Product Description
With increasing concern for the environment, many people are interested in getting back to the basics: in "living off the land". Ideal for full-time homesteaders, ecology-conscious weekend farmers, or any homeowner with a little spare land, this book is a valuable source of ideas on how to build up a rural property without ruining its scenic beauty and natural purity. No elaborate workshop is needed to delve into this illustrated guide. Using a few basic hand and power tools, master woodworker Peter Badger's step-by-step plans, instructions, and how-to drawings are all the new farmer needs to build barns and animal shelters, gates and fences, livestock hurdles, and more. Encouraging the use of recycled woods and metals, Badger suggests a variety of inexpensive alternatives to store-bought hardware. He also shows readers how to make their own farming tools, carts, wagons, and containers. ... Read more

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This text traces the evolution of Majorcan architecture from the Roman invasion to the Arab occupation. It includes photographs of previously neglected monuments and houses. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (9)

Chatsworth: The House
An excellent read of one of the most wonderful houses in the United Kingdom.....anyone who is interested in the history of this great nation, or interested in architecture would find this book really great.

Almost perfect
I think this a very nice book with a lot of gorgeous photos that can't be seen in any other book, but I could not give it 5 stars due to the poor, uneven lighting in some of the interior photos. Some rooms are lit by such harsh, extremely bright sunlight that it washes out some of the details in the foreground and then you can't see details in the background as well due to the harsh contrast.

More than just a Coffee Table Publication!
This is a very high quality book containing beautiful photos and personable, informative, text.The enjoyment of the book is enhanced by the fun, wittywriting style of the Duchess of Devonshire.While the book contains a great deal if historic information, there is an equal amount of fun and entertainment, as a balance.Having restored and lived in the property for more than 50 years, the author gives a first hand narrative of this amazing British Home.

Chatsworth : The House
An outstanding book on one of England's stateliest of Stately Homes written in a very entertaining down to earth way by the Duchess of Devonshire. The photographs are wonderful with a balance between showcasing the grandeur of the building and humanizing the place by also focusing on the people who live and work there.

must buy
the best house review - full of history fact and much humour
photography is amazing ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Town and Country Planning, published by Thomson Gale on November 1, 2006. The length of the article is 1012 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The sad end of the wired city.(The Regeneration Game)
Author: Andrew Lainton
Publication: Town and Country Planning (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 75Issue: 11Page: 294(1)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Extraordinary photography; fascinating reading
If you are interested in architecture, this book gives you a fascinating perspective on the use of houses, buildings and property as well as how people lived in French country houses. The book traces French country houses back to the Middle Ages and brings one up to current times, with an explication of how houses changed to meet standards of the times.

expectations gratified
What a delightful surprise to learn that Mark Girouard has written about France.I have enjoyed his books about English houses and towns for years -- returned to them again and again. His new book on the French country house has delighted me with the same mix of historical knowledge with social insight and architectural connoisseurship. All his books are full of the most interesting insights and details, and he writes like and angel. Nice pictures too. (My only wish is for more pictures, plans and diagrams.)This books is a lovely equal to his "Life in the English Country House." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Simply amazing!
Truly inspirational. Relevant information. Make sure you get first edition. I believe they reprinted and left out quite a bit in the second edition. Apparently the author had second thoughts about marijuana and decided to censor herself. A shame really.

Great for peacful survivalists of all types
This is a playfully illistrated book that tells about everything you need to know to live off of the land in harmony with the land.I think it's amazing and has so much consise information from natural herbs you can eat, preparing food, shelter and surviving out in the world. All campers should see this and certainly people who are thinking about roughting it or just abandoning the status quo and living a free life.

Nostalgic Trip
My mother received a copy of this book when she graduated from high school.I've often wondered who gave it to her, though, since she came from a very conservative, Catholic background.Growing up, this was one of my favorite books to get down off the shelf and look through.Then handwritten text, the pictures, and the ideas were all so crazy and lovely.We weren't exactly a family of hippies, but we were a family with some pretty hippie tendencies, and this book was just one example of that.

This book has a lot of information for living "off the grid" (a term that hadn't even been coined when this book first came out), making your own food and clothes, and creating unique living spaces.There are a lot of topics covered, from how to fast properly, reducing your impact on the earth while camping, making beaded curtains, growing food and plants, making clothes, and building a house out of a giant old tree stump.Some of it is funny and a bit dated, and not all of it practical, but there's a lot in this book that's pretty common sense and interesting.If you grew up with hippie parents, you'll enjoy it.

