Paving paradise

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Craig Pittman and Matthew Waite

What is happening to Florida's "protected" wetlands? Florida possesses more wetlands than any other state except Alaska, yet since 1990 more than 84,000 acres have been lost to development despite presidential pledges to protect them. How and why the state's wetlands are continuing to disappear is the subject of Paving Paradise. Journalists Craig Pittman and Matthew Waite spent nearly four years investigating the political expedience, corruption, and negligence on the part of federal and state agencies that led to a failure to enforce regulations on developers. They traveled throughout the state, interviewed hundreds of people, dug through thousands of documents, and analyzed satellite imagery to identify former wetlands that were now houses, stores, and parking lots. Exposing the unseen environmental consequences of rampant sprawl, Pittman and Waite explain how wetland protection creates the illusion of environmental protection while doing little to stem the tide of destruction. - Publisher.

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Jamal R. Nassar

Globalization and terrorism are both fraught concepts; people use them loosely without regard for exactitude and often to further political ends. This book carefully defines these concepts, puts them in historical as well as political context, and then amplifies the basics with an exploration of the way in which the dreams inspired by globalization can translate all too easily into the nightmare of terrorism.

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Karen Liptak

Traces the history of the earth's land forms and plant and animal life, from the first emergence of land masses to the beginning of the Cenozoic era approximately sixty million years ago.

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Paul L. Hedren

Hedren is the first scholar to examine the events of 1876-77 and their aftermath as a whole, taking into account relationships among military leaders, the building of forts, and the army's efforts to memorialize the war and its victims. Woven into his narrative are the voices of those who witnessed such events as the burial of Custer, the laying of railroad track, or the sudden surround of a buffalo herd. Their personal testimonies lend both vibrancy and pathos to this story of irreversible change in Sioux Country.