Oregon State University Press

For fifty years, Oregon State University Press has been publishing exceptional books about the Pacific Northwest—its people and landscapes, its flora and fauna, its history and cultural heritage. The Press has played a vital role in the region’s literary life, providing readers with a better understanding of what it means to be an Oregonian. Today, Oregon State University Press publishes distinguished books in several academic areas from environmental history and natural resource management to indigenous studies.

Showing 161-200 of 414 items.

Building a Better Nest

Living Lightly at Home and in the World

Oregon State University Press

For fifteen years, Evelyn Hess and her husband David lived in a tent and trailer, without electricity or running water, on twenty acres of wild land in the foothills of the Oregon Coast Range. When they decided to build a house – a real house at last – they knew it would have to respect the lessons of simple living that they learned in their camping life. They knew they could not do it alone. Building a Better Nest chronicles their adventures as they begin to construct a house of their own, seeking a model for sustainable living not just in their home, but beyond its walls.

What does it mean to build a better nest? Better for whom? Is it better for the individual or family? The planet? Green building and sustainable design are popular buzzwords, but to Hess, sustainable building is not a simple matter of buying and installing the latest recycled flooring products. It is also about cooperative work: working together in employment, in research, in activism, and in life. Hess is concerned with her local watershed, but also with the widening income gap, disappearing species, and peak resources. She actively works to reduce overconsumption and waste. For Hess, these problems are both philosophical and practical.

As Hess and her husband age, the questions of how to live responsibly arise with greater frequency and urgency. With unfailing wit and humor, she looks for answers in such places as neuroscience, Buddhism, and her ancestral legacy. Building a Better Nest will appeal to anyone with an interest in sustainable building, off-grid living, or alternative communities. The questions it asks about the way we live are earnest and important, from an author whose voice is steeped in wisdom and gratitude.

  • Copyright year: 2015
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At the Hearth of the Crossed Races

A French-Indian Community in Nineteenth-Century Oregon, 1812-1859

Oregon State University Press

Despite the force of Oregon’s founding mythology, the Willamette Valley was not an empty Eden awaiting settlement by hardy American pioneers. Rather, it was, as Melinda Jetté explores in At the Hearth of the Crossed Races, one of the earliest sites of extensive intercultural contact in the Pacific Northwest. Jetté’s study focuses on the “hearth” of this contact: French Prairie, so named for the French-Indian families who resettled the homeland of the Ahantchuyuk Kalapuyans. This history of French Prairie provides a window into the multi-racial history of the Pacific Northwest and offers an alternative vision of early Oregon in the lives of the biracial French-Indian families whose community challenged notions of white supremacy, racial separation, and social exclusion.

  • Copyright year: 2015
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A Man for All Seasons

Monroe Sweetland and the Liberal Paradox

Oregon State University Press

The life of prominent Oregon political leader Monroe Sweetland spans the spectrum of 20th-century America. Through seven decades, Sweetland experienced the economic collapse of the Great Depression, the unparalleled violence of a nation at war, the divisiveness of Cold War politics, and the cultural and political turmoil of the Vietnam War. Historian William G. Robbins illuminates the wrenching transformation of American political culture in A Man for All Seasons: Monroe Sweetland and the Liberal Paradox. Robbins’ portrait is holistic, exploring Sweetland’s socialist beginnings, inconsistencies in his politics—especially during the Cold War—and his regional and national legacy.

  • Copyright year: 2015
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Naked in the Woods

My Unexpected Years in a Hippie Commune

Oregon State University Press

In 1970, Margaret Grundstein abandoned her graduate degree at Yale and followed her husband to a commune in the backwoods of Oregon. Together with ten friends and an ever-changing mix of strangers, they began to build their vision of utopia. Naked in the Woods chronicles Grundstein’s shift from reluctant hippie to committed utopian. Grundstein, (whose husband left, seduced by “freer love”) faced tough choices. Could she make it as a single woman in man’s country? Did she still want to? Although she reveled in the shared transcendence of communal life, disillusionment slowly eroded the dream. Brotherhood frayed when food became scarce. Rifts formed over land ownership. Dogma and reality clashed.

Many people, baby boomers and millennials alike, have romantic notions about the 1960s and 70s. Grundstein’s vivid account offers an unflinching, authentic portrait of this iconic and often misreported time in American history. Accompanied by a collection of distinctive photographs she took at the time, Naked in the Woods draws readers into a period of convulsive social change and raises timeless questions: how far must we venture to find the meaning we seek, and is it ever far out enough to escape our ingrained human nature?

