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On Interpretation
Sociology for Interpreters of Natural and Cultural
Gary E. Machlis
Oregon State University Press, 1992

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Dispatches and Dictators
Ralph Barnes for the Herald Tribune
Barbara S. Mahoney
Oregon State University Press, 2002

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The Salem Clique
Oregon's Founding Brothers
Barbara S. Mahoney
Oregon State University Press, 2017
During the decade of the 1850s, the Oregon Territory progressed toward statehood in an atmosphere of intense political passion and conflict. Editors of rival newspapers blamed a group of young men whom they named the “Salem Clique,” along with the Oregon Statesman newspaper that they controlled, for the bitter party struggles of the time. They accused the so-called Clique of dictatorship and corruption. They charged it with the intention of imposing slavery on the Territory. The Clique, they maintained, even conspired to establish a government separate from the United States, conceivably a “bigamous Mormon republic.”   
 
While not in agreement with some of the more extreme contemporary accusations against the Clique, many historians have concluded that its members were vicious men who were able, because of their command of the Democratic party, to impose their hegemony on the Oregon Territory’s inhabitants. Other scholars have seen them as merely another instance of the contentious politics of the period. 
 
Although the Salem Clique has been given considerable prominence in nearly every account of Oregon’s Territorial period, there has not been a detailed study of its role until now. What sort of people were these men? What was their impact on the issues, events, and movements of the period? What role did they play in the years after Oregon became a state? In The Salem Clique, Historian Barbara Mahoney sets out to answer these and many other questions in this comprehensive and deeply researched history.
 
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Son of Amity
Peter Nathaniel Malae
Oregon State University Press, 2018
Three lives on the verge of ruin intersect in the small Oregon town of Amity: Pika, a half-Samoan ex-con from California, seeks to deliver justice to his sister’s rapist; Michael, a five-tour Iraq War Marine, faces the cracked mirror of his own embattled soul; and Sissy, a recent convert to Catholicism, must resist the lure of ruthless self-judgment and discover what love is.  

Determined to escape the past, these characters find themselves sharing the same torn-down house, bordering tweaker poverty and bucolic wine country. Violence and penance, family and legacy, recidivism and post-traumatic stress disorder linger with the heavy rain of desperation. At the center of this storm is five-year old Benji, whose wide-eyed energy and openhearted faith could show all of them how to still be saved.  
 
In this unforgettable tale, award-winning author Peter Nathaniel Malae explores the depths of human pain and trauma with genuine cultural authority. Son of Amity is a novel whose voices cry out with truth and vulnerability, never betraying that slight tilt toward hope needed to make the long, hard trek to tomorrow.

 
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A Force for Change
Beatrice Morrow Cannady and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Oregon, 1912-1936
Kimberley Mangun
Oregon State University Press, 2010

A Force for Change is the first full-length study of the life and work of one of Oregon’s most dynamic civil rights activists, African American journalist Beatrice Morrow Cannady. Between 1912 and 1936, Cannady tirelessly promoted interracial goodwill and fought segregation and discrimination.

She gave hundreds of lectures to high school and college students and shared her message with radio listeners across the Pacific Northwest. She was assistant editor, and later publisher, of The Advocate, Oregon’s largest African American newspaper. Cannady was the first black woman to graduate from law school in Oregon, and the first to run for state representative. She held interracial teas in her home in Northeast Portland and protested repeated showings of the racist film The Birth of a Nation. And when the Ku Klux Klan swept into Oregon, she urged the governor to act quickly to protect black Oregonians’ right to live and work without fear. Despite these accomplishments—and many more during her twenty-five-year career—Beatrice Cannady fell into obscurity when she left Oregon in about 1938.

A Force for Change illuminates Cannady’s important role in advocating for better race relations in Oregon in the early decades of the twentieth century. It describes her encounters with the period’s leading black artists, editors, politicians, and intellectuals, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, A. Philip Randolph, Oscar De Priest, Roland Hayes, and James Weldon Johnson. It dispels the myth that African Americans played little part in Oregon’s history and enriches our understanding of the black experience in Oregon.

