Feature Title
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The Atlas of Boston History by Publication Date: 2019Few American cities possess a history as long, rich, and fascinating as Boston's. A site of momentous national political events from the Revolutionary War through the civil rights movement, Boston has also been an influential literary and cultural capital. From ancient glaciers to landmaking schemes and modern infrastructure projects, the city's terrain has been transformed almost constantly over the centuries. The Atlas of Boston History traces the city's history and geography from the last ice age to the present with beautifully rendered maps. Edited by historian Nancy S. Seasholes, this landmark volume captures all aspects of Boston's past in a series of fifty-seven stunning full-color spreads. Each section features newly created thematic maps that focus on moments and topics in that history. These maps are accompanied by hundreds of historical and contemporary illustrations and explanatory text from historians and other expert contributors. They illuminate a wide range of topics including Boston's physical and economic development, changing demography, and social and cultural life.
Boston's green spaces - an exhibition. Click image to enter.
Introducing Boston's Natural History
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Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston by Publication Date: 2010How the city's relationship with its natural surroundings informed its early growth and development. Land use, city planning, parks, architecture, environmental conditions, harbor, Charles River, and human ecology are some of the subjects discussed in the sources..
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The Paradise of All These Parts : a natural history of Boston by Publication Date: 2008Through observations of modern-day Boston, a veteran nature writer recounts the city's natural past, from volcanic eruptions to reclaimed parks How much does the current landscape of Boston, Massachusetts, resemble the land mass known as the Shawmut Peninsula, where it was conceived and built hundreds of years ago--a place that Captain John Smith referred to in 1614 as the Paradise of all these parts? Mitchell explores a variety of habitats as he ranges outward from the core of the peninsula where the Puritans first settled to the ancient rim of the Boston Basin, within which the modern city now lies. But Mitchell focuses most on the generally unnoticed and yet surprisingly diverse variety of plants and animals that still thrive in this curiously anomalous city.
21st century Boston
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The good city : writers explore 21st century Boston by Location: Mugar Library Stacks F73.35 .G66 2004The Good City presents a vivid new profile of Boston through the work of fifteen of the city's finest writers. Robert Campbell and Jane Holtz Kay on Boston's embrace of lively urban density James Miller on the city's intellectual history Jack Beatty on Boston's colorful political past and present Patricia Powell on the literary landscape and the immigrant experience Susan Orlean on the city she left and now loves John Hanson Mitchell on how nature revives the metropolis Anita Diamant on Boston as a spiritual home Scott Kirsner on Boston as a powerhouse of scientific and technological innovation Alan Chong on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the arts in Boston Lynda Morgenroth on the city's neighborhoods Michael Patrick MacDonald on gentrification and what it means to old neighborhoods like Southie Derrick Jackson on Boston as a laboratory for advancing race relations Howard Bryant on the city's obsession with sports Irene Smalls on seeing the city through the eyes of a child.
