Boom Town Blues: Collapse and Revival in a Single-Industry Community tells of the Northern Ontario city of Elliot Lake, once the uranium capital of the world, which was devastated by the closing of the uranium mines operated by Denison and Rio Algom. The closures and mass layoffs were first announced in 1990 with the layoffs occurring from then until June 1996. Throughout the period after the layoffs were announced, several major research projects were undertaken. One, the Elliot Lake Tracking and Adjustment Study, follows approximately 1,000 of the laid-off miners and 530 of their spouses through their adjustment processes. Another, the Seniors Needs Assessment, examines the human resource and service needs of the increasing numbers of seniors moving to Elliot Lake as part of the community's economic strategy. In addition to these social scientific studies, several land and environmental reclamation research projects have been undertaken. Boom Town Blues: Collapse and Revival in a Single-Industry Community tells the reader about the results of these studies and gives a variety of community-based perspectives on the Elliot Lake story. The book highlights the struggles and successes of families and of the community as a whole. Boom Town Blues is about one community's struggle to survive, to shift its economic base from mining to one where retirement living for seniors, mine decommissioning, and a community-based research facility would be among several economic survival strategies. The book is of interest to readers throughout Northern Ontario and, indeed, wherever single-industry towns are threatened by major shifting in their economic base and are struggling to survive. The book also provides an excellent case study for teachers, students, policy makers, and politicians.

When it comes to black gold in Oil Springs and Petrolia, Jack has seen it all. So, when the opportunity affords itself to share his tale of fortune and fame ... sorry, his role in the mid-1800's discovery of oil in Canada and the subsequent black gold rush in southwestern Ontario, he jumps at the chance. From the trials and tribulations of early efforts to drill for oil, to murder, back room deals, and American forays into the Canadian market, Jack seems to know it all. Or, at the very least, he knows someone who knows someone. And he certainly enjoys the attention... and the odd appreciative gesture of a beverage or two that his storytelling brings. But, Jack’s love for the ladies is second only to his penchant for embellishment, so it’s up to his partner, George, and the gorgeous Winsome to attempt to keep him on the straight and narrow. Sometimes they succeed, and sometimes... well, you’ll have to see for yourself.

A brilliant, kaleidoscopic narrative of Oklahoma City—a great American story of civics, basketball, and destiny, from award-winning journalist Sam Anderson NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Chicago Tribune • San Francisco Chronicle • The Economist • Deadspin Oklahoma City was born from chaos. It was founded in a bizarre but momentous “Land Run” in 1889, when thousands of people lined up along the borders of Oklahoma Territory and rushed in at noon to stake their claims. Since then, it has been a city torn between the wild energy that drives its outsized ambitions, and the forces of order that seek sustainable progress. Nowhere was this dynamic better realized than in the drama of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team’s 2012-13 season, when the Thunder’s brilliant general manager, Sam Presti, ignited a firestorm by trading future superstar James Harden just days before the first game. Presti’s all-in gamble on “the Process”—the patient, methodical management style that dictated the trade as the team’s best hope for long-term greatness—kicked off a pivotal year in the city’s history, one that would include pitched battles over urban planning, a series of cataclysmic tornadoes, and the frenzied hope that an NBA championship might finally deliver the glory of which the city had always dreamed. Boom Town announces the arrival of an exciting literary voice. Sam Anderson, former book critic for New York magazine and now a staff writer at the New York Times magazine, unfolds an idiosyncratic mix of American history, sports reporting, urban studies, gonzo memoir, and much more to tell the strange but compelling story of an American city whose unique mix of geography and history make it a fascinating microcosm of the democratic experiment. Filled with characters ranging from NBA superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook; to Flaming Lips oddball frontman Wayne Coyne; to legendary Great Plains meteorologist Gary England; to Stanley Draper, Oklahoma City's would-be Robert Moses; to civil rights activist Clara Luper; to the citizens and public servants who survived the notorious 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, Boom Town offers a remarkable look at the urban tapestry woven from control and chaos, sports and civics.

What are the secrets to the making of a healthy, thriving small town?

Reexamination of the role of the West in U.S. history and of the field of western history itself told by ten historians.

What does it mean to live in the West today? Do people tend to identify with states, with regions, or with the larger West? This book examines the development of regional identity in the American West, demonstrating that it is a regionally diverse entity made up of many different wests--Great Plains, Southwest, Rocky Mountains, and more--in which American regionalism finds its fullest expression. These fourteen original essays tell how a sense of place emerged among residents of various regions and how a sense of those places was developed by people outside of them. Wrobel and Steiner first offer a compelling overview of the West's regional nature; then thirteen other rising or renowned scholars-from history, American Studies, geography, and literature-tell how regional consciousness formed among inhabitants of particular regions. All of the essays address the larger issue of the centrality of place in determining social and cultural forms and individual and collective identities. Some focus on race and culture as the primary influences on regional consciousness while others emphasize environmental and economic factors or the influence of literature. Some even examine western regionalism in areas that lie beyond the West as it has traditionally been conceived. Each of the contributors believes that where a people live helps determine what they are, and they write not only about the many wests within the larger West, but also about the constant state of flux in which regionalism exists. Many books speak of the West as a place, but few others deal with the West's different places. Many Wests presents a vision of the West that reflects both the common heritage and unique character of each major subregion, building on the revisionist impulse of the last decade to help redirect New Western History toward an appreciation of regional diversity and integrate scholarship in the regional subfields. It is a book for everyone who lives in, studies, or loves the West, for it confirms that it is home to very different peoples, economies, histories-and regions.