A Force for Change is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of women’s history, gender studies, African American history, journalism history, and Pacific Northwest history. It belongs on the shelf of any reader interested in a richer understanding of the civil rights movement in Oregon and across the country.

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Studies in Outdoor Recreation, 3rd ed.
Search and Research for Satisfaction
Robert E. Manning
Oregon State University Press, 2011

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Studies in Outdoor Recreation
Search and Research for Satisfaction
Robert E. Manning
Oregon State University Press, 2022

Since its original publication in 1986, Studies in Outdoor Recreation has been a standard text in courses on parks and outdoor recreation and serves as an invaluable reference for park and recreation managers. The first book to integrate the social science literature on outdoor recreation, it reviews studies from this broad, interdisciplinary field and synthesizes them into a body of knowledge, providing an historical perspective on outdoor recreation research and developing its practical management implications.
 
This fourth edition includes a new preface and is completely revised to reflect current research and new concerns in the field. A new chapter examines emerging issues such as sustainable transportation and the impacts of climate change.
 
An essential resource for students, scholars, and professionals, Studies in Outdoor Recreation explores the theoretical and methodological issues in outdoor recreation and describes the management implications of outdoor recreation research.

Contributors to the fourth edition include Laura Anderson, Megha Budruk, Kelly Goonan, Jeffrey Hallo, Daniel Laven, Steven Lawson, Rebecca Stanfield McCown, Ben Minteer, Peter Newman, Elizabeth Perry, Peter Pettengill, Nathan Reigner, William Valliere, Carena van Riper, and Xiao Xiao.

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Studies in Outdoor Recreation
Search and Research for Satisfaction
Robert E. Manning
Oregon State University Press, 1999

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Pedaling Revolution
How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities
Jeff Mapes
Oregon State University Press, 2009
Updated Edition includes a new epilogue by the author

In a world of increasing traffic congestion, a grassroots movement is carving out a niche for bicycles on city streets. Pedaling Revolution explores the growing bike culture that is changing the look and feel of cities, suburbs, and small towns across North America.

From traffic-dodging bike messengers to tattooed teenagers on battered bikes, from riders in spandex to well-dressed executives, ordinary citizens are becoming transportation revolutionaries. Jeff Mapes traces the growth of bicycle advocacy and explores the environmental, safety, and health aspects of bicycling. He rides with bicycle advocates who are taming the streets of New York City, joins the street circus that is Critical Mass in San Francisco, and gets inspired by the every-day folk pedaling in Amsterdam, the nirvana of American bike activists. Chapters focused on big cities, college towns, and America’s most successful bike city, Portland, show how cyclists, with the encouragement of local officials, are claiming a share of the valuable streetscape.

“A growing number of Americans, mounted on their bicycles like some new kind of urban cowboy, are mixing it up with swift, two-ton motor vehicles as they create a new society on the streets. They’re finding physical fitness, low-cost transportation, environmental purity—and, still all too often, Wild West risks of sudden death or injury.” —from the introduction

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A Hunger for High Country
One Woman’s Journey to the Wild in Yellowstone Country
Susan Marsh
Oregon State University Press, 2014

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To the Promised Land
A History of Government and Politics in Oregon
Tom Marsh
Oregon State University Press, 2012
The first comprehensive political history of Oregon, To the Promised Land also examines the social and economic changes the state has pioneered during its almost two hundred years. Highlighting major political figures, campaigns, ballot measures,  and the history of legislative sessions, Tom Marsh traces the evolution of Oregon from incorporated territory to a state at the forefront of national environmental and social movements.

From Jason Lee’s first letter urging Congress to take possession of the Oregon Country to John Kitzhaber’s precedent-setting third term as governor, from the land frauds of the early 20th century to the state’s land-use planning goals, from the Beach Bill to the Bottle Bill, this book tells Oregon’s story.

Featuring interesting trivia, historical photographs, and biographical sketches of key politicians, To the Promised Land is an essential volume for readers interested in Oregon’s history.

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Mammals of the Pacific Northwest
From the Coast to the High Cascades
Chis Maser
Oregon State University Press, 1998

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Sonny Montes and Mexican American Activism in Oregon
Glenn Anthony May
Oregon State University Press, 2011

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Theresa May
Oregon State University Press
After a devastating fish kill on the Klamath River, tribal members and theatre artist Theresa May developed a play to give voice to the central spiritual and cultural role of salmon in tribal life. Salmon Is Everything presents the script of that play, along with essays by artists and collaborators that illuminate the process of creating and performing theatre on Native and environmental issues.

