Product Description
By the turn of the 20th century, West Adams had become one of the first bedroom communities in fast-growing Los Angeles. Mansions and bungalows housed bankers and merchants who commuted to their businesses downtown, as well as moviemakers, debutantes, the social elite, and one or two scoundrels. Anchored by Adams Boulevard, this area just west of downtown has been through many changes. Today the neighborhood is one of the most racially and architecturally diverse in the country and contains the highest concentration of historic cultural monuments in Los Angeles. Residents and local archives, including the University of Southern California and the Automobile Club of Southern California, have contributed images to this volume illustrating life and architecture from Victorian times onward. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

West Adams (Images of America)
What a treasury of old photographs, showing the evolution of a suburb of L.A. The clear, concise captions allow you to place each picture in context. The authors have included something for everyone: mansions and bungalows, street scenes and interiors, dignified solid citizens and a pyramid of young ladies looking very merry indeed. My only criticism is that the book isn't bigger and thicker--I want more!

What A Book!
I just love this book, will get it for all my friends and family for the Holidays.Great history of Los Angeles in it's heyday!
Terry Bible ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1974, Robert Adams' The New West signaled a paradigm shift in the photographic representation of American landscapes. Foregoing photography's traditional role of romanticizing the Western landscape, Adams focused instead on the construction of tract and mobile homes, subdivisions, shopping centers and urban sprawl in the suburbs of Colorado Springs and the Denver area. Adams transmuted these zones with his minimalist vision of their austerity; as he has noted, "no place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film." Objective and direct, Adams' photographs, rendered in his signature middle-gray scale, unsentimentally depict a despoiled landscape washed in the intense Colorado sunlight. Today The New West stands alongside Walker Evans' American Photographs, Robert Frank's The Americans and Stephen Shore's Uncommon Places in the pantheon of landmark projects on American culture and society. This second reissue of the classic publication has been recreated from Adams' original prints, and will be released ahead of a major traveling exhibition that will launch in 2010. Foreword by John Szarkowski. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The (old) new west
The New West is one of the most significant works of photography in the 20th century, presenting the reality of the western landscape in harsh contrast to the mythology of the other Adams...The pictures cut straight to the bone, showing the damage done to a landscape by our progress, but always the light is perfect, the skies brilliant, and the distant horizon intact.This work is a challenge to photographers, to see the world clearly, and to others, who struggle to live with the earth, rather than on it.

New edition makes me want for more
The return of this beautiful book is as inspiring as the book itself. Never having seen the original however makes it hard to compare editions but as I am a BIG Adams fan the work is stunnning, the neat categories help the beginner to understand Mr Adams and where he is coming from. ... Read more

Product Description
The star of television's legendary show Batman gives a behind-the-scenes tour of what really went on in Gotham City, offering many revealing anecdotes, candid photographs, and a complete episode guide. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (23)

Adam West is a Class Act
I was born in 1967 and became an avid Batman fan as a result of encountering reruns of the television show, back when I was too young to know it was a comedy. That led me to the comic books, in which I discovered the artwork of Neal Adams and the grim, gritty Batman of the early seventies (which, at least in part, eventually led to a career in illustrative design). So the pop art sixties Batman and "The Batman" in his darker incarnation always co-existed for me. Regardless, in my mind Adam West was the REAL Batman. This was confirmed when I actually shook his gloved hand at a Cleveland autorama in second grade.

I remember seeing West show up here and there on television while growing up, half the time as Batman or with other cast members. I was always kind of puzzled as to why he didn't have another show. Mr. Spock was hosting "In Search Of", and Capt. Kirk showed up on T.J. Hooker eventually. I remember seeing him in a few old movies or TV shows on Saturday afternoons.

This book tells the whole story, and as an adult, a few things strike me about it: 1) Adam West has had to deal with a lot of career disappointment in a life that probably seemed to have no limits at all at the height of the Batman craze, and that's rather painful to think about. 2) When I shook this man's hand, he was driven to wear his costume again by sheer economics and desperation for paying work. 3) Where many would have given up or drowned in self pity or humiliation, Adam West emerged as an appreciative and gracious man.

