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Originally published in 1986, The Permafrost Environment examines how the search for oil, gas and minerals in the arctic region instigated new and vitally important needs to understand the permafrost environment. The construction of roads, airfields, buildings and pipelines in this inhospitable environment has posed enormous problems for engineers and geologists. This book is a comprehensive review of the nature of the permafrost environment and its utilization. It looks at environmental processes and their effects and examines the management problems which result. It provides a detailed look at how normal procedures for construction etc. need to be modified to cope with the special conditions and it gives examples from throughout the arctic region, including Canada, Siberia, Alaska, Greenland and Northern Scandinavia.
China’s inexorable rise as a major world power is one of the defining features of the contemporary political landscape. But should we heed the warnings of a so-called ‘China threat?’ Is China set to become the next superpower? Or will its ambitions be tempered by economic and political realities both at home and abroad? In this insightful and balanced analysis, noted China expert Stuart Harris explores China’s present foreign policy and its motivations, focusing in particular on the extent to which China will co-operate with the West in years to come. He considers what factors, international or domestic, will influence the foreign policies being shaped in Beijing, including how far t...
This book provides a general survey of Geocryology, which is the study of frozen ground called permafrost. Frozen ground is the product of cold climates as well as a variety of environmental factors. Its major characteristic is the accumulation of large quantities of ice which may exceed 90% by volume. Soil water changing to ice results in ground heaving, while thawing of this ice produces ground subsidence often accompanied by soil flowage. Permafrost is very susceptible to changes in weather and climate as well as to changes in the microenvironment. Cold weather produces contraction of the ground, resulting in cracking of the soil as well as breakup of concrete, rock, etc. Thus permafrost ...
Winfield, Iowa, 1918. Colonel Wallace Carson, the ruler of a vast agricultural empire, asks Ann Hardy, his ten-year-old granddaughter and eventual heir, to promise she will safeguard The Northeast Quarter, the choice piece of land from which the empire was founded. Ann readily accepts -- little knowing what awaits her. When the Colonel is killed unexpectedly the same afternoon, the world around Ann and her family begins to fall apart. Against the background of America sliding from a post war boom into the Great Depression, The Northeast Quarter tells the story of Ann's struggle to keep a promise no matter what. She witnesses the remarriage of her grandmother to Royce Chamberlin, the seemingly humble banker who institutes a reign of terror over the household and proceeds to corrupt the entire town. Over the next ten years Ann matches wits with Chamberlin, enduring betrayal, banishment, and even physical violence. She grows from a precocious child into a tough-minded young woman -- watching, observing her enemy, and waiting for the moment to make her move. And when the moment comes in July 1929, life in Winfield will never be the same.
A study of the survival of primal Celtic shamanism in later folk-traditions of Gaelic speaking peoples. This is an insightful and intelligent academic study that brings together areas of study not normally combined in an accessible style.
A gripping new account of one of the most important and exciting periods of British and Irish history: the reign of the first two Stuart kings, from 1567 to the outbreak of civil war in 1642 - and why ultimately all three of their kingdoms were to rise in rebellion against Stuart rule. Both James VI and I and his son Charles I were reforming monarchs, who endeavoured to bolster the authority of the crown and bring the churches in their separate kingdoms into closer harmony with one another. Many of James's initiatives proved controversial - his promotion of the plantation of Ulster, his reintroduction of bishops and ceremonies into the Scottish kirk, and his stormy relationship with his Engl...
Dear Mr. S. Harris, Ignore the blob of red in the top left corner. It's jam, not blood, though I don't think I need to tell you the difference. It wasn't your wife's jam the police found on your shoe. . . . I know what it's like. Mine wasn't a woman. Mine was a boy. And I killed him exactly three months ago. Zoe has an unconventional pen pal--Mr. Stuart Harris, a Texas Death Row inmate and convicted murderer. But then again, Zoe has an unconventional story to tell. A story about how she fell for two boys, betrayed one of them, and killed the other. Hidden away in her backyard shed in the middle of the night with a jam sandwich in one hand and a pen in the other, Zoe gives a voice to her hear...
For the first time, Etruscan Decipherment presents the beauty and complexity of Etruscan literature. The resulting texts embrace a range of topics that evince linguistic mastery. Translation was made possible by the discovery of a hundred bilingual inscriptions in an older script called Old European. The language is Finnish, once spoken throughout Europe. The script is a syllabary with over seventy different combinations of consonants and vowels. Because it is a syllabary, each letter spells a word, which means that even a short inscription expands into a long sentence.