04289nam 22008415 450 991049613660332120250604190135.0978661235502897812823550261282355023978052091846705209184609780585041124058504112110.1525/9780520918467(CKB)111004366713006(EBL)470884(OCoLC)609849994(SSID)ssj0000365902(PQKBManifestationID)12118935(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000365902(PQKBWorkID)10414755(PQKB)10030022(SSID)ssj0000246799(PQKBManifestationID)12070206(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000246799(PQKBWorkID)10189503(PQKB)11281602(MiAaPQ)EBC470884(DE-B1597)520004(OCoLC)990413464(DE-B1597)9780520918467(Perlego)552060(EXLCZ)9911100436671300620200424h19951995 fg 0engur||#||||||||txtccrSlide Mountain or, the folly of owning nature /Theodore Steinberg1st ed.Berkeley, CA :University of California Press,[1995]©19951 online resource (225 p.)Description based upon print version of record.9780520207097 0520207092 9780520087637 0520087631 Includes bibliographical references (pages 177-203) and index.Front matter --CONTENTS --ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --SLIDE MOUNTAIN --Fast Fish in America: An Introduction --1. Blackbird's Ghost: Real Estate and Other Fantasies --2. Identity Crisis in Bayou Country --3. Notes from Underground: The Private Life of Water --4. Cloudbusting in Fulton County --5. Three-D Deeds: The Rise of Air Rights in New York --Paper Moon: A Conclusion --Notes --IndexThe drive to own the natural world in twentieth-century America seems virtually limitless. Signs of this national penchant for possessing nature are everywhere-from suburban picket fences to elaborate schemes to own underground water, clouds, even the ocean floor. Yet, as Theodore Steinberg demonstrates in this compelling, witty look at Americans' attempts to master the environment, nature continually turns these efforts into folly. In a rich, narrative style recalling the work of John McPhee, Steinberg tours America to explore some of the more unusual dilemmas that have arisen in our struggle to possess nature. Beginning along the Missouri River, Steinberg recounts the battle for three thousand acres of land the river carved from a Nebraska Indian reservation and deposited in Iowa. Then he travels to Louisiana, where an army of lawyers butted heads over whether Six Mile Lake was actually a lake or a stream. He continues to Arizona to investigate who owned the underground, then to Pennsylvania's Blue Ridge Mountains to see who claimed the clouds. He ends in crowded New York City with Donald Trump's struggle for air rights. Americans' obsession with owning nature was immortalized by Mark Twain in the tale of Slide Mountain, where a landslide-prone Nevada peak turned the American dream of real estate into dust. In relating these modern-day "Slide Mountain" stories, Steinberg illuminates what it means to live in a culture of property where everything must have an owner.Land tenureLand tenureUnited StatesLand useLand useUnited StatesReal propertyReal propertyUnited StatesLand tenure.Land tenureLand use.Land useReal property.Real property333.3/0973Steinberg Theodore1961-authttp://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut1109544DE-B1597DE-B1597BOOK9910496136603321Slide Mountain4384398UNINA