I suspect the book will be of little interest to those who are not fans of the Batman TV series, particularly because the author maintains some decorum and respect and dishes virtually no dirt. I found that refreshing. I gave the book four stars instead of five only because it seemed a little bit cursory.

As some have noted elsewhere, the book's epilogue about the Tim Burton film is somewhat regrettable. I can fully understand why West sees himself as the definitive Batman character, much in the same way Clayton Moore views himself as the true Lone Ranger. But he's wrong. Batman was a lot of things before Adam West, and he's been a lot of things since Adam West, and the TV show was just a sliver of the character's history (and a peculiar one at that). So while I agreed with West's assertion that a new Batman movie starring the old TV cast would have been interesting and possibly successful (particularly on television), there was nothing wrong in 1989 with a new approach that steered entirely clear of any connection to the comedic sixties incarnation. That said, Michael Keaton was a horrible Bruce Wayne.

It's been great in recent years to see Adam West embrace and capitalize on his pop icon status, and to see his humor and good natured self-deprecation on display. I find this almost heroic coming from a guy who reluctantly spent a couple of decades scratching out a living on the county fair and car show circuit. I personally think he's a brilliant comedian, a one-of-a-kind personality who could have accomplished nearly anything. It's nice to see him in demand and enjoying new popularity.

Enjoyed it as a kid and still do today
I applaude Mr. West and Mr. Ward and all the other actors who participated in this cheesy and campy show. It was pure magic and fun. T.V. at this time, was still permitting youngsters to use their imaginations, this, in order to put them into their heroes shoes. Today's shows are crap!

For in the book, we get to see the behind the scenes friendships and hardships that were forged during those two short years of the shows run. How quickly success can get away. They at least left out on top and were forever burned in the memory of millions of kids around the globe.

If you are true 1966 Batman and Robin fan, then get this book!

batman fan
The book was in good shape and delevered in atimley mannner. It came in a plastic cover.

A history of the Batman television series from the realistic perspective of the man who was Batman
It is hard to be sympathetic to television stars who complain about being typecast in the role that made them famous. The probabilities are overwhelming that if it were not for their landing that role, they would have had another, much more anonymous career. Adam West certainly fits into the mold of being typecast, his role as Batman forever labeled him, making it hard for anyone to ever see him in any other way. West is also like so many others in his position, they complain about the problems, only to eventually capitalize on it every way they can. In preparing this review, I went to the website adamwest.com. It is Batman all the way; the opening page pays the first part of the Batman themes. The page after that contains the entries:

*) BatSightings
*) Bat Scrapbook
*) BatComputer
*) BatPhone
*) BatMail
*) BatStore
*) BatFanClub

Fortunately, this book, a recapitulation of West's life, contains very little whining about his being typecast. It appears that West has sensibly come to terms with that, realizing that nothing he can say can change the public's perception of him. That is one of the reasons why this book was very fun to read. His perceptions of some of the guest stars, and they were many and significant, made the book worth reading. Although I have seen all the episodes, I had forgotten some of the big stars who played a villain or made a cameo.
The Batman television show was an incredible cultural phenomenon when it took place, in some ways it was a victim of its' own incredible early success. It rose to the top so quickly that it was destined to go nowhere but down. In some ways, it was also like the original Star Trek series in that the producers were so focused on keeping the production costs down that quality was sacrificed. Like Star Trek, it only lasted three seasons, with the last being one of clear decline.
If you are a fan of the show, then the last section of the book, which contains a synopsis of each show, makes it something that you will want to have. It brought back a lot of pleasant memories for me.