Salmon Is Everything simultaneously illuminates the logistics of a crisis in the third largest watershed in the Pacific Northwest—the premature death of more than 30,000 salmon on the Lower Klamath River in 2002—and documents what happened when one community decided to use art to amplify the experiences of its members. The fish kill had unprecedented impact throughout the watershed, and for many tribal communities it signified an ongoing loss of traditional cultural practices. But in the political and ecological upheaval that followed, the role of salmon in tribal life went largely unacknowledged, which inspired the collaboration between May and members of the Yurok, Hoopa Valley, and Karuk tribes, as well as farmers, ranchers, and others invested in the Klamath watershed.

Salmon is Everything will appeal to readers interested in the environmental and cultural history of the Pacific Northwest and the ecological and civil challenges its communities face. For artists and activists, it’s a useful case study. Salmon is Everything offers a unique interdisciplinary resource for high school and college level courses in environmental studies, Native American studies, and theatre arts education.
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Salmon is Everything
Community-Based Theatre in the Klamath Watershed
Theresa May
Oregon State University Press, 2018
After a devastating fish kill on the Klamath River, tribal members and theatre artist Theresa May developed a play to give voice to the central spiritual and cultural role of salmon in tribal life. Salmon Is Everything presents the script of that play, along with essays by artists and collaborators that illuminate the process of creating and performing theatre on Native and environmental issues.

Salmon Is Everything simultaneously illuminates the logistics of a crisis in the third largest watershed in the Pacific Northwest—the premature death of more than 30,000 salmon on the Lower Klamath River in 2002—and documents what happened when one community decided to use art to amplify the experiences of its members. The fish kill had unprecedented impact throughout the watershed, and for many tribal communities it signified an ongoing loss of traditional cultural practices. But in the political and ecological upheaval that followed, the role of salmon in tribal life went largely unacknowledged, which inspired the collaboration between May and members of the Yurok, Hoopa Valley, and Karuk tribes, as well as farmers, ranchers, and others invested in the Klamath watershed.

Salmon is Everything will appeal to readers interested in the environmental and cultural history of the Pacific Northwest and the ecological and civil challenges its communities face. For artists and activists, it’s a useful case study. Salmon is Everything offers a unique interdisciplinary resource for high school and college level courses in environmental studies, Native American studies, and theatre arts education.

New materials in this second edition include additional essays by Native faculty and actors, an updated introduction by the author, minor textual corrections throughout, and a new online resource guide.
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Beyond the Rebel Girl
Women and the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924
Heather Mayer
Oregon State University Press, 2018
More than a century after their founding in 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World—or Wobblies as they are commonly known—remain a popular subject for study and discussion among students of labor history and social justice. They are often portrayed as lovable underdogs, with their songs and cartoons, generally irreverent attitude, and stalwart courage in the face of systemic persecution from vigilantes, law enforcement, and government officials.

In Beyond the Rebel Girl, historian Heather Mayer questions the well-worn vision of Wobblies as young, single, male, itinerant workers. While such workers formed a large portion of the membership, they weren’t the whole picture. In small towns across the Northwest, and in the larger cities of Seattle, Portland, and Spokane, women played an integral role in Wobbly life. Single women, but also families—husband and wife Wobbly teams—played important roles in some of the biggest fights for justice. IWW halls in these Northwest cities often functioned as community centers, with family-friendly events and entertainment.

Women were drawn to the IWW for its radical vision, inclusionary policies, birth control advocacy, and emphasis on freedom of choice in marriage. The IWW also offered women an avenue for activism that wasn’t focused primarily on the fight for suffrage. Beyond the Rebel Girl deepens our understanding of how the IWW functioned and how the union supported women in their fight for birth control, sexual emancipation, and better labor conditions, all while facing persecution at the local, state, and federal levels.
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Macrolichens of the Pacific Northwest, Second Ed.
Bruce McCune
Oregon State University Press, 2009

A key component in healthy ecosystems, lichens can be found in almost any natural habitat in the Pacific Northwest. This comprehensive guide to the region’s macrolichens is intended for use by beginners as well as specialists: weekend naturalists will be able to identify specimens and recognize the great diversity of lichens, while lichenologists and mycologists will gain greater knowledge of the distribution and abundance of various species.