A book everyone should own
The book is an amazing factual description to help one understand the simplier life and how to use the earth. Definatly a forgotten art and whorth while knowledge to deeply care about.

im moving to the woods
this is a great book.if you are fed up with city life or you are just wanting to hide out there for a while, bring this book.it is the ultimate guide to wilderness survival if you are planning on a long term stay.or if you are just wanting to know what hippy life was like from a first hand point of view, check it out.not only is it informative but it has great illustrations drawn by the author, and guess what, its all hand-written by they author as well.A MUST READ. ... Read more

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The first practical guide on management and re-use of mansions and large estates. Table of contents: Introduction; Approaches to the Problem; The Anglo-American Connection; Saving Large Estates; Land Trusts; Government Role; Selected Case Studies; Special Topics. 60 line illustrations. 200 photos, 20 in full color. ... Read more

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This lavishly illustrated book looks at the art and architecture of episcopal palaces as expressions of power and ideology. Tracing the history of the bishop's residence in the urban centers of northern Italy over the Middle Ages, Maureen C. Miller asks why this once rudimentary and highly fortified structure called a domus became a complex and elegant "palace" (palatium) by the late twelfth century.

Miller argues that the change reflects both the emergence of a distinct clerical culture and the attempts of bishops to maintain authority in public life. She relates both to the Gregorian reform movement, which set new standards for clerical deportment and at the same time undercut episcopal claims to secular power. As bishops lost temporal authority in their cities to emerging communal governments, they compensated architecturally and competed with the communes for visual and spatial dominance in the urban center. This rivalry left indelible marks on the layout and character of Italian cities.

Moreover, Miller contends, this struggle for power had highly significant, but mixed, results for western Christianity. On the one hand, as bishops lost direct governing authority in their cities, they devised ways to retain status, influence, and power through cultural practices. This response to loss was highly creative. On the other hand, their loss of secular control led bishops to emphasize their spiritual powers and to use them to obtain temporal ends. The coercive use of spiritual authority contributed to the emergence of a "persecuting society" in the central Middle Ages. ... Read more

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The Patan Museum, a former palace of the late Malla dynasty of the Kathmandu Valley, was restored and adapted over a period of 15 years and completed in 1997 with professional and financial assistance from the Austrian Government. Set in one of the world's most beautiful squares, it was conceived not only to display a collection of artifacts as a showcase for the cultural legacy of Nepal but also to celebrate the Malla-period palace itself.

Götz Hagmüller, who directed the palace's transformation into a state-of-the-art museum, presents this process in narrative essays of exploration and discovery. From the outset, his intention was to create a museum within the cultural context of its collection as an integrated aesthetic whole. This systhesis of art and setting, emphasized by the project's main curator and cultural adviser Mary Shephard Slusser, has resulted in one of South Asia's most attractive museums. ... Read more

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" A warm and humorous account of the trials of creating a place to call home. To longtime Giles fans and new readers alike, these reminiscences of family, friends, a river, and a roof offer a charming visit to rural Kentucky in the late 1950s."

Customer Reviews (1)

JB review
Great stories about rural Ky. Janice and Henry have ability to tell a story that makes you feel like you are there. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Jewel in the Crown of Neoclassicism
Any potential buyer would be well advised to ignore the other review, which denied me the pleasures of this two-volume set for too long. While intended for the connoisseur or scholar, it has plenty of eye candy for the aficionado of glossy picture books and shelter magazines. Pavlovsk is the jewel in the crown of neoclassicism. Roughly contemporaneous with Monticello, it reveals Jefferson as a semi-talented, rustic amateur. By contrast, the buildings and park of Pavlovsk were designed by Charles Cameron, perhaps the greatest architect of the period. Pavlovsk's owner, the Empress Maria Fyodorovna, combined unlimited resources with exquisite taste and real talent as an artisan. The results are admirably documented in this two-volume set. Outdoors, vistas to delight from every vantage point; inside, one ravishing interior after the other, all filled with furniture, art and objects of the finest quality and often great historical interest. Best of all, the set captures the unique spirit of Pavlovsk. Opulent enough for a royal residence, the palace was nevertheless built on a sufficiently modest scale that even the twenty-first century reader can imagine himself or herself living happily ever after in its rooms and green spaces. A must for the library of any serious student of the decorative arts and architecture of the eighteenth century. ... Read more

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This work presents a history of the building and inhabitants of Buckingham Palace, written with full co-operation of the Palace. The book describes the previous houses on the site and their owners, and the development of Buckingham Palace itself. It looks at the monarchs and their families, and takes the reader in to parts of the Palace that the public are never allowed to visit. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The royal family through rose-colored glasses
The problems with this book begin with its title: It's neither a social history, nor does it have much detail about Buckingham Palace. Instead, Edna Healey has written a sugar-coated history of the royal family. Some of her sources are linked to the royal family, and the resulting book is so unabashedly fawning that all credibility is lost. Even Edward VIII is described in a sympathetic light. Those with a serious interest in the history of Buckingham Palace as a physical structure will be disappointed in the amount of detail, and there are other authors who have written more balanced treatments of the royal family. ... Read more

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Nicolai Rubinsteins's unique command of the complexities of Florentine political history has resulted in an extremely impressive study of the Palazzo Vecchio and the way in whch it functioned as the seat of the Florentine republican government from the late thirteenth century to 1530. Professor Rubinstein's study makes a fundamental contribution to the subject and arrives at a number of new and important conclusions. ... Read more