| | Window Seat: Reading the Landscape from the Air. Gregory Dicum.
Although billed as the "perfect
inflight companion", Window Seat is more than
a guide to what you see out your airplane window as you
cross North America. Using primarily satellite
images, the accessible book helps explain geology and
the history of human settlement, as well as ecology and
- more importantly - the effects we have on the land. Split
into geographic sections, rather than by states, each section
illustrates the prevalent natural features of the region,
in addition to highlighting special places. For example
"The Great Plains" shows the agricultural grid
indicative of the region, as well as the massive Monfort
Feedlot, a collection point for beef from all over the region.
This example further illustrates the ultimate focus of the
book; as the circles within the squares are signs of pivot
irrigation, drawing water from the huge Oglala aquifer at
a rate that threatens the future of the Great Plains. Across
its 175 pages and seventy aerial photographs, the reader
learns to interpret the land, not just gawk at it, learning
to see things in a different way.
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