Born a slave, he became a leading scientist. This is the inspiring story of the pioneering African-American teacher, scientist, and artist. Carver is perhaps best known for his scientific work with peanuts and sweet potatoes (and for inventing peanut butter!), but Time magazine also called him the "Black Leonardo" for his painting. Adler tells of Carver's work at the Tuskegee Institute with Booker T. Washington, his hard childhood, and his determination to learn despite many obstacles, A man of deep faith, Carver worked throughout his life to create scientific discoveries that would improve the lives of Southerners--especially African Americans. The colorful illustrations show Carver in all stages of his life and give children insight to Carver's world. For almost thirty years, David Adler’s Picture Book Biography series has profiled famous people who changed the world. Colorful, kid-friendly illustrations combine with Adler’s “expert mixtures of facts and personality” ( Booklist ) to introduce young readers to history through compelling biographies of presidents, heroes, inventors, explorers, and adventurers. These books are ideal for first and second graders interested in history, or who need reliable sources for school book reports.

In this thoroughly researched, scrupulously annotated and shockingly provocative book you’ll learn: how and why Cannabis prohibition began and what that has meant to America ; all the uses of hemp as medicine, food, fuel, fiber, paper, and as a plastic replacement ; the straight dope on marijuana smoke and its effect on the human body ; who profits from the prohibition and criminalization of Cannabis ; what you can do to speed up legalization and profit from the coming changes.

This first comprehensive story of logging, lumbering, and forest conservation in Texas records the industry's history from the earliest days of the Republic, when a few isolated operations provided for local needs, through the first four decades of the twentieth century. Supplemented by over one hundred photographs, many never before published, the text re-creates Texas' heyday as one of the nation's leading timber producers. At that time, the forested area equaled the state of Indiana. In the words of one visitor, the forest was "like a vast wave that has rolled in upon a level beach . . . creeping forward, thinning out, and finally disappearing, except where, along a river course, it pushes far inland." The industry's most significant growth occurred between the end of Reconstruction and the beginnings of World War II, when entrepreneurs from the North, the South, and the East ventured into the vast stands of virgin timber in the Texas Piney Woods. These pioneers, attracted by the great potential fortunes to be made, provided the capital, expertise, and energy that introduced large mills and railroads to Texas lumbering and developed markets for their products--not only in Houston, Dallas, and other Texas cities but also across the United States and throughout the world. Various lumber companies, logging and mill operations, company towns, and the genesis of forest conservation are all featured in the text and illustrations. This account will appeal to historians, conservationists, and general readers interested in the Texas lumber industry and in Texas economic history.

"Orenstein is such a breezy, funny writer, it's easy to forget she's an important thinker too."--People In this lively, funny memoir, Peggy Orenstein sets out to make a sweater from scratch--shearing, spinning, dyeing wool--and in the process discovers how we find our deepest selves through craft. Orenstein spins a yarn that will appeal to everyone. The COVID pandemic propelled many people to change their lives in ways large and small. Some adopted puppies. Others stress-baked. Peggy Orenstein, a lifelong knitter, went just a little further. To keep herself engaged and cope with a series of seismic shifts in family life, she set out to make a garment from the ground up: learning to shear sheep, spin and dye yarn, then knitting herself a sweater. Orenstein hoped the project would help her process not just wool but her grief over the recent death of her mother and the decline of her dad, the impending departure of her college-bound daughter, and other thorny issues of aging as a woman in a culture that by turns ignores and disdains them. What she didn't expect was a journey into some of the major issues of our time: climate anxiety, racial justice, women's rights, the impact of technology, sustainability, and, ultimately, the meaning of home. With her wry voice, sharp intelligence, and exuberant honesty, Orenstein shares her year-long journey as daughter, wife, mother, writer, and maker--and teaches us all something about creativity and connection.

This timely book tells the fascinating story of how Zionists colonizers planned and established nearly 700 agricultural settlements, towns, and cities from the 1880s to the present. This extraordinary activity of planners, architects, social scientists, military personnel, politicians, and settlers is inextricably linked to multiple contexts: Jewish and Zionist history, the Arab/Jewish conflict, and the diffusion of European ideas to non-European worlds. S. Ilan Troen demonstrates how professionals and settlers continually innovated plans for both rural and urban frontiers in response to the competing demands of social and political ideologies and the need to achieve productivity, economic independence, and security in a hostile environment. In the 1930s, security became the primary challenge, shaping and even distorting patterns of growth. Not until the 1993 Oslo Accords, with prospects of compromise and accommodation, did planners again imagine Israel as a normal state, developing like other modern societies. Troen concludes that if Palestinian Arabs become reconciled to a Jewish state, Israel will reassign priority to the social and economic development of the country and region.

Contrary to the viewpoint of many Western scholars, the authors of this penetrating analysis argue that private farming is not a viable option in Russia's future. Instead, a convergence of Soviet-style subsidiary farming with traditional and reorganized collective farms is the most plausible path of evolution in most rural areas.Grigory Ioffe and Tatyana Nefedova arrive at this conclusion by a careful examination of ongoing reform efforts in Russian agriculture against the backdrop of European and Russian agrarian history and rural spatial development since the late nineteenth century. The comparisons at the national level are then filled in with consideration of a number of Russian provinces (oblasti) and regions (raiony). Their research reveals the substantial negative impact of rural depopulation on the Russian agrarian economy. Seventy original maps richly complement and support the narrative.