POW ZAP BANG BIFF
Maybe I'm in the minority hear but I just didn't fall all over this autobiography. Yes, I loved the show and the comdic takes on the Dynamic Duo. This book however was nothing spectacular, we don't get any real behind-the-scenes stories, just some light brief anecdotes. West covers his life in quick jumps and says this book was written for the fans of the Batman show. He's admirable in not badmouthing people and keeping it light and wispy reading but there's no meat to his bio. It's rather bland and he seems to think his acting was much better than it ever was. He seemed more focused on telling you, which women he met were the hottest and teases at romantic interludes. I truly appreciate the effort Mr. West put into his story and it's certainly fun to read and you'll read it quickly. The best chapter is his life after Batman is cancelled and how he reacted to being stereotyped. At the end of the bio is an episodic guide for the three seasons of the series with comments by the author. ... Read more

Product Description
E G West brings to life Adam Smith's first years in the bustling Scottish seaport of Kirkcaldy (and recounts Smith's brief kidnapping, as a baby, by gypsies). We follow young Smith as a student, watch his thought develop as Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow, and enjoy with him the hospitality of David Hume, the Parisian literary salons, Johnson, Burke, Gibbon, and other giants of the era. West gives us a masterful summary of "The Wealth of Nations". Even more significant, West restores to eminence an earlier work of Smith's, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments". "If "The Wealth of Nations" had never been written," he asserts, "this previous work would have earned for him a prominent place in intellectual history." West takes particular delight in using "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" to rebut Marx's assumptions about laissez-faire capitalism. ... Read more

Product Description
Their grandeur takes our breath away. Their gentle sound compliments periods of meditation. Regardless of their size, waterfalls create in the observer a feeling of serenity, a sense of restrained power. To discover a falls is sublime, and now Waterfalls of Virginia and West Virginia is available to guide willing adventurers to easily accessible as well as remote waterfalls in the Old Dominion and Mountain States.

This complete and comprehensive guide offers clear directions to over 200 waterfalls open to the public. In addition to a brief description of each falls, at-a-glance information including height, type, size of watershed, and difficulty of access helps readers choose which waterfall to visit and when. Directions on photography, including how to set up the best shot- from time of day to angle and direction - makes this book indispensable to professional and amateur photographers.

From Shenandoah National Park to New River Gorge National River, from the Monongahela National Forest to the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest, this book has a waterfall to fit any readers mood or sense of adventure. Waterfalls of Virginia and West Virginia is the only guidebook to the waterfalls of these two states. (6 x 9, 264 pages, color photos, b&w photos, maps) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Waterfalls of Virginia & West Virginia
Very Informative.Will be checking accuracy of directions soon, so can't comment on those yet. Have never had a waterfall book make me smile so much while reading.Kevin Adams adds a wonderful,cynical twist to the directions!

Waterfalls of Virginia & West Virginia
Awesome book... once again (after reading his Waterfalls of North Carolina) a beautifully descriptive guide!Thank You Kevin Adams!

GREAT GIFT FOR A HIKING BUFF
My boyfriend is a "waterfall" buff and has been to every fall in NC..I gave him this book for Xmas and he loved it..It gave info on all the waterfalls in our area and the info on how to get to them..This was a great gift for him..I'd recommend this to anyone who loves the outdoors and loves to hike..Now we can explore the Virginia area this summer..He loved the book and I always go to Amazon for all my books anymore...They are great!!

Great for the exploring photographer
Excellent book with tons of waterfalls. Would prefer having more color photos (some don't have photos at all), but if you're a photographer you can make your own!

Highly recommended for waterfall lovers in the VA and WV region.

Waterfalls of Virginia and West Virginia
Will enjoy planing a trip there to photograph the waterfalls ... Read more

