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Volume II brings together the first six towns of the Irish Historic Towns Atlas series, previously published as individual fascicles. These towns - Maynooth, Downpatrick, Kilkenny, Bray, Fethard, and Trim - illustrate characteristic periods of town formation in Ireland. Maps are presented in large format and include facsimiles of old plans, historical reconstructions and thematic maps. Topographical views, illustrations, and photographs provide additional artistic perspectives. Each town/city in...

In 2012 the Landscape of Grand Pre, which includes the entire Grand Pre Marsh and portions of North Grand Pre, Hortonville, Grand Pre, and Lower Wolfville, was declared Nova Scotia's third UNESCO World Heritage Site. This newest addition to the Stories of our Past series details the area's physical and cultural evolution in an accessible, highly visual format. Grand Pre explores the interrelationship of the peoples and landscape of Grand Pre, from the legacies of the dykelands to the record-bre...

Much of eastern England is below sea level, resulting in wide swathes of marshland that are easily flooded. In the seventeenth century, the Bedford Level Corporation was set up by Francis Russell, fourth earl of Bedford, in order to manage the drainage of the Great Level of the Fens, which became known as the Bedford Level and is the largest region of fenland in eastern England. Between 1828 and 1830, Samuel Wells, the corporation's registrar, published his well-documented history of the Bedford...

What made cities 'modern' in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Cities in Modernity explores connections between culture, economy and built environment in cities of this period, drawing its evidence principally from London, New York and Toronto. The book discusses both the cultural experience of modernity and the material modernization of cities, placing special emphasis on their historical geographies, on the production, representation and use of urban space. The opening chapters pre...

William Edward Parry (1790-1855) spent the early part of his naval career protecting the whale fisheries of Spitzbergen. He was later appointed to several Arctic expeditions, including three in search of the North-West Passage. This 1821 publication, reissued here in the unchanged second edition from the same year, describes the first of these voyages. Although unsuccessful, it provided valuable scientific data and experience that shaped subsequent expeditions. Noted for his care for his men, an...

An Historical Geography of Ireland offers students a comprehensive reassessment of the evolution of society and economy in Ireland, presenting an informed account of how that past illuminates the present. In this volume distinguished scholars synthesize recent research in Irish historical geography and economic history and present it in an explicit theoretical framework. Starting from the ninth century and continuing to the present it examines both the internal and external forces that have shap...

High mountains, polar expanses, volcanic peaks are exciting and special environments. 13 leading international geographers explore different aspects of these environments - disorientation, exploration, native knowledge, polar research. This is the first book to do this.High places - be they mountain peaks or the vast expanses of the polar latitudes - have always captured the human imagination. Inaccessible, extreme, they are commonly invested with awe and reverence, as places of physical challen...

Since around 1500 C.E., humans have shaped the global environment in ways that were previously unimaginable. Bringing together leading environmental historians and world historians, this book offers an overview of global environmental history throughout this remarkable 500-year period. In eleven essays, the contributors examine the connections between environmental change and other major topics of early modern and modern world history: population growth, commercialization, imperialism, industria...

Majestic River: Mungo Park and the Exploration of the Niger is about geography, exploration, and a 2000-year-old geographical mystery. By the eighteenth century, the river Niger was to Europeans a source of wonder, potential wealth, and a two-part problem. The first would be solved by Mungo Park in 1796. Park’s death in 1806 in failing to solve the second prompted other expeditions which sought to determine the cause of his death and to trace the Niger’s course. This book offers the first full...

John Bell (1691-1780) trained as a physician, but preferred a life of travel and diplomacy. He entered the service of Tsar Peter the Great of Russia, and had already taken part (as the expedition's doctor) in a government mission to Persia in 1715-18 when he was asked to join an embassy to China. This two-volume work, published in 1763, describes both these journeys. The first part of Volume 1 contains the Persian expedition, and the second a narrative of the journey across Siberia to the walls...

Illuminating, engrossing and full of surprises, The Discovery of France is a literary exploration of a country few will recognize; from maps and migration to magic, language and landscape, it's a book that reveals the `real' past of France to tell the whole story - and history - of this remarkable nation. `With gloriously apposite facts and an abundance of quirky anecdotes and thumbnail sketches of people, places and customs, Robb, on brilliant form, takes us on a stunning journey through the...

This book deals with the history of the working class in twentieth-century Ireland through a close examination of three Cork factories (Irish Steel, Sunbeam Wolsey and the Ford Marina Plant) and the men and men who worked therein. Departing from previous labour history in Ireland, this book uses a comparative factory study approach - combined with extensive oral testimony - to break new ground in Irish labour history. The book includes fresh research on the business histories of each firm throu...

Mountains appear in the oldest known maps yet their representation has proven a notoriously difficult challenge for map makers. In this essay, Ernesto Capello surveys the broad history of relief representation in cartography with an emphasis on the allegorical, commercial and political uses of mapping mountains. After an initial overview and critique of the traditional historiography and development of techniques of relief representation, the essay features four clusters of mountain mapping emph...