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Provides an overview of the state of Massachusetts, covering its history, geography, economy, people, and points of interest. ... Read more

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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing’s Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing’s Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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Chapters: Alewife Linear Park, Cambridge Common Historic District, Old Cambridge Historic District, Hubbard Park Historic District, Harvard Houses Historic District, NorthPoint (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Harvard Street Historic District, Gray Gardens East and West Historic District, East Cambridge Historic District, Norfolk Street Historic District, Memorial Drive Apartments Historic District, Follen Street Historic District, Hastings Square Historic District, Shady Hill Historic District, Garfield Street Historic District, Upper Magazine Street Historic District, Ash Street Historic District, Kirkland Place Historic District, Berkeley Street Historic District, Maple Avenue Historic District (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Salem-Auburn Streets Historic District, Bigelow Street Historic District, Old Cambridgport Historic District, Avon Hill Historic District, Winter Street Historic District, Cambridge Center,. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 60. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt:Alewife Linear Park, Somerville, MassachusettsThe Linear Park is a mixed-use path, about one mile (1.6 km) long, running through Cambridge and Somerville (Massachusetts), and connecting the Minuteman Bikeway and the Fitchburg Cutoff Path near Alewife with the Somerville Community Path at Davis Square. The path is used for bicycling, walking, jogging, and inline skating. The path runs though a long, narrow park that was built above the MBTA Red Line subway when it was extended from Davis Square to Alewife. It was established by the MBTA in 1985, and is maintained by the cities of Cambridge and Somerville. The segment in Cambridge is also known as the Cambridge Linear Park. The Somerville segment is signed as the "Somerville Community Path: Alewife Linear Park Segment". The Massachusetts Highway Department has desig...http://booksllc.net/?id=4584902 ... Read more

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Chapters: Cambridge, Massachusetts. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 171. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Cambridge, Massachusetts -The site for what would become Cambridge was chosen in December 1630, because it was located safely up river from Boston Harbor, which made it easily defensible from attacks by enemy ships. Also, the water from the local spring was so good that the local Natives believed it had medicinal properties. The first houses were built in the spring of 1631. The settlement was initially referred to as "the newe towne". Official Massachusetts records show the name capitalized as Newe Towne by 1632. Located at the first convenient Charles River crossing west of Boston, Newe Towne was one of a number of towns (including Boston, Dorchester, Watertown, and Weymouth) founded by the 700 original Puritan colonists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony under governor John Winthrop. The original village site is in the heart of today's Harvard Square. The marketplace where farmers brought in crops from surrounding towns to sell survives today as the small park at the corner of John F. Kennedy (J.F.K.) and Winthrop Streets, then at the edge of a salt marsh, since filled. The town included a much larger area than the present city, with various outlying parts becoming independent towns over the years: Newton (originally Cambridge Village, then Newtown) in 1688, Lexington (Cambridge Farms) in 1712, and both West Cambridge (originally Menotomy) and Brighton (Little Cambridge) in 1807. West Cambridge was later renamed Arlington, in 1867, and Brighton was later annexed by Boston, in 1874. In 1636 Harvard College was founded by the colony to train ministers and the new town was chosen for its site by Thomas Dudley. By 1638 the name "Newe Towne" had "compacted by usage into 'Newtowne'....More: http://booksllc.net/?id=5685 ... Read more

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Chapters: Lake Quinsigamond, Blackstone Valley, Quinsigamond State Park, Indian Lake, Woodland Street Historic District, Hammond Heights, Oxford-Crown Extension District, Lincoln Estate-Elm Park Historic District, Southbridge-Sargent Manufacturing District, Lower Pleasant Street District, Wellington Street Apartment House District, Mechanics' Hall District, Elm Street Historic District (Worcester, Massachusetts), May Street Historic District, Crystal Street Historic District, Fay Street Historic District, Grafton Hill. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 46. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Lake Quinsigamond -The lake's long and narrow shape posed a challenge to settlers of the Worcester area in the 1600s. Lacking modern bridging techniques, westward travelers had to ride around the lake's northern and southern tips. At the turn of the 19th century, Isaiah Thomas, a Worcester resident, developed plans for a direct link between Worcester and Boston (plans that eventually became Route 9). Construction of this road was under the authority of the Worcester Turnpike Corporation (until 1841; thereafter, the city of Worcester). Like the settlers 150 years earlier, Thomas and company faced the problem of Lake Quinsigamond. The first span across the lake was a floating log bridge, built in 1806. This first attempt was unstable, often swaying under the weight of horse-drawn wagons. The floating bridge was broken apart by waves in 1806, and was rebuilt in the year 1807 as an interim solution. The second bridge was an early suspension bridge, and was completed in early 1817. Nine wooden piers, built into the lakebed at regular intervals, held aloft a gravel-covered plank bridge. Due to the unstable nature of the lakebed, the 9 piers settled at different levels, causing gaps to appear in the roa...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=840195 ... Read more

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Mark Twain once famously said "there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering, and that was the fact that it is past and can't be restored."  Well, over recent years, The British Library, working with Microsoft has embarked on an ambitious programme to digitise its collection of 19th century books.

There are now 65,000  titles available  (that's an incredible 25 million pages) of material ranging from works by famous names such as  Dickens, Trollope and Hardy as well as many forgotten literary gems , all of which can now be printed on demand and purchased right here on Amazon.