This revised and expanded edition of Macrolichens of the Pacific Northwest includes 116 new species and 176 additional illustrations and incorporates an understanding of macrolichens that has advanced tremendously in the past decade.

Macrolichens of the Pacific Northwest includes keys to 113 genera and 586 species of Oregon and Washington macrolichens—all the macrolichens known or expected to occur in the two states. The keys also provide reasonable coverage for lichens of Idaho and Montana, inland to the Continental Divide. Color photographs and detailed descriptions are provided for 246 species, emphasizing lichens prevalent in forested ecosystems.

The illustrated glossary and introductory material cover the terminology needed to identify macrolichens and provide information on collection and handling. The biology, ecology, and air-quality sensitivity of lichens are discussed; regional air-quality sensitivities are provided for 184 species.

Macrolichens of the Pacific Northwest will prove invaluable to anyone seeking to identify lichens or to better understand these organisms and their vital role in the natural world.

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Macrolichens of the Pacific Northwest
Bruce McCune
Oregon State University Press, 2023

A key component in healthy ecosystems, lichens can be found in almost any natural habitat in the Pacific Northwest. This comprehensive guide to the region’s macrolichens is intended for use by beginners as well as specialists: weekend naturalists will be able to identify specimens and recognize the great diversity of lichens, while lichenologists and mycologists will gain greater knowledge of the distribution and abundance of various species.

This revised and expanded edition of Macrolichens of the Pacific Northwest includes includes keys to over 600 species —all the macrolichens known or expected to occur in Oregon and Washington. The keys also provide coverage for lichens of Idaho and Montana, inland to the Continental Divide. Almost all macrolichens known from northern California and southern British Columbia, and from coastal southeast Alaska, are included as well.

Color photographs and detailed descriptions are provided for more than 250 species, emphasizing lichens prevalent in forested ecosystems. The illustrated glossary and introductory material cover the terminology needed to identify macrolichens and provide information on collection and handling. The biology, ecology, and air-quality sensitivity of lichens are discussed. Macrolichens of the Pacific Northwest will prove invaluable to anyone seeking to identify lichens or to better understand these organisms and their vital role in the natural world.

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Reporting the Oregon Story
How Activists and Visionaries Transformed a State
Floyd J. McKay
Oregon State University Press, 2016
Oregon entered a new era in 1964 with the election of Tom McCall as Secretary of State and Bob Straub as State Treasurer.  Their political rivalry formed the backdrop for two of Oregon’s most transformative decades, as they successively fought for, lost, and won the governorship. Veteran Oregon journalist Floyd McKay had a front-row seat.
 
As a political reporter for The Oregon Statesman in Salem, and then as news analyst for KGW-TV in Portland, McKay was known for asking tough questions and pulling no punches. His reporting and commentaries ranged from analysis of the “Tom and Bob” rivalry, to the Vietnam War’s impact on Senators Wayne Morse and Mark Hatfield and the emergence of a new generation of Portland activists in the 1970s.
 
McKay and his colleagues were on the beaches as Oregon crafted its landmark Beach Bill, ensuring the protection of beaches for public use. They watched as activists turned back efforts to build a highway on the sand at Pacific City. Pitched battles over Oregon’s Bottle Bill, and the panic-inducing excitement of “Vortex”—the nation’s only state-sponsored rock festival—characterized the period. Covering the period from 1964-1986, McKay remembers the action, the players and the consequences, in this compelling and personal account.
 
As major actors fade from the scene and new leaders emerge, McKay casts a backwards glance at enduring Oregon legends. Half a century later, amid today’s cynicism and disillusionment with media, politics, and politicians, Reporting the Oregon Story serves as a timely reminder that charged politics and bitter rivalries can also come hand-in-hand with lasting social progress.
 
