Using the loopholes in the welfare system, a Kentucky family abandons its former state of poverty and begins a new life.

Along the banks of the river once called Oxus lie the heartlands of Central Asia: Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Catapulted into the news by events in Afghanistan, just across the water, these strategically important, intriguing and beautiful countries remain almost completely unknown to the outside world. In this book, Monica Whitlock goes far beyond the headlines. Using eyewitness accounts, unpublished letters and firsthand reporting, she enters into the lives of the Central Asians and reveals a dramatic and moving human story unfolding over three generations. There is Muhammadjan, called 'Hindustani', a diligent seminary student in the holy city of Bukhara until the 1917 revolution tore up the old order. Exiled to Siberia as a shepherd and then conscripted into the Red Army, he survived to become the inspiration for a new generation of clerics. Henrika was one of tens of thousands of Poles who walked and rode through Central Asia on their way to a new life in Iran, where she lives to this day. Then there were the proud Pioneer children who grew up in the certainty that the Soviet Union would last forever, only to find themselves in a new world that they had never imagined. In Central Asia, the extraordinary is commonplace and there is not a family without a remarkable story to tell. Land Beyond the River is both a chronicle of a century and a clear-eyed, authoritative view of contemporary events.

Proud of Their Heritage and Sustained by Their Faith, They Came to Tame a New Land She had promised herself that once they left the fjords of Norway, she would not look back. After three long years of scrimping and saving to buy tickets for their passage to America, Roald and Ingeborg Bjorklund, along with their son, Thorliff, finally arrive at the docks of New York City. It was the promise of free land that fed their dream and lured them from their beloved home high above the fjords of Norway in 1880. Together with Roald's brother Carl and his family, they will build a good life in a new land that promises untold wealth and vast farmsteads for their children. As they join the throngs of countless immigrants passing through Castle Garden, they soon discover that nothing is as they had envisioned it. Appalled by the horrid stories of fellow immigrants bilked of all their money and forced to live in squalid living conditions, the Bjorklunds continue their long journey by train as far as Grand Forks. From there a covered wagon takes them into Dakota Territory, where they settle on the banks of the Red River. But there was no way for them to foresee the price they will have to pay to wrest a living from the indomitable land. The virgin prairie refuses to yield its treasure without a struggle. Will they be strong enough to overcome the hardships of that first winter?

The Beaverkill, Willowemoc, Neversink, Esopus, Schoharie, and Delaware—the rivers of angling pioneers Thaddeus Norris, Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, Theodore Gordon, and many others—are celebrated in this gorgeous book of photographs and text. In three major sections, Land of Little Rivers presents historical and physical profiles of the rivers; classic rods, reels, and flies; and engaging stories of the people, events, and developments that constitute the Catskill fly-fishing tradition. Complementing its photographic beauty, Land of Little Rivers is a book of substance, filled with fascinating stories, anecdotes, and nuggety captions. Land of Little Rivers is the product of author Francis’s twenty-five years of research and writing about Catskill fly fishing, and of photographer Ferorelli’s more than thirteen thousand images, from which has been selected the most evocative portfolio of photos ever made of these historic rivers. Together they have produced an exquisite, museum-quality work, one that captures magnificently the beauty and passion so central to the sport Izaak Walton called “the gentle art.”

Rivers are essential to every aspect of civilization, yet how many understand how they work? Fleming takes readers on a journey along our planet's waterways, providing a scientist's reflections on the profound interrelationships that rivers have with landscapes, ecosystems, and societies.

From Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara lands in South Dakota; to Cherokee lands in Tennessee; to Sin-Aikst, Lakes, and Colville lands in Washington; to Chemehuevi lands in Arizona; to Maidu, Pit River, and Wintu lands in northern California, Native lands and communities have been treated as sacrifice zones for national priorities of irrigation, flood control, and hydroelectric development. Upstream documents the significance of the Allotment Era to a long and ongoing history of cultural and community disruption. It also details Indigenous resistance to both hydropower and disruptive conservation efforts. With a focus on northeastern California, this book highlights points of intervention to increase justice for Indigenous peoples in contemporary natural resource policy making. Author Beth Rose Middleton Manning relates the history behind the nation’s largest state-built water and power conveyance system, California’s State Water Project, with a focus on Indigenous resistance and activism. She illustrates how Indigenous history should inform contemporary conservation measures and reveals institutionalized injustices in natural resource planning and the persistent need for advocacy for Indigenous restitution and recognition. Upstream uses a multidisciplinary and multitemporal approach, weaving together compelling stories with a study of placemaking and land development. It offers a vision of policy reform that will lead to improved Indigenous futures at sites of Indigenous land and water divestiture around the nation.

With more than 150 never-before-published duotone images, taken between 1892 and 1930, this collection explores the history of the Chicago River and the impact its reversal had on the watershed all the way to the Mississippi River. Offering the most complete description available of the river reversal, the stories told here provide a better understanding as to how it was done and why it was necessary, as well as how the water from the Chicago River is treated. The photographs were pulled from a glass plate photo collection taken by the Sanitary District of Chicago.