Further information on The British Library and its digitisation programme can be found on The British Library website. ... Read more

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As a well balanced and fully illustrated introductory text, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the physical, technological and social components of natural disaster. The main disaster-producing agents are reviewed systematically in terms of geophysical processes and effects, monitoring, mitigation and warning. The relationship between disasters and society is examined with respect to a wide variety of themes, including damage assessment and prevention, hazard mapping, emergency preparedness, the provision of shelter and the nature of reconstruction. Medical emergencies and the epidemiology of disasters are described, and refugee management and aid to the Third World are discussed. A chapter is devoted to the sociology, psychology, economics and history of disasters.; In many parts of the world the toll of death, injury, damage and deprivation caused by natural disasters is becoming increasingly serious. Major earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, droughts, floods and other similar catastrophes are often followed by large relief operations characterized by substantial involvement of the international community. The years 1990-2000 have therefore been designated by the United Nations as the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction.; The book goes beyond mere description and elevates the field of natural catastrophes to a serious academic level. The author's insights and perspectives are also informed by his practical experience of being a disaster victim and survivor, and hence the unique perspective of a participant observer. Only by surmounting the boundaries between disciplines can natural catastrophe be understood and mitigation efforts made effective. Thus, this book is perhaps the first completely interdisciplinary, fully comprehensive survey of natural hazards and disasters. It has a clear theoretical basis and it recognizes the importance of six fundamental approaches to the field, which it blends carefully in the text in order to avoid the partiality of previous works. It covers the earth and social sciences, as well as engineering, architecture and development studies. This breadth is made possible by virtue of a strong emphasis on simple principles of the interaction of geophysical agents with human vulnerability and response.; All students of environmental sciences/studies and geography should find this book useful. It is an introductory text which treats this dramatic subject area as something demanding serious academic treatment and not just as an assemblage of horror stories.; This book is intended for undergraduate students in geography and environmental studies/sciences. The book should also appeal to any professional or researcher concerned with man- environment relations, whether in social science or natural science or engineering. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A short review of"Natural Disasters"
The author has written this book with the purpose to make a general work on natural hazards that synthesizes it in an accessible and sufficiently comprehensive form. He has tried to transcend the boundaries of disciplines while describing the, in essence very multidisciplinary, nature of geophysical and hydrological hazards.

It is always the difficult dilemma with books on natural hazards. Should it focus on certain aspects of the hazard (its probability of occurrence, its damage potential, the effectiveness of mitigation measures and building codes, its human behaviour and injury causation during the catastrophe, etc), or should the book be presented as a complete entity which involves physical, technological, economic and social realities? The author has chosen for the second option, although he does present now and then parts of the first option.

Many books on natural hazards too often fall to an anecdotal level of 'horror stories' lacking a serious academic treatment of the subject. Although the author includes many case studies in his book, he describes them in a very accurate and objective way. Alexander holds professorships in Massachusetts and in Italy (Siena and Urbino), and therefore many studies from Italy are presented inthe book.

The author finishes his book with a chapter on international strategies against disasters. He reviews the national policies, which vary from disaster relief, to technological adjustments, to comprehensive damage reduction, to multiple hazard management. Also the worldwide strategies of the UN (resolution 42/169 of 1987) adopting the IDNDR of the 90s (International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction) are highlighted.

The sections on risk analysis in the book are interesting, although a bit outdated. Since the publication of the book in 1993 there has been a major step forward in the risk assessments of structures subject to extreme environmental loads.
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This digital document is an article from Cities of the United States, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 163 words.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.Provides a wide range of hard-to-locate data to answer questions concerning American cities. Includes thorough coverage of the area's largest or fastest-growing cities, or those with a particular historical, political, industrial or commercial significance. ... Read more

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Chapters: Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 37. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary is a sanctuary owned by the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the largest conservation organization in New England, in the town of Marshfield, Massachusetts. The sanctuary, formerly the farm of Edward Dwyer, statesman Daniel Webster and the William Thomas family of Marshfield, the first English landowner to live on the sanctuary land, was purchased by Mass Audubon in 1984 thanks to the volunteer efforts of the Committee for the Preservation of Dwyer Farm for the People of Marshfield. The sanctuary contains 507 acres (2.1 km) of mixed cultural grasslands, red maple swamps, a five-tiered wet panne, Webster Pond and a section of the Green Harbor River. It is the site of the annual Daniel Webster Farm Day celebration. Surrounding lands owned by the town of Marshfield and the Marshfield Airport increase the local open space area to more than 1000 acres (4 km²). The majority of the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary is a polder, land reclaimed from water by the installation of a dike near the mouth of the Green Harbor River in 1872. The construction of the dike led to the towns Dike Feud in the late 1800s, a political war of words between local fishermen, who opposed its construction, and farmers, who agreed with it, as the draining of the land provided more arable land. Fox Hill, currently the site of an observation platform, routinely sat above water level prior to the dikes construction, and was known on old maps as Fox Island. The wet panne is a man-made wetland designed to hold five tiers of water levels in order to attract a variety of birds. Similarly, Webster Pond was created by man, but no record currently exists as to which farmer...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=8548101 ... Read more