Reporting the Oregon Story will be relished by those who lived the history, and it will serve as a worthy introduction to Oregonians young and old who want a first-hand account of Oregon’s mid- twentieth-century political history and legislative legacy.
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A Peculiar Paradise
A History of Blacks in Oregon, 1788-1940
Elizabeth McLagan
Oregon State University Press, 2022
Published in cooperation with Oregon Black Pioneers

A Peculiar Paradise: A History of Blacks in Oregon 1788–1940 remains the most comprehensive chronology of Black life in Oregon more than forty years after its original publication in 1980. The book has long been a resource for those seeking information on the legal and social barriers faced by people of African descent in Oregon. Elizabeth McLagan’s work reveals how in spite of those barriers, Black individuals and families made Oregon their home, and helped create the state’s modern Black communities. Long out of print, the book is available again through this co-publication with Oregon Black Pioneers, Oregon’s statewide African American historical society. The revised second edition includes additional details for students and scholars, an expanded reading list, a new selection of historic images, and a new foreword by Gwen Carr and an afterword by Elizabeth McLagan.
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Here on the Edge
How a Small Group of World War II Conscientious Objectors Took Art and Peace from the Margins to the Mainstream
Steve McQuiddy
Oregon State University Press, 2013
Here on the Edge answers the growing interest in a long-neglected element of World War II history: the role of pacifism in what is often called “The Good War.” Steve McQuiddy shares the fascinating story of one conscientious objector camp located on the rain-soaked Oregon Coast, Civilian Public Service (CPS) Camp #56. As home to the Fine Arts Group at Waldport, the camp became a center of activity where artists and writers from across the country focused their work not so much on the current war, but on what kind of society might be possible when the shooting finally stopped.

They worked six days a week—planting trees, crushing rock, building roads, and fighting forest fires—in exchange for only room and board. At night, they published books under the imprint of the Untide Press. They produced plays, art, and music—all during their limited non-work hours, with little money and few resources. This influential group included poet William Everson, later known as Brother Antoninus, “the Beat Friar”; violinist Broadus Erle, founder of the New Music Quartet; fine arts printer Adrian Wilson; Kermit Sheets, co-founder of San Francisco’s Interplayers theater group; architect Kemper Nomland, Jr.; and internationally renowned sculptor Clayton James.

After the war, camp members went on to participate in the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance of the 1950s, which heavily influenced the Beat Generation of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Gary Snyder—who in turn inspired Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, leading the way to the 1960s upheavals epitomized by San Francisco’s Summer of Love.

As camp members engaged in creative acts, they were plowing ground for the next generation, when a new set of young people, facing a war of their own in Vietnam, would populate the massive peace movements of the 1960s.

Twenty years in the making and packed with original research, Here on the Edge is the definitive history of the Fine Arts Group at Waldport, documenting how their actions resonated far beyond the borders of the camp. It will appeal to readers interested in peace studies, World War II history, influences on the 1960s generation, and in the rich social and cultural history of the West Coast.
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Linus Pauling
Clifford Mead
Oregon State University Press, 2001

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Linus Pauling
Scientist and Peacemaker
Clifford Mead
Oregon State University Press

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My Name is LaMoosh
Linda Meanus
Oregon State University Press, 2023

My Name is LaMoosh is the life story of Warm Springs Tribal elder Linda Meanus. She grew up with her grandma Flora Thompson and grandpa Chief Tommy Thompson near Celilo Falls, a mighty fishery on the Columbia that was flooded in 1957 by the construction of The Dalles Dam. Linda persevered through this historic trauma and life’s challenges to teach young people about the Indigenous ways of the Columbia River.  

Intended for early readers to learn more about Native American history through a first-hand account, the book is also a reminder that Indigenous people continue to maintain a cultural connection to the land and river that gave them their identity.  

My Name is LaMoosh includes fact boxes that provide historical, cultural, and environmental context for Linda’s personal story. Hundreds of books exist about Lewis and Clark and their journey of “discovery.” This book balances our understanding of American history with the long-neglected voices of Indigenous people. Linda’s story is not just about historic trauma but also about resilience, perseverance, and reciprocity.

