John Stilgoe is just looking around. This is more difficult than it sounds, particularly in our mediated age, when advances in both theory and technology too often seek to replace the visual evidence before our own eyes rather than complement it. We are surrounded by landscapes charged with our past, and yet from our earliest schooldays we are instructed not to stare out the window. Someone who stops to look isn’t only a rarity; he or she is suspect. Landscape and Images records a lifetime spent observing America’s constructed landscapes. Stilgoe’s essays follow the eclectic trains of thought that have resulted from his observation, from the postcard preference for sunsets over sunrises to the concept of "teen geography" to the unwillingness of Americans to walk up and down stairs. In Stilgoe's hands, the subject of jack o’ lanterns becomes an occasion to explore centuries-old concepts of boundaries and trespassing, and to examine why this originally pagan symbol has persisted into our own age. Even something as mundane as putting the cat out before going to bed is traced back to fears of unwatched animals and an untended frontier fireplace. Stilgoe ponders the forgotten connections between politics and painted landscapes and asks why a country whose vast majority lives less than a hundred miles from a coast nonetheless looks to the rural Midwest for the classic image of itself. At times breathtaking in their erudition, the essays collected here are as meticulously researched as they are elegantly written. Stilgoe’s observations speak to specialists—whether they be artists, historians, or environmental designers—as well as to the common reader. Our landscapes constitute a fascinating history of accident and intent. The proof, says Stilgoe, is all around us.

Geography as an academic discipline dates back to the last few decades of the nineteenth century. However, during the preceding centuries a large body of English-language literature relevant to the field of special geography was published. Four Centuries of Special Geography lists all the works published before 1888 and includes descriptions of each entry and notes on later editions.

Argumentation is often understood as a coherent set of Western theories, birthed in Athens and developing throughout the Roman period, the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment and Renaissance, and into the present century. Ideas have been nuanced, developed, and revised, but still the outline of argumentation theory has been recognizable for centuries, or so it has seemed to Western scholars. The 2019 Alta Conference on Argumentation (co-sponsored by the National Communication Association and the American Forensic Association) aimed to question the generality of these intellectual traditions. This resulting collection of essays deals with the possibility of having local theories of argument – local to a particular time, a particular kind of issue, a particular place, or a particular culture. Many of the papers argue for reconsidering basic ideas about arguing to represent the uniqueness of some moment or location of discourse. Other scholars are more comfortable with the Western traditions, and find them congenial to the analysis of arguments that originate in discernibly distinct circumstances. The papers represent different methodologies, cover the experiences of different nations at different times, examine varying sorts of argumentative events (speeches, court decisions, food choices, and sound), explore particular personal identities and the issues highlighted by them, and have different overall orientations to doing argumentation scholarship. Considered together, the essays do not generate one simple conclusion, but they stimulate reflection about the particularity or generality of the experience of arguing, and therefore the scope of our theories.

The world's most comprehensive, well documented, and well illustrated book on this subject. With extensive index. 351 color photos or illustrations, Free of charge in digital format on Google Books,

How children helped abolish slavery During the antebellum period, several abolitionist figures, including William Lloyd Garrison, the editor of the Liberator; Susan Paul, an African American primary school teacher; Henry Clarke Wright, a white reformer; and Frederick Douglass, the internationally renowned activist, consistently appealed to the sympathies of children against slavery. In 1835, Garrison proclaimed, “If . . . we desire to see our land delivered from the curse of PREJUDICE and SLAVERY, we must direct our efforts chiefly to the rising generation.” This rallying cry found a receptive audience and ignited action. Despite their limited scholarly exploration, children occupied a crucial position within the US abolition movement. Through a reexamination of archival materials including antislavery newspapers, correspondence, and autobiographies, Young Abolitionists is the first book to center children’s participation in the campaign to eradicate slavery in the United States. Michaël Roy uncovers how young advocates—Black and white alike—confidently delivered antislavery speeches within their schools, enrolled in juvenile antislavery societies, and contributed to the editorial process of antislavery newspapers. They aided fugitive slaves, attended antislavery fairs, and engaged in activities commemorating John Brown’s legacy. They even affixed their signatures to antislavery petitions, thus challenging the boundaries of their own citizenship. Abolitionists saw childhood as a force for social change. With the help of parents and teachers, children acted in concrete ways against slavery and made a meaningful contribution toward its demise. Young Abolitionists honors their contributions and reminds us that children can—and must—be included in the fight for a better world.