BES Book of the Year — Baltimore: The Building of an American City

We have started a new tradition at BES.  A book of the year is a good way to focus on some important publication relevant to everyone in the Baltimore Ecosystem Study.  We start this tradition with a classic and fundamental book about the history and development of Baltimore: Professor Sherry H. Olson’s Baltimore: The Building of an American City.  Although first published in 1980, and updated in 1997, it remains a key intellectual resource on Baltimore.  Prof. Olson was on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University at the time the book was first written.  She has since moved to McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.

By highlighting this book, we hope that all members of the BES community will read this important work.  Some of course, will be returning to it as a refresher.  The book will surely repay their effort, given the plethora of details and explanations of the trajectory of change in Baltimore.  Those who are new to Prof. Olson’s book are in for a treat, because it is not only comprehensive, but engagingly written.

Our spotlight on this book will also shine on Prof. Olson herself, as she will give the keynote presentation at our Annual Meeting at the Cylburn Arboretum on 24 October, 2012.  Entitled “The Growth Machine: Its Environmental Legacy,” this talk will give a chance for her to bring us up to date on her research and scholarship.  All members of the BES community are invited to delve into the book, and to hear Prof. Olson at our Annual Meeting.

See her web page for more on her research interests and publications: http://www.geog.mcgill.ca/faculty/olson/