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I Lived to Tell the World
Stories from Survivors of Holocaust, Genocide, and the Atrocities of War
Elizabeth Mehren
Oregon State University Press, 2024

As Americans increasingly question how each of us fits into our nation's cultural tapestry, I Lived to Tell the World presents thirteen inspiring profiles of refugees who have settled in Oregon. They come from Rwanda, Myanmar, Bosnia, Syria, and more-different stories, different conflicts, but similar paths through loss and violence to a new, not always easy, life in the United States. The in-depth profiles are drawn from hours of interviews and oral histories; journalist Elizabeth Mehren worked collaboratively with the survivors to honor the complexity of their experiences and to ensure that the stories are told with, and not just about, them. Mehren also weaves in historical, cultural, and political context alongside these personal stories of resilience.

In the face of global cruelty and hatred, the courage and fortitude of these individuals illuminate the darkness. Their stories inspire readers to reflect on their own experiences and to view newcomers to America with renewed respect. As more states adopt Holocaust and genocide education curricula and as issues around refugees, immigration, and racial justice gain attention, I Lived to Tell the World highlights the purposeful lives led by these Oregonians despite their painful pasts. Their experiences not only humanize the atrocities often seen in headlines, but also convey a universal message of hope. 

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Meander Scars
Reflections on Healing the Willamette River
Abby Phillips Metzger
Oregon State University Press, 2013
Abby Phillips Metzger’s book of personal stories recounts a forgotten Oregon river, the Willamette, as it was before white settlement. Once a rich network of channels and sloughs, the Willamette today bears the scars of development and degradation.

Yet, through canoe trips and intimate explorations of the river, Metzger discovers glints of resiliency: a beaver trolling through a slough, native fish in quiet backwaters, and strong currents that carry undertones of the wild Willamette. Together with tales from farmers and scientists alike, these experiences lead Metzger to ask whether something scarred can fully heal, and whether a disjointed river can be whole again.

A story of re-discovery as told by a learner, Meander Scars will appeal to readers of literary nonfiction, river advocates, naturalists, and outdoor enthusiasts interested in sustaining healthy river systems for themselves, their children, and beyond.
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Public Lands, Public Debates
A Century of Controversy
Char Miller
Oregon State University Press, 2012
The subject of historic struggle and contemporary dispute, public lands in the United States are treasured spaces. In Public Lands, Public Debates, environmental historian Char Miller explores the history of conservation thinking and the development of a government agency with stewardship at its mission.
 
Owned in common, our national forests, monuments, parks, and preserves are funded through federal tax receipts, making these public lands national in scope and significance. Their controversial histories demonstrate their vulnerability to shifting tides of public opinion, alterations in fiscal support, and overlapping authorities for their management—including federal, state, and local mandates, as well as critical tribal prerogatives and military claims.
 
Miller takes the Forest Service as a gauge of the broader debates in which Americans have engaged since the late nineteenth century. In nineteen essays,he examines critical moments of public and private negotiation to help explain the particular, and occasionally peculiar, tensions that have shaped the administration of public lands in the United States.
 
 “Watching democracy at work can be bewildering, even frustrating, but the only way individuals and organizations can sift through the often messy business of public deliberation is to deliberate...”

—Char Miller, from the introduction

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Water in the West
A High Country News Reader
Char Miller
Oregon State University Press, 2000

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Cheese War
Conflict and Courage in Tillamook County, Oregon
Marilyn Milne
Oregon State University Press, 2022
In the 1960s, Tillamook County, Oregon, was at war with itself. As the regional dairy industry shifted from small local factories to larger consolidated factories, and as profit margins for milk and cheese collapsed, Tillamook farmers found themselves in a financial crisis that fueled multiple disputes. The ensuing Cheese War included lies and secrets, as well as spies, high emotion, a shoving match, and even a death threat.

On one side of the battle was Beale Dixon, head of Tillamook County Creamery Association. Dixon set up a scheme to offer low-interest, low-collateral loans from TCCA’s largest member cooperative, Tillamook Cheese & Dairy Association, to the supermarkets that stocked Tillamook products. Dixon argued it was a cheap, easy way to ensure good will—and continued purchases—in a tight market. On the other side was George Milne, a respected farmer and board president of the cooperative. Milne supported his board’s decision that loans would require board approval and bank oversight. Dixon mostly ignored those requirements.

