More than three-quarters of our faculty members have published at least one book. Feel free to browse the titles by author below, but beware: you may experience the urge to expand your “to-read” list!
Louise Nelson Dyble
Where Minds and Matters Meet
Technology in California and the West
Volker Janssen, Editor
Contributors: Amy Bix, Louise Nelson Dyble, Patrick McCray, Linda Nash, Peter Neushul, Matthew W. Roth, Bruce Sinclair, L. Chase Smith, Carlene Stephens, Aristotle Tympas, Jason Weems, Peter Westwick, Stephanie Young
University of California Press, 2012
The American West—where such landmarks as the Golden Gate Bridge rival wild landscapes in popularity and iconic significance—has been viewed as a frontier of technological innovation. Where Minds and Matters Meet calls attention to the convergence of Western history and the history of technology, showing that the region’s politics and culture have shaped seemingly placeless, global technological practices and institutions. Drawing on political and social history as well as art history, the book’s essays take the cultural measure of the region’s great technological milestones, including San Diego’s Panama-California Exposition, the building of the Hetch Hetchy Dam in the Sierras, and traffic planning in Los Angeles.
California Cuisine and Just Food
Sally Fairfax, Louise Nelson Dyble, Greig Tor Guthey, Lauren Gwin, Monica Moore, and Jennifer Sokolove
Can a celebrity chef find common ground with an urban community organizer? Can a maker of organic cheese and a farm worker share an agenda for improving America’s food? In the San Francisco Bay area, unexpected alliances signal the widening concerns of diverse alternative food proponents.
Paying the Toll
Local Power, Regional Politics, and the Golden Gate Bridge
Louise Nelson Dyble
- The Journal of American History - Review
- Ask Not for Whom the Bridge Tolls - Michigan Tech News
- Bridging the Transportation Gap - LND, The Huffington Post
- Paying the Toll - LND Blog
Drawing on previously unavailable archives, Paying the Toll gives us an inside view of the world of high-stakes development, cronyism, and bureaucratic power politics that have surrounded the Golden Gate Bridge since its inception.
Hugh S. Gorman
The Story of N
A Social History of the Nitrogen Cycle and the Challenge of Sustainability
Hugh S. Gorman
Rutgers University Press, 2013
In The Story of N, Hugh S. Gorman analyzes the notion of sustainability from a fresh perspective—the integration of human activities with the biogeochemical cycling of nitrogen—and provides a supportive alternative to studying sustainability through the lens of climate change and the cycling of carbon.
Redefining Efficiency
Pollution Concerns, Regulatory Mechanisms, and Technological Change in the U.S. Petroleum Industry
Hugh S. Gorman
Today, pollution control regulations define how complex technological systems interact with natural ecosystems and competing human uses of the environment. Redefining Efficiency examines the evolution of this industrial ecology in the United States by tracing numerous pollution concerns associated with the production, transportation, and refining of petroleum over the course of the twentieth century.
Kathy Halvorsen
Renewable Fuel Standard
Potential Economic and Environmental Effects of U.S. Biofuel Policy
Kathy Halvorsen
National Academies Press, 2011
Renewable Fuel Standard evaluates the economic and environmental consequences of increasing biofuels production as a result of Renewable Fuels Standard, as amended by EISA (RFS2). The report describes biofuels produced in 2010 and those projected to be produced and consumed by 2022, reviews model projections and other estimates of the relative impact on the prices of land, and discusses the potential environmental harm and benefits of biofuels production and the barriers to achieving the RFS2 consumption mandate.
Alison K. Hoagland
Building Environments
Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, X
Kenneth A. Breisch and Alison K. Hoagland, Editors
University of Tennessee Press, 2005
Building Environments: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture is a collection of the best papers presented at recent annual meetings of the Vernacular Architecture Forum. The editors assert that there is no single correct avenue to exploring our built environment. Rather, these essays provide a road map of the various paths of architectural inquiry, illustrating how expansive and interdisciplinary this research quest can and should be.
Army Architecture in the West
Forts Laramie, Bridger, and D.A. Russell 1849-1912
Alison K. Hoagland
University of Oklahoma Press, 2004
In Army Architecture in the West, Alison K. Hoagland dispels the myth that all western forts were uniform structures of military might churned out according to a master set of plans authorized by army officials in Washington, D.C. Instead, by examining three exemplary Wyoming forts, Hoagland reveals that widely varying architectural designs were used to construct western forts.
