Drawing on research from a variety of academic fields, such as archaeology, history, botany, ecology, and physical science, M. J. Morgan explores the intersection of people and the environment in early eighteenth-century Illinois Country?a stretch of fecund, alluvial river plain along the Mississippi river. Arguing against the traditional narrative that describes Illinois as an untouched wilderness until the influx of American settlers, Morgan illustrates how the story began much earlier. She focuses her study on early French and Indian communities, and later on the British, nestled within the tripartite environment of floodplain, riverine cliffs and bluffs, and open, upland till plain/prairie and examines the impact of these diverse groups of people on the ecological landscape. By placing human lives within the natural setting of the period?the abundant streams and creeks, the prairies, plants and wildlife?she traces the environmental change that unfolded across almost a century.^ She describes how it was a land in motion; how the occupying peoples used, extracted, and extirpated its resources while simultaneously introducing new species; and how the flux and flow of life mirrored the movement of the rivers. Morgan emphasizes the importance of population sequences, the relationship between the aboriginals and the Europeans, the shared use of resources, and the effects of each on the habitat. Land of Big Rivers is a unique, many-themed account of the big-picture ecological change that occurred during the early history of the Illinois Country. It is the first book to consider the environmental aspects of the Illinois Indian experience and to reconsider the role of the French and British in environmental change in the mid-Mississippi Valley.^ It engagingly recreates presettlement Illinois with a remarkable interdisciplinary approach and provides new details that will encourage understanding of the interaction between physical geography and the plants, animals, and people in the Illinois Country. Furthermore, it exhibits the importance of looking at the past in the context of environmental transformation, which is especially relevant in light of today?s global climate change.
Setting / LocationFrance
Story EraModern Era
Protagonist / CoreLand of big rivers Lead Character
<a href="javascript:pop_img(' class=encadrevitrine2>Lire les articles parus dans France Soir<a><br> Des massacres de masse se déroulent discrètement en Afrique Centrale depuis des années. Le prétexte : les "rébellions" et les "luttes tribales". Mais en vérité, ce sont les conséquences d'un combat féroce entre chefs pour s'approprier le pouvoir exclusif sur les ressources locales. Les groupes armés des milices ethniques impliquées sont composés en majorité de jeunes et d'enfants presque toujours recrutés de force : les Kadogo. Leurs récits de vie dramatiques rompent avec le silence qui couvre les guerres chroniques au Soudan, en Ouganda, en R.D du Congo, au Rwanda.
On November 7, 1938, a Jewish teenager, Herschel Grynszpan, fatally shot a German diplomat in Paris. Within three days anti Jewish violence erupted throughout Germany, initially incited by local Nazi officials, and ultimately sanctioned by the decisions of Hitler and Goebbels at the pinnacle of the Third Reich. As synagogues burned and Jews were beaten in the streets, police stood aside. Men, women, and children, many neighbors of the victims, participated enthusiastically in acts of violence, rituals of humiliation, and looting. By the night of November 10th, a nationwide antisemitic pogrom had inflicted massive destruction on synagogues, Jewish schools, and Jewish owned businesses. During and after this spasm of violence and plunder, 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps, where hundreds would perish in the following months. Kristallnacht revealed to the world the intent and extent of Nazi Judeophobia. However, it was seen essentially as the work of the Nazi leadership. Now, the author counters that view in his vision of Kristallnacht as a veritable pogrom, a popular cathartic convulsion of antisemitic violence that was manipulated from above but executed from below by large numbers of ordinary Germans rioting in the streets, heckling and taunting Jews, cheering Stormtroopers' hostility, and looting Jewish property on a massive scale. Based on original research in the trials of the pogrom's perpetrators and the testimonies of its Jewish survivors, the author brings to light the evidence of mob action by all sectors of the civilian population. This work reveals the true depth and nature of popular antisemitism in Nazi Germany on the eve of the Holocaust.
"Half of the book is a detailed description, mainly told in the words of participants, of three battles fought over four days in the Rhineland south of Goch between 27 February and March 2 1945. The battles were between 3rd Division supported by 6 Guards Armoured Brigade, and 8. Fallschirmjager Division. For the first time the combined actions of over 50,000 men during 96 hours have been analysed from the ground up in an unprecedented attempt to provide understanding of a significant military event. 3 Scots Guards said of Winnekendonk, It is suggested that this will surely rank as one of the finest small scale tank/infantry battles ever executed and well worthy of more close study. The fighting was bloody and heroic, and some controversial aspects are explained for the first time. The other half of the book is an analysis of the units and people involved in the two divisions and their supporting armour and aviation. An answer is provided as to why only two months before the end of hostilities, 21 Army Group could manage only quite slow and costly progress. The answer comes from the analysis, and is tested through comparison with the contemporary Canadian Operation Blockbuster, and with two battles in the Hitler Line. Evidence is provided that there is no truth to recent claims that Montgomery's generalship was efficient and saved lives. Instead, it is shown that the military hierarchy, including Churchill, ignored the all-arms operational methodology under unitary command which Sir John Monash had developed to bring victory in 1918. In the Second World War, by contrast, the Royal Armoured Corps and 2 TAF never integrated with the infantry and artillery, and were never suitably equipped, being bound to the cultic pursuit of mobility. General Elles required that the Infantry Tank be immune to all German anti-tank guns, and his Matilda II was a major reason for the deliverance from Dunkirk and for the success of Operation Compass in North Africa. Compared with the Hundred Days of 1918, the author suggests that the British Armed forces in 1945 were relatively less efficient in all respects except that of killing German civilians in area bombing. This book's fully documented and researched conclusions provide a new and controversial interpretation of 21 Army Group." --Publisher description.
Describes what life was like for those children who were uprooted from their midwestern homes and transported by their families across the frontier in wagons and on horseback.
Land of big rivers by M.J. Morgan | Literally Just Books
