Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies | 
| Author: Ginger Strand
Creator: Karen White
Publisher: Tantor Media
Category: Book
List Price: $69.99
Buy New: $51.09
You Save: $18.90 (27%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 250466
Format: Audiobook, Cd
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Library ed.
Number Of Items: 11
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 6.4 x 1
ISBN: 1400137713
Dewey Decimal Number: 973
EAN: 9781400137718
ASIN: 1400137713
Publication Date: June 9, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Ginger Strand reveals the hidden history of America's most iconic natural wonder, Niagara Falls, illuminating what it says about our history, our relationship with the environment, and ourselves.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 I've Lived Here Most of My Life But Didn't Know.... July 4, 2008
In "Inventing Niagara:..." Ginger Strand writes a comprehensive albeit brief history of the Niagara Falls region without once mentioning Lockport Dolomite. She explores some myths, including the Maid of the Mist and Love Canal. For a non-native, she shows a real fondness for the area. The book is a good introduction to the area. Ms. Strand's style isn't academic, but she includes an extensive bibliography which gives the reader a path toward further study. She's done her homework but doesn't show off. As an engineer, I might have liked more technical discussion of the chemical and power plants, in lieu of the red-hat stories.
The history of the area is rich with dreams, schemes, scams and characters. In about 350 pages, Ms. Strand brings them to life. You root for the area, but like Wile E. coyote's plans, things never seem to go as designed. You see the area go from frontier gateway to commerce center to crucial wartime (1812) site to industrial mecca to tourists' paradise and back and never quite getting it right. All the time there's some true believer guiding the Michigan on its course.
The single reason to (buy and) read this book is for Ms. Strand's interviews and interactions with the locals. The funniest bit, that doesn't quite happen, is when she gets the Power Vista manager to shut the Falls off, because he can. Through her, you get to see the passion that the area inspires in people. From historians to preservationists to ex-Linde workers people want what they believe is best for the area. You get a feel for the power that the area holds over people. Sadly Ms. Strand didn't get to interview Robert Moses. That would have been entertaining.
If you plan to make a pilgrimage to Niagara Falls, I recommend this book before coming. After you watch water fall over rocks for 10 minutes, the book might inspire you to look further.
If you're an aspiring civic planner, I recommend this book. Think of this as the Goofus (of Goofus and Gallant) book.
I would also recommend this book for schools and home-school libraries, especially in Western NY.
-30-
Right On! Excellent June 30, 2008
This book tells us of the REALITY of the destruction of Niagara County NY. I enjoyed this book so much that I bought a copy for all my family members who are still living in the area. Many of them had no clue of the environmental damage going on around them. This book is a MUST read for anyone living in Niagara County NY.
The book reads like a movie and you can "see" all that is happening throughout the time periods. Then when you hit chapter 8, your mouth will literally hang wide open when you see what greed, and ignorance has done to such a beautiful place. I was born in that area but I am sorry to say I will never return to it. Now I understand why so many people are dropping from cancer back there. There is a saying in Lockport NY as told to me by my sister and it is; "Everyone knows someone with cancer."
Nothing will change back there until the people are educated and informed about their surroundings but the powers that be hide reality. So I'm hoping this book gets into the hands of the people back there.
This is an eye opening reality. I recommend it to everyone no matter where on this planet you live. The things that happened in that area are still happening all around the world. We are killing ourselves.
Thank you Ms. Strand for writing a book that takes us through history, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Excellent!!!!
The Eternal, Ever-Changing Niagara June 20, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
There may be many reasons for going to Niagara Falls. Sure, you have to be awed by the spectacular falls themselves. You might go to start up a marriage, or to re-start one. You might go gamble. "I went to Niagara Falls because I wanted to laugh at it," says Ginger Strand, author of _Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies_ (Simon and Schuster), and she finds plenty of the historical and regional environs funny. But wanting to laugh was the reason she went there during her college years, just to smirk at the tackiness and kitsch. She has been going back, though, over and over since then, because "I do love hydroinfrastructure - water tunnels, reservoirs, canals, sewers, aqueducts." She finds it inspiring, but she also finds that the natural wonder that everyone loves about the falls is not natural at all. It has been used, changed, prettified, trivialized, exploited, and poisoned. There is thus a great deal of amusement in this wide-ranging account, but a good deal of loss and sadness as well.
"Niagara Falls as a natural wonder does not exist anymore." It is originally hard to believe this. It is not surprising that the water does not fall exactly as it did three hundred, or three thousand, years ago, but it is surprising how much people have made the changes happen in recent years. This is not entirely because of using the water for hydroelectric power, although this is certainly one cause of the change. The waterfall has hours of operation. In the summer, and during the daytime, when people come to see the falls in action, the water gets turned up to maximum flow. At night, it gets dialed back "like a fancy massaging showerhead" so that more electricity is generated. No more than half the water that could go over the falls actually does so, and an engineer assures Strand that yes, if they wanted, the power companies could divert all the water to the generators with none for the tourists. The effect on the scenery of the reduced flow has been minimized by huge engineering projects, tinkering with the flow and diverting it so that it goes evenly over Horseshoe Falls, for instance. The fall of the water is not all that has changed, of course. The "Free Niagara" movement, guided by the famous landscape architect Frederic Law Olmsted, proposed to make the surroundings of the falls to be picturesque and spiritually elevating. Strand writes that this was questionable social engineering. Worse than that, it hid the hydrodynamic and chemical exploitation of the area as industry sprang up to take advantage of the water's power. Only later did atrocities like the toxic dumps of the Love Canal come to light. There is a long history of utopian dreams for the region, but few of them have come true.
Much of Strand's book is therefore distressing. Humans have tried to do what they always try to do, take control of nature for reasons esthetic, and especially commercial, and whatever successes have come are inextricably linked to failures. The pessimism does not mean that Strand's book is preachy. There are stories of shrunken heads here, and Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy, and fake Indian legends, and of course the peculiar thrills of those who go over the falls in barrels. There is a great deal of fun here. Strand writes, "On every level, Niagara Falls is a monument to the ways America falsifies its relationship to nature, reshaping its contours, redirecting its force, claiming to submit to its will while imposing our own upon it." There is plenty of documentation here of this theme, but Strand still travels to Niagara every chance she gets. She is continually amazed at the landfills or the other examples of disharmony with nature, but that's not important. The real amazement, and she writes about it heartily and endearingly, comes from the big, green spectacle of water, falling. Anyone reading this entertaining account will understand how well-placed is her obsession.
Very Enjoyable June 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It was very enjoyable. Ginger Strand showed the very great diversity of history that constitutes the foundation of "present circumstances" at innumerable discernable geographic regions. This type of story is of value to many more people than just those who have lived there. I also thought that her presentation was well-balanced between facts, stories, and weirdness. I have already recommended her book to my day-job boss and one of my co-workers.
Excellent Book June 4, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
As a Niagara Falls native, who has traveled all over the world and lived in several other parts of the country before returning to WNY, I found this book to be right on target. It was an engaging and easy read. Although I also thought I knew a lot about the history of the region, this wonderful book filled in a lot of blanks for me. It also made me remember the "good old days" when Niagara Falls was a destination to be enjoyed.
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