  • Copyright year: 2015
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Toward a Natural Forest

The Forest Service in Transition (A Memoir)

By Jim Furnish; Foreword by Char Miller
Oregon State University Press


The Forest Service stumbled in responding to a wave of lawsuits from environmental groups in the late 20th Century—a phenomenon best symbolized by the spotted owl controversy that shut down logging on public forests in the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s. The agency was brought to its knees, pitted between a powerful timber industry that had been having its way with the national forests for decades, and organized environmentalists who believed public lands had been abused and deserved better stewardship. Toward a Natural Forest offers an insider’s view of this tumultuous time in the history of the Forest Service, presenting twin tales of transformation, both within the agency and within the author’s evolving environmental consciousness. Drawing on the author’s personal experience and his broad professional knowledge, Toward a Natural Forest illuminates the potential of the Forest Service to provide strong leadership in global conservation efforts. Those interested in our public lands—environmentalists, natural resource professionals, academics, and historians—will find Jim Furnish’s story deeply informed, thought-provoking, and ultimately inspiring.

  • Copyright year: 2015
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State of Giving

Stories of Oregon Nonprofits, Donors, and Volunteers

Oregon State University Press

State of Giving is a survey of the urgent challenges facing Oregon’s communities, and the central role that nonprofits, philanthropists, and volunteers play in their resolution. There are ways in which we all—regardless of age, wealth, location, or background—can give back to our communities, and the need for such engagement is great. In addition to introducing Oregon’s key areas of need and demonstrating diverse pathways into civic engagement, the book provides resources for prospective volunteers and donors seeking to maximize their impact. Ultimately, State of Giving makes the case for nonprofits and their supporters as undervalued pillars of civic structure, as cornerstones of progress, and as crucial to the future of a prosperous Oregon. It’s an accessible call-to-arms, and an essential text for anyone interested in strengthening their community and their state.

  • Copyright year: 2015
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Silviculture and Ecology of Western U.S. Forests

Oregon State University Press

Silviculture and Ecology of Western U.S. Forests, Second Edition, is a text for students, professional forest managers, and scientists that summarizes both early and contemporary research and principles relevant to the silviculture, ecology, and multi-purpose management of western U. S. forests. Based on its authors’ significant experiences and contributions in the field, as well as nearly 1000 additional references, Silviculture and Ecology remains the only text that focuses on silviculture in western U.S. forests—providing background and basis for current biological, ecological, and managerial practices. In this comprehensive reference, readers entering the field will come to understand the significance of carefully managing forests by conscious design, and experienced silviculturists will benefit from the edition’s up-to-date information, providing forest users with a greater range of ecosystem services and consumable products alike.

  • Copyright year: 2015
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Money Trees

The Douglas Fir and American Forestry, 1900-1944

Oregon State University Press

Money Trees is an interdisciplinary history of the crucial decades that shaped the modern American conception of the value of the forest. It begins with early 20th century environmental changes in the Douglas Fir forests of the Pacific Northwest, which led to increasing divisiveness and controversy among foresters. Brock balances this regional story with a national view of the intellectual and political currents that governed forest management, marshaling archival evidence from industry, government, and scientific sources.
 
An important contribution to environmental scholarship, Money Trees offers a nuanced vision of forestry’s history and its past relationship to both wilderness activism and scientific ecology. With fresh perspectives on well-known environmental figures such as Bob Marshall and Gifford Pinchot, it will add to the conversation among scholars in environmental history, history of science, and the history of the American West. It will be welcomed as a key resource across the spectrum of environmental studies, and by anyone interested in natural resources, land management, the role of science in environmentalism, and the modern wilderness movement.

  • Copyright year: 2015
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Environment and Society in the Japanese Islands

From Prehistory to the Present

Oregon State University Press

Over the long course of Japan’s history, its people profited from their rich natural environment while simultaneously facing significant environmental challenges. Over time, they have altered their natural environment in numerous ways, from landscape modification to industrial pollution. How has the human-nature relationship changed over time in Japan? How does Japan’s environmental history compare with that of other countries, or that of the world as a whole?

Environment and Society in the Japanese Islands attempts to answer these questions through a series of case studies by leading Japanese and Western historians, geographers, archaeologists, and climatologists. These essays, on diverse topics from all periods of Japanese history and prehistory, are unified by their focus on the key concepts of “resilience” and “risk mitigation.” Taken as a whole, they place Japan’s experience in global context and call into question the commonly presumed division between pre-modern and modern environmental history.

Primarily intended for scholars and students in fields related to Japan or environmental history, these accessibly-written essays will be valuable to anyone wishing to learn about the historical roots of today’s environmental issues or the complex relationship between human society and the natural environment.

  • Copyright year: 2015
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For the Love of Rivers

A Scientist's Journey

Oregon State University Press

In For the Love of Rivers, stream ecologist Kurt Fausch draws readers across the reflective surface of streams to view and ponder what is beneath, and how they work. While celebrating their beauty and mystery, he uses his many years of experience as a field biologist to explain the underlying science connecting these aquatic ecosystems to their streamside forests and the organisms found there—including humans. More than a book about stream ecology, For the Love of Rivers is a celebration of the interconnectedness of life. It is an authoritative and accessible look at the science of rivers and streams, but it also ponders the larger questions of why rivers are important to humans, why it is in our nature to want to be near them, and what we can do now to ensure the future of these essential ecosystems.