Product Description
Ansel Adams's legendary photographs inspire an appreciation for natural beauty and conservation that has communicated down the generations. His ambition was not simply to record the landscape, but to capture his emotional and spiritual response to the wild areas that he loved so deeply. The results are spectacular: an emotional charge and passion shine through the prints with an intensity that is as powerful today as it was over sixty years ago. In 1941, Ansel Adams was commissioned by the United States Interior Department to take photographs of the National Parks to be printed as murals for the walls of the new Interior Department building. This couldn't have been closer to his heart: it combined a commercial assignment with his personal, creative work he referred to as within". The within" was the work that encapsulated his emotional reaction to the landscape - when he, the camera and the landscape were at one. Unfortunately, the project was curtailed with the outbreak of World War II and the mural was never produced. The majority of pictures in this book are from the National Parks Mural Project, but also include work from other projects.The Kings Canyon photographs, taken in 1936, were successfully used to lobby for Kings Canyon to be designated a National Park. There is an exuberant photograph of an apple tree in snow taken at Yosemite, as well as the images taken for a documentary project during the war when Japanese Americans were interned at the Manzanar Relocation Centre. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The lack of print quality is disappointment
The book looks very promising, it is big and heavy.
Something that A.Adams fan would like to have at the bookshelf.
Unfortunately the printing quality is really poor. There are actually no tones on the high lights. The next tone after light gray is pure white! The pictures just does not justify quality of Adams's prints.

Save your money and get some other book. One of those older books that has good quality in print reproduction.

So promising, yet you are left wanting
This is very much a large format coffee table book, which is the promising part. However when you flip the pages and see the placement of the image, the disruption to the image created but the fold/crease in the book detracts from the impact.

There is no doubt that Ansel magnificently captures images and this book brings together some lesser known works.However if he was to see some of the reproductions, I'm sure he wouldn't be best pleased with the lack of depth to the blacks and washed out skies that taint some of the images.

The book is split nicely into themes though, with brief text about each of the images.

Mostly excellent, but occasionally disappointing
The pictures were quite good, but did not include many of the best ones which I expected to be there. Also, a glaring editing error appears on page 22 - Glacier National Park is not in Arizona. If Mr. Adams took the picture from there, he was using an amazing telephoto lens.

This Book Doesn't Do Adams's Work Justice
Disappointed is what I most feel about this huge (17 X 14.2 inches--224 pages) formatted coffee table book. My reaction surprises me because I'm a big fan of Ansel Adams and even attended one of the great photographer's workshops in Carmel, CA.
The paper used to print this book simply didn't seem to capture the quality of an Ansel Adams black and white photograph. While the book was well laid out in six different categories--"Sky, Rock, Water, Structure, Plant and Life," unfortunately, there weren't that many really drop-dead images included in the 120 photographs taken mostly during the 1930's and 1940's. The images didn't sing. In many cases they seemed monotonous and boring. As would be expected in a book of National Park Landscapes, there weren't many photographs of people--even though a couple of the ones that included humans were among the most interesting. Perhaps the missing quality is due to the fact that most of the original negatives were lost? The books reproductions were made mostly from a set of signed exhibition prints he denoted to the Interior Department and these were later transferred to the National Achieves in Maryland. The original plan had called for many of them to be reproduced as murals.
To me, the single most interesting picture in the book was the closing picture that showed Indians preparing for a dance and was entitled "Dance, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico, 1938." The inclusion of that picture screamed out for more from that particular series, but alas, none were included.
The picture story of the Manzanar War Relocation Center where Japanese Americans were confined after the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor is historically significant but the pictures weren't all that interesting in and of themselves and Adams probably classified them as some of his "without work" meaning commercial assignments and not "within work" or his own personal creative work.
Adams believed that a dozen good images was a worthwhile production for a single year. This book has about a one-year's worth of good images. I awarded the book four stars, because I love Ansel Adams and what he did to promote wilderness conservation through his photographic work. I also collect his work and he gave me a signed print while I was attending his workshop so I'm definitely prejudiced in his favor.
This is a must for any serious collector of the work of Ansel Adams, but it is definitely not the best book if the collector is only going to buy the one or two best such books.
So, let the buyer of this book not be disappointed. There is worthwhile material included in it, but only a few of his most famous images. Most of those icons are missing from this collection. The entire book is beautifully laid out and weighs 8.5 pounds. It's just that some of the pictures seem so trite compared to his most loved works. Fortunately the book was printed in a very large printing run to keep the unit price low so that it is not too expensive for such a Sumo-sized book of Fine Art Photographs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

kr
Poor reproduction of photographs (poor contrast, etc.).One even has big spots on the image.Adams would turn over in his grave if he saw this book!!! ... Read more

Product Description
Men on horseback. Men in saloons swilling back shots of whiskey. Men alone on the trail. Men with desires unfulfilled. Men with an unstoppable passion for each other.