Constructing Image, Identity, and Place
Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, IX
Alison K. Hoagland and Kenneth A. Breisch, Editors
Although vernacular architecture scholarship has expanded beyond its core fascination with common buildings and places, its attention remains fixed on the social function of building. Consistent with this expansion of interests, Constructing Image, Identity, and Place includes essays on a wide variety of American building types and landscapes drawn from a broad geographic and chronological spectrum.
Buildings of Alaska
Buildings of Alaska traces Alaska's architecture from the earliest dwellings made of sod, whalebone, and driftwood to the glass and metal skyscrapers of modern-day Anchorage. Focusing on the various cultural traditions that have helped shape Alaska's architecture, the volume also explores how the state's buildings reflect the attempts of Alaskans to adapt to the unique conditions of their environment.
Larry Lankton
Hollowed Ground
Copper Mining and Community Building on Lake Superior, 1840-1990
Larry Lankton
Wayne State University Press, 2010
In Hollowed Ground, author Larry Lankton tells the story of two copper industries on Lake Superior—native copper mining, which produced about 11 billion pounds of the metal from the 1840s until the late 1960s, and copper sulfide mining, which began in the 1950s and produced another 4.4 billion pounds of copper through the 1990s.
Beyond the Boundaries
Life and Landscape at the Lake Superior Copper Mines, 1840-1875
Larry Lankton
Spanning the years 1840-1875, Beyond the Boundaries focuses on the settlement of Upper Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, telling the story of reluctant pioneers who attempted to establish a decent measure of comfort, control, and security in what was in many ways a hostile environment.
Cradle to Grave
Life, Work, and Death at the Lake Superior Copper Mines
Larry Lankton
Concentrating on technology, economics, labor, and social history, Cradle to Grave documents the full life cycle of one of America's great mineral ranges from the 1840s to the 1960s. Lankton examines the workers' world underground, but is equally concerned with the mining communities on the surface.
Old Reliable
An Illustrated History of the Quincy Mining Company
Larry Lankton & Charles K. Hyde
Quincy Mine Hoist Association, 1982
- Quincy Mine, Hancock, Houghton Co., Michigan, USA
- Isle Royale Natural History Association, Keweenaw Books
The Quincy Mining Company earned the name "Old Reliable" for its remarkable record of uninterrupted dividends extending from 1867 to 1920. This book covers the history of the mine from its very beginning in 1846 through 1977.
Carol MacLennan
The State and Democracy
Revitalizing America's Government
Mark V. Levine, Carol MacLennan, John J. Kushma, Charles Noble
Corporate domination of public policy during the Reagan years has resulted not only in increasing inequality and deteriorating living standards for millions of Americans, but in a diminution in the capacity of government to solve basic problems that are not amenable to market-oriented solutions. The authors of The State and Democracy propose a new public philosophy for America: one which comprises cummunitarian values; governments at all levels which actively pursue the public interest; a participatory political culture; and a democratic, accountable process of public choice. Because of the authors' extensive experience both inside and outside government, they offer a fresh, interdisciplinary perspective based not only on extensive research and study, but also on first-hand experience.
Susan R. Martin
Wonderful Power
The Story of Ancient Copper Working in the Lake Superior Basin
Susan R. Martin
Wayne State University Press, 1999
- Isle Royale Natural History Association, Keweenaw Books
- Great Lakes Books
- Speaker Examines Prehistoric Copper of the Lake Superior Region
- Wonderful Power: The Area's First Miners
Long before the arrival of European settlers, Native Americans in the Lake Superior basin mined and worked copper and traded it well beyond the region. They directed white settlers to copper lodes and explained the mineral's significance and "wonderful power." Wonderful Power examines the archaeological record to relate the story of that unique industry.
Terry S. Reynolds
Iron Will
Cleveland-Cliffs and the Mining of Iron Ore, 1847–2006 (Great Lakes Books)
Terry S. Reynolds and Virginia P. Dawson
Wayne State University Press, 2011
In Iron Will: Cleveland-Cliffs and the Mining of Iron Ore, 1847–2006, Terry S. Reynolds and Virginia P. Dawson tell the story of Cleveland-Cliffs, the only surviving independent American iron mining company, now known as Cliffs Natural Resources. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland-Cliffs played a major role in the opening and development of the Lake Superior mining district and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Stronger Than a Hundred Men
A History of the Vertical Water Wheel
Terry S. Reynolds
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003 (Original 1983)
Stronger than a Hundred Men explores the development of the vertical water wheel from its invention in ancient times through its eventual demise as a source of power during the Industrial Revolution.
Stronger Than a Hundred Men
A History of the Vertical Water Wheel
Terry S. Reynolds
Heibonsha Ltd., 1989 (Japanese translation and edition)
Stronger than a Hundred Men explores the development of the vertical water wheel from its invention in ancient times through its eventual demise as a source of power during the Industrial Revolution.