The discovery of more financial irregularities soon spiraled  into a community-wide dispute, exacerbated by a complex web of family and business relationships. The Cheese War raged for the better part of a decade across board meetings, courtrooms, and the community itself. While largely unknown outside of Tillamook County, the Cheese War was so divisive that some families remain fractured today.

Sisters Marilyn Milne and Linda Kirk, children of the Cheese War, saw how it absorbed their parents. As adults, they set out to learn more about what had happened. The authors conducted years of research and have integrated it with tales of their experiences as farm kids living through the all-consuming fight. As Americans become ever more interested in food supply chains and ethical consumption, here is the story of the very human factors behind one of Oregon’s most iconic brands.
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Leaded
The Poisoning of Idaho's Silver Valley
Michael C. Mix
Oregon State University Press, 2016
Leaded: The Poisoning of Idaho’s Silver Valley examines the origin, evolution, and causes of harmful environmental and human health effects caused by mining operations in Idaho’s Coeur d'Alene Mining District, the “Silver Valley,” from 1885-1981. During that period, district mines produced over $4 billion worth of lead, silver, and zinc. The Bunker Hill Company dominated business and community activities through ownership of its rich mine, lead smelter, and zinc plant.
 
During the first half of the 20th century, industrial mining operations caused severe environmental damage to area waterways and lands from releases of lead and other toxic metals, and sulfur gases. Despite the obvious devastation, no effective federal laws regulating mining and smelting operations were passed until the 1970s, due to the influence of the mine and lead industry in state and federal politics, and scientific uncertainties about pollution effects. Harmful human health effects were evident soon after the smelter opened in 1917, when Bunker Hill workers suffered from lead poisoning, but no federal laws regulating workplace lead were passed until the 1970s.
 
In 1974, lead smelter emissions from Bunker Hill caused the largest epidemic of childhood lead poisoning in U.S. history. That landmark event ultimately led to the EPA mandating federal air lead standards in 1978 and, at the same time, NIOSH passed national standards reducing occupational lead exposures. Bunker Hill could not meet the new standards; consequently, the company closed in 1981, leaving behind a contaminated geographic area that was classified as the largest Superfund site in the United States in 1983.
 
Leaded is a deeply researched account of one of the greatest environmental disasters in our history. It belongs on the bookshelf of every student of environmental history, western history, mining history, environmental ethics, and environmental law.
 
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Touching This Leviathan
Peter Wayne Moe
Oregon State University Press, 2021

Touching This Leviathan asks how we might come to know the unknowable—in this case, whales, animals so large yet so elusive, revealing just a sliver of back, a glimpse of a fluke, or a split-second breach before diving away.

Whale books often sit within disciplinary silos. Touching This Leviathan starts a conversation among them. Drawing on biology, theology, natural history, literature, and writing studies, Peter Wayne Moe offers a deep dive into the alluring and impalpable mysteries of Earth’s largest mammal.

Entertaining, thought-provoking, and swimming with intelligence and wit, Touching is Leviathan is creative nonfiction that gestures toward science and literary criticism as it invites readers into the belly of the whale.

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Holdfast
At Home in the Natural World
Kathleen Dean Moore
Oregon State University Press, 2013

Naturalist and philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore meditates on connection and separation in these twenty-one elegant, probing essays. Using the metaphor of holdfasts—the structures that attach seaweed to rocks with a grip strong enough to withstand winter gales—she examines our connections to our own bedrock.

“When people lock themselves in their houses at night and seal the windows shut to keep out storms, it is possible to forget, sometimes for years and years, that human beings are part of the natural world,” she writes. Holdfast passionately reclaims an awareness of the natural world, exploring the sense of belonging fostered by the communal howls of wolves; the inevitability of losing children to their own lives; the fear of bears and love of storms; the sublimity of life and longing in the creatures of the sea; her agonizing decision when facing her father’s bone-deep pain. As Moore travels philosophically and geographically—from Oregon’s shores to Alaska’s islands—she leaves no doubt of her virtuosity and range. 

The new afterword is an important statement on the new responsibilities of nature writers as the world faces the consequences of climate change. 