This isn't just the retelling of how the old west was won, it's...
HOW THE WEST WAS DONE

In these eleven steamy stories, the archetypal image of the cowboy is given a fresh new spin as the virile man who shares his mind, his passion...and his body with other cowboys. Whether it's a story set in the Wild West of the 1800s or an exploration of the modern-day cowboy, each author takes the cowboy fantasy to new erotic heights.
From award-winning authors to fresh new voices, HOW THE WEST WAS DONE is sure to please anyone looking for tales of denim and leather, cowboys and Indians, real men and the men they love. So, saddle up for a fascinating ride in to the past, where the men who sought to settle the west also sought out the most primal pleasures.
With hot action and fast-paced storytelling, this ultimate collection will have you wanting to ride off into the sunset. And not alone...

Contributing Authors:
• Gavin Atlas
• Adam Carpenter
• M. Christian
• Curtis C. Comer
• Ryan Field
• Michael Luongo
• Neil S. Plakcy
• Cage Thunder
• Jeff Wilcox
• Kelvin Williams
• Zavo ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Artistry among the many rolls in the tumbleweed
Brokeback Mountain was just the beginning. The eleven tales in How the West Was Done portray a range of cowboy fantasies, from rough-and-tumble stories from the dusty trails of the 19th century to contemporary romance at the rodeo. What they all have in common is hot, steamy sex between two buff, beautiful men, at least one of whom is always of the bronc-riding variety. There's something here for a wide variety of tastes, but the best of the bunch may be "Which Way to Dominance" by Gavin Atlas. In it, modern-day ranch hand Teddy likes to be dominated, but his boss/lover Roy takes things too far. When handsome gaucho Marco steps off the pampas and into the picture, he brings with him a new, gentler approach to the horses...and to Teddy. There are several intriguing offerings among the historical tales, including "No Stranger to Trouble" by Curtis C. Comer (in which angel-faced young Caleb finds a gay cowboy's paradise after courting the son of a preacher man and running afoul of the preacher) and "These Bulls Are Made For Breeding" by Michael Luongo (in which the exiled son of an aristocratic New York family seeks advice on breeding bulls-and more-from a posh British gentleman farmer). Particularly interesting is "Horse" by Jeff Wilcox, which makes fascinating use of the American Indian berdache tradition. At times, the writing style is rather flat, and some of the stories read more like stroke-book material than fully-developed fiction. There is artistry among the many rolls in the tumbleweed, however, making this anthology well worth the effort. ... Read more

Product Description
This tiny treasure is a glorious tribute to Ansel Adams and to the vanishing landscape he loved.

The often stunning and sometimes subtle beauty of America's national parks has been captured forever in the evocative images of Ansel Adams, the most admired photographer of our time. These photographs demonstrate the genius of Adams's technical and aesthetic inventiveness and expressed his deepest convictions as artist, conservationist, and citizen.

Other Details:Now in paperback!120 illustratoins, 90 in full color.Amazon.com Review
It was the United States Department of Interior thatcommissioned Ansel Adams to document the country's nationalparks. Though the project was suspended after just one year because ofWorld War II, Adams was still able to create quite a few astonishinglybeautiful photographs of the American landscape. Arresting images ofYellowstone's geysers, the Grand Canyon's ravines, Glacier and GrandTeton national parks' mountains and the southwest's ancient adobesfill the book's pages. Perusing this palm-sized volume is akin totouring the country's natural monuments with this most gifted naturephotographer along as a companion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

TINY folio cannot be stressed enough
too small to fully enjoy the pix, poor quality prints.

A Great Introduction to Ansel Adams
Anyone who doesn't know a lot about Ansel Adams but is interested in learning more about his work will appreciate and enjoy this cleverly organized pictorial. Structured by national parks, the reader will see many wonderful pictures, some classics, that will surely create a better impression as to what type of pictures Adams takes. A great gift book as well.