  • Copyright year: 2015
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American Dreamers

How Two Oregon Farm Kids Transformed an Industry, a Community, and a University

By Ken Austin; Other primary creator Kerry Tymchuck
Oregon State University Press

Autobiography of Ken Austin, Oregon philanthropist and founder of A-dec.

  • Copyright year: 2015
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Living with Thunder

Exploring the Geologic Past, Present, and Future of Pacific Northwest Landscapes

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2014
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Learning to Like Muktuk

An Unlikely Explorer in Territorial Alaska

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2014
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A Hunger for High Country

One Woman’s Journey to the Wild in Yellowstone Country

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2014
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Morning Light

Wildflowers, Night Skies, and Other Ordinary Joys of Oregon Country Life

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2014
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Children and Other Wild Animals

Notes on badgers, otters, sons, hawks, daughters, dogs, bears, air, bobcats, fishers, mascots, Charles Darwin, newts, sturgeon, roasting squirrels, parrots, elk, foxes, tigers and various other zoolog

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2014
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The Brightwood Stillness

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2014
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Trying Home

The Rise and Fall of an Anarchist Utopia on Puget Sound

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2014
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The Nude Beach Notebook

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2014
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"Therefore, Choose Life..."

An Autobiography

Oregon State University Press

"Therefore Choose Life..." is an engaging and moving autobiography of Portland, Oregon psychiatrist, scholar, and Holocaust survivor Dr. Moisey Wolf, raised as an Orthodox Jew in Warsaw and eastern Poland.

  • Copyright year: 2014
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Turning Down the Sound

Travel Escapes in Washington's Small Towns

Oregon State University Press

In Turning Down the Sound: Travel Escapes in Washington's Small Towns a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist explores America’s “last frontier” of tourism—small towns—profiling over 30 of Washington’s rural communities as potential destinations.

  • Copyright year: 2014
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To Win the Indian Heart

Music at Chemawa Indian School

Oregon State University Press

To Win the Indian Heart: Music At Chemawa Indian School  is an exploration of the crucial role music played at the longest-operating federal boarding school for Indian children—both as a tool of assimilation and resilience.

  • Copyright year: 2014
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Slow News

A Manifesto for the Critical News Consumer

Oregon State University Press

Slow News: A Manifesto for the Critical News Consumer is a timely and provocative proposal for a revolution against instant news and for a “Slow News” movement.

  • Copyright year: 2014
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Ancestral Places

Understanding Kanaka Geographies

Oregon State University Press

Ancestral Places is a revealing journey through the language and practices of a traditional knowledge system, offering a Hawaiian epistemological framework that enhances our understanding of place.

  • Copyright year: 2014
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The Next Tsunami

Living on a Restless Coast

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2014
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Field Guide to the Sedges of the Pacific Northwest

Second Edition

Oregon State University Press

The second edition of Field Guide to the Sedges of the Pacific Northwest is a newly updated, expanded, and revised edition of the authoritative guide to the genus Carex in the Pacific Northwest.

  • Copyright year: 2014
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Bridging a Great Divide

The Battle for the Columbia River Gorge

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2013
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Accomplishing NAGPRA

Perspectives on the Intent, Impact, and Future of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2013
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A Deeper Sense of Place

Stories and Journeys of Collaboration in Indigenous Research

Oregon State University Press

This collection of stories, essays, and personal reflections from geographers who have worked collaboratively with Indigenous communities across the globe offers insight into the challenges and rewards of cross-cultural research.

  • Copyright year: 2013
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Salmon, People, and Place

A Biologist's Search for Salmon Recovery

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2013
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Meander Scars

Reflections on Healing the Willamette River

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2013
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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

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2013
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Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food

Perspectives on Eating from the Past and a Preliminary Agenda for the Future

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2013
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Collared

Politics and Personalities in Oregon's Wolf Country

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2013
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Pacific Northwest Cheese

A History

Oregon State University Press

A history of cheese in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, Pacific Northwest Cheese: A History  uncovers the rich tradition of cheesemaking from the earliest fur traders to modern-day small farmers.

  • Copyright year: 2013
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Hunting, Fishing, and Environmental Virtue

Reconnecting Sportsmanship and Conservation

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2013
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California Condors in the Pacific Northwest

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2013
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Ava Helen Pauling

Partner, Activist, Visionary

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2013
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Holdfast

At Home in the Natural World

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2013
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Breaking Chains

Slavery on Trial in the Oregon Territory

Oregon State University Press
  • Copyright year: 2013
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