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Take Heart
Encouragement for Earth’s Weary Lovers
Kathleen Dean Moore
Oregon State University Press, 2022
Earth’s weary lovers are tired, perplexed, and battered from all directions. Their hearts have so often been broken. It’s hard to go on, but it is morally impossible to quit. How do Earth’s protectors find the heart to continue the struggle?

To this question, environmental philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore and Canadian artist Bob Haverluck bring twenty-two life-affirming essays and drawings. Their entwined art offers pluck, stubborn resolve, and even some laughter to those who have for years been working for environmental sanity, social justice, and ecological thriving.

What Moore and Haverluck offer is encouragement to join or keep on with Earth’s work—not distractions, but deep and honest reasons to remember that the struggle matters. Rather than another to-do list or an empty promise of hope, Take Heart is a thank-you gift to the multitudes of Earth’s defenders. Inside its pages, they will find reason to take heart.

Taking heart is not hope exactly, but maybe it’s courage. Not solutions to the planetary crisis, but some modest advice for the inevitable crisis of the heart. A rueful grin, and gratitude to be part of this strange and necessary work for the endangered Earth.
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front cover of Homing Instincts
Homing Instincts
Dionisia Morales
Oregon State University Press, 2018
As a native New Yorker who now calls Oregon home, Dionisia Morales knows how moving and resettling can spark an identity crisis relative to geography, family, and tradition. The essays collected in Homing Instincts explore how Morales’s conception of home plays out in her daily life, as she navigates the gap between where she is and the stories she tells herself about where she belongs.

Although Morales migrated from one North American coast to another, the questions she raises are relevant to migrations of any scale and place, whether across town or around the world. What does it mean to be a newcomer? Who has the right to claim a sense of place? What is gained or lost when we try to fit in? In a world where people are migrating more than ever for social, economic, personal, and political reasons, these questions take on a new urgency.

A wife and mother as well as a professional writer and editor, Morales writes with grace and resolve about a broad range of topics, including pregnancy, people watching, rock climbing, and bee colony collapse. She channels a spirit of adventure and adaptability while acknowledging how certain habits and mindsets are indelibly ingrained and are—like it or not—forever part of where, what, and who we call home.

As issues of migration and social integration play out in national and international politics, Morales provides a personal lens through which readers can appreciate that at one time or another we have all been in the process of arriving. Homing Instincts is a remarkable debut from a gifted prose stylist. It will be warmly received by lovers of the essay form and anyone who has sought, or still seeks, a place to call home.
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front cover of Living Off the Pacific Ocean Floor
Living Off the Pacific Ocean Floor
Stories of a Commercial Fisherman
George Moskovita
Oregon State University Press, 2015
In this authentic account of a seafaring life, Captain George Moskovita offers a highly personal and often humorous look at the career of a commercial fisherman. George Moskovita was sixteen when he graduated from high school in Bellingham, Washington, and went to sea. Fishing would take him crabbing off Alaska, seining for sardines off California and for tuna off Mexico, and catching soupfin sharks for their livers (a vital source of Vitamin A during World War II). He came to Astoria, Oregon, in 1939, where he was a pioneer of the Oregon ocean perch fishery.

In a career that spanned over 60 years, George Moskovita met with many maritime adventures, recounted for the reader in a clear, direct, and unsentimental style. He saw the fishery he had helped build devastated by foreign factory processing ships. He bought, repaired, traded, and sank more boats than most fishermen would work on in a lifetime. Along the way, he managed to raise four daughters with his wife, June. The name of one of his last boats, the Four Daughters, reflects the central importance of family life to a man who was often at sea. Moskovita’s memoir provides a unique glimpse of Pacific maritime life in the 20th century, small-town coastal life after World War II, and the early days of fishery development in Oregon.

With an introduction and textual notes by Carmel Finley, an historian of science, and Mary Hunsicker, an aquatic and fisheries scientist, this book will be invaluable to fishery students and professionals interested in the biology, ecology, and history of oceans and commercial fishing. It will also have broad appeal to readers of Oregon history and maritime adventure, and anyone else who has ever stood at the western edge of the continent and wondered what life was like at sea.
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