Wee, but Wonderful
This wee little book (4 inch by 4 inch format) dispels the notion that the work of Ansel Adams can only be appreciated in a coffee table book. Organized into 10 sections by location (Zion National Park, Yellowstone,etc.) and peoples (Native Americans and Their Lands), it shows Adams's workout west in our great national places like Grand Canyon and the BoulderDam. The great appeal of this little book is that these fabulous black andwhite images retain their beauty and mystery even though reduced in size. Ican, and I have, carried it with me throughout the house, or on a walk withthe dog, or have thumbed through it while sipping a cup of coffee. It iswell worn and well loved. And now I am going to order one for my cousin whowill move out to Montana with her new husband. ... Read more

Product Description
Experience the best of West Africa with Lonely Planet. With our 7th edition you'll discover the varied landscape of this fascinating region - take a slow boat to Timbuktu, camp under the Sahara's starry skies, hike through ancient Dogon Country, discover Cote d'Ivoire's cosmopolitan Abidjan and kick-back on Ghana's palm-fringed beaches.

Lonely Planet guides are written by experts who get to the heart of every destination they visit. This fully updated edition is packed with accurate, practical and honest advice, designed to give you the information you need to make the most of your trip.

In This Guide:

Essential safety information provided throughout
Unrivalled activities and courses information for the whole region
Green Index to make your travels ecofriendly
... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

essentials
The book is the most essential item to be packed for my trip to Mali.

Awesome service
Even though I ordered the wrong item, seller was very quick to rectify the situation to my satisfaction. Thanks.

Get a West Africa Rough Guide
Absolutely inadequate to the journey. The guide's too small, completely out of date and really, really not worth its price. The equivalent Rough Guide was just so better.

Helpful information and advice.
This book covers most of what a person needs to consider and prepare for in planning a trip to West Africa....It is well arranged and easy to use.

For work or travel, excellent
I use this book not only for travel through W. Africa, but also for work.So many times I need to reference small, out-of-the-way places in the region that are otherwise unmentioned in books or on the Internet.Chances are, if it exists it's got a write-up (and, if you're lucky, a great street map) in Lonely Planet.Don't know what I would've done without for 4 years covering Africa for the State Department. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Historians have long assumed that ethnic and racial divisions in post-Civil War America were reflected in the U.S. Army, 40 percent of whose enlistees were foreign-born. Now Kevin Adams shows that the frontier army was characterized by a "Victorian class divide" that overshadowed ethnic prejudices.

Class and Race in the Frontier Army marks the first application of recent research on class, race, and ethnicity to the social and cultural history of military life on the western frontier. Adams draws on a wealth of military records and soldiers' diaries and letters to reconstruct everyday army life--from work and leisure to consumption, intellectual pursuits, and political activity--and shows that an inflexible class barrier stood between officers and enlisted men.

As Adams relates, officers lived in relative opulence while enlistees suffered poverty, neglect, and abuse. Although racism was engrained in official policy and informal behavior, no similar prejudice colored the experience of soldiers who were immigrants. Rather, both officers and enlisted men paid much less attention to ethnic differences than to social class--officers flaunting and protecting their status, enlisted men seething with class resentment.

Treating the army as a laboratory to better understand American society in the Gilded Age, Adams suggests that military attitudes mirrored civilian life in that era--with enlisted men, especially, illustrating the emerging class-consciousness among the working poor. Class and Race in the Frontier Army offers fresh insight into the interplay of class, race, and ethnicity in late-nineteenth-century America. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Professor Adams has done his research. The bibliography is impressive.
I am always impressed to learn that officers live in relative opulence, while the enlisted man suffered abuse, poverty and neglect. Some things never change.

Professor Adams has done his research. The bibliography is impressive. His use of old diaries, letters and military records gives solid grounding for his tilt in the makeup of the Frontier army from ethnicity to class. Adams reads easily!

"Class and Race in the Frontier Army" is the best treatment of the Frontier army since that great tome, "Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay," John Rickey, Jr., University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.

Richard N. Larsen
Reviewer
... Read more