2 books found
American Presidents, Polk to Hayes. What They Did. What They Said, What Was Said About Them is the second book in a planned five volume series, covering all the Presidents. These 43 men (so far) have succeeded in some regards and failed in others as they strove to do the best they could in what is surely one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Only they can truly appreciate what it takes to be the president. Others can only speculate. People feel strongly about U.S. Presidents. Some they admire – others they hate. It is fair game to criticize a president’s actions and policies. However, questioning their commitment to American ideals seems like hitting below the belt. There are no willing villains. Most people can find justification for their actions, beliefs, and prejudices. Each president strove to do the best he could for the nation and its people. This goal of the book is not to praise presidents, nor is it to condemn them. The subtitle of each of the five books in the series: What They Did. What They Said, What Was Said About Them, perfectly describes the approach adopted to tell their stories in a unique, way, meant to entertain as well as inform. Readers are asked to make their own judgments of the presidencies based on more information that the semi-myths they may recall History courses or what is preached in the many longstanding and despicable negative campaigning, mudslinging and character assassination reports they hear from partisans. One can find much to admire about each of the presidents and unfortunately much to deplore. Soldiers are told that in giving salutes to officers is not honoring the individuals, but rather their rank. If there are presidents, readers just feel they cannot salute, hopefully they can salute the presidency.
by Mason C. Carter, Robert C. Kellison, R. Scott Wallinger
2015 · LSU Press
During the second half of the twentieth century, the forest industry removed more than 300 billion cubic feet of timber from southern forests. Yet at the same time, partnerships between public and private entities improved the inventory, health, and productivity of this vast and resilient resource. A comprehensive and multilayered history, Forestry in the U.S. South explores the remarkable commercial and environmental gains made possible through the collaboration of industry, universities, and other agencies. This authoritative assessment starts by discussing the motives and practices of early lumber companies, which, having exhausted the forests of the Northeast by the turn of the twentieth century, aggressively began to harvest the virgin pine of the South, with production peaking by 1909. The rapidly declining supply of old-growth southern pine triggered a threat of timber famine and inspired efforts to regulate the industry. By mid-century, however, industrial forestry had its own profit incentive to replenish harvested timber. This set the stage for a unique alliance between public and private sectors, which conducted cooperative research on tree improvement, fertilization, seedling production, and other practices germane to sustainable forest management. By the close of the 1990s, concerns about an inadequate timber supply gave way to questions about how to utilize millions of acres of pine plantations approaching maturity. No longer concerned with the future supply of raw material and facing mounting global competition the U.S. pulp and paper industry consolidated, restructured, and sold nearly 20 million acres of forests to Timber Investment Management Organizations (TIMOs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), resulting in an entirely new dynamic for private forestry in the South. Incomparable in scope, Forestry in the U.S. South spotlights the people and organizations responsible for empowering individual forest owners across the region, tripling the production of pine stands and bolstering the livelihoods of thousands of men and women across the South.