.

I want to personally thank the author for taking the time and pains to write his book for me and countless others who stumble around in the world of physics, mathematics and engineering trying to get a grasp on our massive field. His contribution shines.

Book Description

David Mas Masumoto, best-selling author of (Epitaph for a Peach, returns to the same ground but digs even deeper in a new, "more ambitious book" in which "he lets his philosophy about man and nature emerge from an absorbing chronicle of his life and that of his Japanese antecedents" (The Economist). This is a book about working alongside the ghosts of generations past, about the search for roots in the tragic history of internment camps and in the rural culture of Japan. It is equally about renewal--reinvigorating the farm with organic techniques, teaching his children how to carry on the work that eighty acres of peaches and grapes demand. Masumoto knits past and present to achieve a rare and essential harmony: holding on to what matters, despite the pressures of time and change. "Take your time, linger" with the book, counsels the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Masumoto's serene tales . . . are like a balm." He is a "remarkable" author, sums up The Atlantic, "with a field, and a sensibility, peculiarly his own."

Customer Reviews:

AN AFFECTING MEMOIR - JOYFUL AND POIGNANT.......2000-12-23

A third generation Japanese-American, agriculturist David Masumoto farms peaches and raisins. He celebrates nature, savoring seasons when "The air is filled with the smell of drying grapes - a caramel fragrance mixed with an earthy aroma."

He is a champion of hard work, viewing calluses as "badges of honor earned only after years in the fields,...The hands tell a story of worth..."

And, as evidenced in his affecting memoir, Harvest Son, he is an author whose fluid pen scrolls as gracefully as kanji, the ancient Japanese script in which each word is a picture. Evocative descriptions of abundant harvests and the delicately limned shade of a near-ripe peach are lyric testimony that farming is not only his occupation, it is his modus vivendi.

Writing with spare yet lustrous precision, Mr. Masumoto traces his life's journey in flashbacks, exploring the past to chart his future. Having learned that in 1942 his grandparents, along with some 16,000 Japanese-Americans were relocated to internment camps, Mr. Masumoto embarked on a painful quest, searching the Arizona desert for traces of the Gila River Relocation Center, his family's four-year home. "A few low cement pillars sunken into the ground" and "a pile of broken thick white dishes" were the only remnants of those interrupted lives.

Another pilgrimage was to Japan, where he found his grandmother's brother. Held hostage by rice paddies, his uncle's farmhouse "looked like the face of an old man with wrinkles and age spots." The floor was of packed earth..." But, blessings of all blessings, there was the "ofuro" or Japanese hot tub, which "Following a day in the fields, ...tempered worn and broken spirits. The soothing water fostered a benevolence and a feeling of optimism."

Mr. Masumoto eventually returned to the California valley of his childhood, where he found satisfaction and a connectedness in tending the vines planted by his grandfathers. From the author we learn a Japanese word "shoganai" meaning "it can't be helped." This is a word borne of forbearance, we are told, as despite their painful past Japanese-Americans accepted their new country "with a bow of humility. Not weakness but silent strength."

When a surprise hailstorm destroyed what promised to be a bumper crop, Mr. Masumoto asked himself why he continued to farm. His answer may be "shoganai."

Today, Mr. Masumoto is a leader in his local Buddhist community, one of the few sansei or third generation Japanese-Americans who remain in the farmland that nurtured them. It is left to him to serve as chairman at many funerals, as one generation honors another. Harvest Son is a joyful, poignant reminder that it is both duty and privilege to do so.

Terrific follow up.......2000-06-20

After reading EPITAPH FOR A PEACH, I hungrily hunted down HARVEST SON. This is nature writing at it's finest! At once a touching and poetic account of family life on an organic peach farm and vineyard. The reader is likely to run the gamut of emotions as Masumoto describes losing a crop of peaches to a damaging and wicked storm, makes a pilgrimmage to Japan to learn of his family's history and culture, or has a blast while fertilizing young peach trees "by hand" - his wife and son riding with him on the back of a wagon throwing organic fertilizer at the trees with old coffee cans. His 10 year old daughter jerks them along as she learns to drive the tractor. HARVEST SON is a warm, funny and insightful book that will not disappoint!

Harvest Son: Planting Roots in American Soil

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Harvest Son: Planting Roots in American Soil
David Mas Masumoto
Manufacturer: W.W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NP2POG

Average customer rating:

Harvest Son, Planting Roots in American Soil
David Mas MASUMOTO
Manufacturer: Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KP1EW8

Harvest Son: Planting Roots in American Soil (ISBN: 0393046737)

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Harvest Son: Planting Roots in American Soil (ISBN: 0393046737)
David Mas Masumoto
Manufacturer: W.W. Norton & Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NQIQQQ

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