Technology & American History
A Historical Anthology from Technology and Culture
Stephen H. Cutcliffe and Terry S. Reynolds, Editors
University of Chicago Press, 1997
Technology & American History explores the technological dimension of American life from the birth of American industry in the late eighteenth century to the massive industrial systems of the late twentieth century.
Technology & the West
A Historical Anthology from Technology and Culture
Terry S. Reynolds and Stephen H. Cutcliffe, Editors
University of Chicago Press, 1997
This broad-ranging anthology provides a condensed overview of technology in Western civilization. Its twenty-one carefully selected articles and overview essays demonstrate the complex relationship between technological and social change from antiquity to the present.
The Engineer in America
A Historical Anthology from Technology and Culture
Terry S. Reynolds , Editor
University of Chicago Press, 1991
With some two million practitioners, engineers form one of America's largest professional groups; indeed, it is the single largest occupation of American males today. The rise of this profession and its place in American society provide the focus for this anthology.
Timothy Scarlett
Global Perspectives on Archaeological Field Schools
Constructing New Knowledge in Industrial Archaeology (chapter)
Timothy Scarlett, Sam R. Sweitz
Field schools in industrial archaeology (IA) are unusual within academic archaeology, a fact that reflects the unusual relationship between IA and other types of archaeology in the landscape of academic bureaucracies. In this essay, we offer some personal observations on how the field school experience contributes to building new knowledge in this field. Some of our concerns are unique to teaching IA, or if not unique, at least more particular for collaborations surrounding Industrial Heritage.
Bruce E. Seely
The Best Transportation System in the World
Railroads, Trucks, Airlines, and American Public Policy in the Twentieth Century
Mark H. Rose, Bruce E. Seely, Paul F. Barrett
The Ohio State University Press, 2006
"This important book argues persuasively that it was history and politics, not markets and competition, that determined public policy toward transportation from 1920–1980. Skillfully pulling together the histories of the various modes of transportation, the book makes the case that politics was more significant even than technical expertise—invariably, the work of experts was bested by politics." — William H. Becker, George Washington University
Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography
The Iron and Steel Industry in the Twentieth Century
Bruce E. Seely, Editor
Building the American Highway System
Engineers as Policy Makers
Bruce E. Seely
Interesting and well-written, this book examines the highway policy developed over the first half of the twentieth century in a study which traces in detail the growth of public roads through the establishment of the Interstate network.
Barry D. Solomon
Readings in American Socioeconomic Institutions
Fourth Edition
Compiled by the Members of the Michigan Technological University Institutions Committee
Barry D. Solomon, General Editor
Pearson Custom Publishing, 2011
Readings in American Socioeconomic Institutions is a custom-published textbook for UN 2002: Institutions, a new general education course begun in the fall of 2000 at Michigan Technological University (MTU). The course and book are designed for sophomore and advanced freshmen students, and is required for all students at MTU.
Renewable Energy from Forest Resources in the United States
Series: Routledge Explorations in Environmental Economics, 12
Barry D. Solomon and Valerie A. Luzadis, Editors
London; New York; Routledge, 2009
Interest in biomass energy resources from forests, farms and other sources has been rapidly increasing in recent years because of growing concern with reducing carbon dioxide emissions and developing alternatives to increasingly scarce, expensive and insecure oil supplies. The uniqueness of this book is its coverage of biomass energy markets in the US from an economic as well as technical perspective.
The International Politics of Nuclear Waste
Andrew Blowers, David Lowry, Barry D. Solomon
Geographical Dimensions of Energy
Frank J. Calzonetti, Barry D. Solomon
D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1985
Sam Sweitz
On the Periphery of the Periphery
Household Archaeology at Hacienda San Juan Bautista Tabi, Yucatán, Mexico
Sam R. Sweitz
This volume examines the social and economic changes that characterized Yucatán, Mexico, circa the late 18th through early 19th centuries, as the region became increasingly articulated within global networks of exchange.
Global Perspectives on Archaeological Field Schools
Constructing New Knowledge in Industrial Archaeology (chapter)
Timothy Scarlett, Sam R. Sweitz
Field schools in industrial archaeology (IA) are unusual within academic archaeology, a fact that reflects the unusual relationship between IA and other types of archaeology in the landscape of academic bureaucracies. In this essay, we offer some personal observations on how the field school experience contributes to building new knowledge in this field. Some of our concerns are unique to teaching IA, or if not unique, at least more particular for collaborations surrounding Industrial Heritage.