It’s been more than forty years since the second edition of this landmark guide to the preservation and restoration of gardens and landscapes at historic sites was published. Since the last edition came out, author Rudy Favretti, the nation’s foremost authority in this area, has worked on many significant sites including both Monticello and Mount Vernon. New to this edition are: Personal case studies from the authors’ extensive experience in landscape restoration-preservation An in-depth look complete with color images of the archaeological excavations at Bacon’s Castle and Monticello in Virginia Seventy-three illustrations including eight color photos An enlarged and comprehensive bibliography Fully updated and added chapters based on new and emerging information in the field Further, Landscape and Gardens for Historic Buildings covers a wide array of topics including researching and planning, maintaining restored landscapes, identifying authentic flora, and selecting the right historical period, or a series of periods to show the evolution of the historic landscape.

Exploring the relationship between Native Americans and the natural world, Biodiversity and Native America questions the widespread view that indigenous peoples had minimal ecological impact in North America. Introducing a variety of perspectives - ethnopharmacological, ethnographic, archaeological, and biological - this volume shows that Native Americans were active managers of natural ecological systems. The book covers groups from the sophisticated agriculturalists of the Mississippi River drainage region to the low-density hunter-gatherers of arid western North America. This book allows readers to develop accurate restoration, management, and conservation models through a thorough knowledge of native peoples’ ecological history and dynamics. It also illustrates how indigenous peoples affected environmental patterns and processes, improving crop diversity and agricultural patterns.

Ask children where food comes from, and they’ll probably answer: “the supermarket.” Ask most adults, and their replies may not be much different. Where our foods are raised and what happens to them between farm and supermarket shelf have become mysteries. How did we become so disconnected from the sources of our breads, beef, cheeses, cereal, apples, and countless other foods that nourish us every day? Ann Vileisis’s answer is a sensory-rich journey through the history of making dinner. Kitchen Literacy takes us from an eighteenth-century garden to today’s sleek supermarket aisles, and eventually to farmer’s markets that are now enjoying a resurgence. Vileisis chronicles profound changes in how American cooks have considered their foods over two centuries and delivers a powerful statement: what we don’t know could hurt us. As the distance between farm and table grew, we went from knowing particular places and specific stories behind our foods’ origins to instead relying on advertisers’ claims. The woman who raised, plucked, and cooked her own chicken knew its entire life history while today most of us have no idea whether hormones were fed to our poultry. Industrialized eating is undeniably convenient, but it has also created health and environmental problems, including food-borne pathogens, toxic pesticides, and pollution from factory farms. Though the hidden costs of modern meals can be high, Vileisis shows that greater understanding can lead consumers to healthier and more sustainable choices. Revealing how knowledge of our food has been lost and how it might now be regained, Kitchen Literacy promises to make us think differently about what we eat.

Bracelets, buckles, buttons, and beads. Clasps, combs, and chains. Items of personal adornment fill museum collections and are regularly uncovered in historical period archaeological excavations. But until the publication of this comprehensive volume, there has been no basic guide to help curators, registrars, historians, archaeologists, or collectors identify this class of objects from colonial and early republican America. Carolyn L. White helps the reader understand and interpret these artifacts, discussing their source, manufacture, materials, function, and value in early American life. She uses them as a window on personal identity, showing how gender, age, ethnicity, and class were often displayed through the objects worn. White draws not only on the items themselves, but uses their portrayal in art, contemporary writings, advertisements, and business records to assess their meaning to their owners. A reference volume for the shelf of anyone interested in early American material culture. Over 100 illustrations and tables.

A classic work on farm buildings made by nineteenth-century New Englanders refreshed with a new introduction. Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn portrays the four essential components of the stately and beautiful connected farm buildings made by nineteenth-century New Englanders that stand today as a living expression of a rural culture, offering insights into the people who made them and their agricultural way of life. A visual delight as well as an engaging tribute to our nineteenth-century forebears, this book, first published nearly forty years ago, has become one of the standard works on regional farmsteads in America. This new edition features a new preface by the author.