Harlen Bretz walked the dry scabland channels of eastern Washington in the 1920s, it dawned on him that he was viewing a landscape sculpted by water. Lots of water. A flood of catastrophic proportions. Glacial Lake Missoula and Its Humongous Floods tells the gripping tale of a huge Ice Age lake that drained suddenly--not just once but repeatedly--and reshaped the landscape of the Northwest. The narrative follows the path of the floodwaters as they raged from western Montana across the Idaho Panhandle, then scoured through eastern Washington and down the Columbia Gorge to the Pacific Ocean. This is also the story of geologists grappling with scientific controversy--"of how personalities, pride, and prejudice sometimes superseded scientific evidence."

    It has been owned since the seventeenth century by the Anglo-Irish Kirkwoods. In 1932, David Thomson, aged eighteen, went there as a tutor. He stayed for ten years.This memoir, acknowledged as a masterpiece, grew out of two great loves — for Woodbrook and for Phoebe, his pupil. In it he builds up a delicate, lyrical picture of a gentle pre-war society, of Irish history and troubled Anglo-Irish relations, and of a delightful family. Above all, his story reverberates with the enchantment of falling in love and with the desolation of bereavement.

    Rehder, the man CBS News once described as "America's secret weapon in the war against bank robbers," chronicles the lives and crimes of bank robbers in today's Los Angeles who are as colorful and exciting as the legends of long ago. The mild-mannered antiques dealer who robbed more banks than anyone else in history. The modern Fagin who took a page out of Dickens and had children rob banks for him. The misfit bodybuilders who used a movie as a blueprint for a spree of violent robberies.In a fast-paced, hard-edged style that reads like a novel, Where the Money Is carries us through these stories and more—all within a pistol shot of Hollywood, all true-life tales as vivid as anything on the big screen.

    The book's unrivaled reproduction of these fascinating and intricate documents provides graphic close-ups and reveals more than just pure geography-it offers insight into the cultures and beliefs of the great civilizations that gave rise to them. From classical cities like Rome and Jerusalem to modern hubs like New York and Tokyo, the stories behind each map are revealed: why it was created, who it was intended for, and how it was achieved. Profiles of key cartographers, planners, and artists give even further insight into the history of each urban masterpiece.With its genuinely unique and superbly illustrated approach to the most celebrated city maps in history and its lavish textured and foiled jacket, Great City Maps is a beautiful piece to add to any collection and a must-have for all history and geography enthusiasts.