Diana Muir Appelbaum | |
---|---|
Born | Diana Karter |
Occupation | Author Historian |
Spouse | Paul S. Appelbaum |
Children | 3 including Yoni Appelbaum and Binyamin Appelbaum |
Parent(s) | Elizabeth Whitman Karter Peter Karter |
Family | Trish Karter (sister) |
Diana Muir, also known as Diana Muir Appelbaum, is a Newton, Massachusetts, USA, historian best known for her 2000 book Reflections in Bullough's Pond , a history of the impact of human activity on the New England ecosystem.
Appelbaum was born on base at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Her father was in the army and the family lived in several states before settling in the small town of Old Lyme, Connecticut, when she was entering 11th grade. She won an AFS Intercultural Programs scholarship and spent a year in Llay-Llay, Chile, before graduating from Old Lyme High School. She attended Barnard College of Columbia University in New York City. [1] Her parents are Elizabeth Carmen (née Whitman) and the nuclear engineer Peter Karter (né Patayonis Karteroulis). [2] Her paternal grandparents were Greek. Her sister is the entrepreneur Trish Karter. She is married to Paul S. Appelbaum, a psychiatrist and professor[ ambiguous ] at Columbia University with whom she has co-authored articles. They have three adult children, Binyamin Appelbaum, Yoni Appelbaum and Avigail Appelbaum. [3]
According to the Daily News Tribune , "Muir's book Reflections in Bullough's Pond reads more like a novel than a history book. In the book, Muir shows the historical relationship between New England's economy and the environment. She expands the relationship into a national and global analysis of America's, and the world's, current environmental and political problems: global warming, ozone depletion, and Middle East oil dependence, to name a few. Muir claims America's oil dependent economy has hit a dead end. Muir argues that Americans can, and must, make economic changes to alleviate their environmental and political problems." [4]
Muir draws on many academic disciplines in her work. As the Boston Globe put it:
She's an economist. Then, again, maybe she's really an ecologist. Although some book critics and readers consider her a New England historian. Actually, Newton author Diana Muir is probably all of the above... Although her book was well received by economic historians who like to look at how industries rise and fall, Muir doesn't call herself a lay economist. "I'm an historian," she said. "And it seems to me that any intelligent person has to enjoy nature and care about the environment, and so those interests all came together." So, she's a shameless environmentalist, too. [5]
Muir, an environmental historian, is a critic of American choice of "profitability over sustainability". [1] She has been called "Malthusian", [6] and a "shameless environmentalist". [7] She has written a column for the Massachusetts Sierran, the magazine of the Massachusetts Sierra Club. [8]
Muir is the author of two acclaimed picture books for children, Giants in the Land and Cocoa Ice . [9]
Muir has published a number of articles on genetics and ethnicity, [10] [11] defending the position that ethnicity is a matter of language and customs, not genetic descent. [12]
Muir is the author of histories of the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. Sociologist Amitai Etzioni has called Muir's books key works in the social history of holidays. [13]
Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately 7 miles (11 km) west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Newton was 88,923.
Salisbury is a town situated in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The town is the northwesternmost in the state of Connecticut; the Massachusetts-New York-Connecticut tri-state marker is located at the northwest corner of the town. The population was 4,194 at the 2020 census.
Saugus is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. The population was 28,619 at the 2020 census. Saugus is known as the site of the first integrated iron works in North America.
Sarah Josepha Buell Hale was an American writer, activist, and editor of Godey's Lady's Book. She was the author of the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb". Hale famously campaigned for the creation of the American holiday known as Thanksgiving, and for the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument.
The year 1814 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Amitai Etzioni is a German-born Israeli-American sociologist, best known for his work on socioeconomics and communitarianism. He founded the Communitarian Network, a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to supporting the moral, social, and political foundations of society. He established the network to disseminate the movement's ideas. His writings argue for a carefully crafted balance between individual rights and social responsibilities, and between autonomy and order, in social structure. In 2001, he was named among the top 100 American intellectuals, as measured by academic citations, in Richard Posner's book, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline.
William Pynchon was an English colonist and fur trader in North America best known as the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts, USA. He was also a colonial treasurer, original patentee of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the iconoclastic author of the New World's first banned book. An original settler of Roxbury, Massachusetts, Pynchon became dissatisfied with that town's notoriously rocky soil and in 1635, led the initial settlement expedition to Springfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts, where he found exceptionally fertile soil and a fine spot for conducting trade. In 1636, he returned to officially purchase its land, then known as "Agawam." In 1640, Springfield was officially renamed after Pynchon's home village, now a suburb of Chelmsford in Essex, England — due to Pynchon's grace following a dispute with Hartford, Connecticut's Captain John Mason over, essentially, whether to treat local natives as friends or enemies. Pynchon was a man of peace and also very business-minded — thus he advocated for friendship with the region's natives as a means of ensuring the continued trade of goods. Pynchon's stance led to Springfield aligning with the faraway government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony rather than that of the closer Connecticut Colony.
Elisha King Root was a Connecticut machinist, inventor, and President of Colt's Manufacturing Company.
Simeon North was a Middletown, Connecticut, gun manufacturer, who developed one of America's first milling machines in 1818 and played an important role in the development of interchangeable parts manufacturing.
The Blackstone Valley or Blackstone River Valley is a region of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. It was a major factor in the American Industrial Revolution. It makes up part of the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor and National Historical Park.
Eli Terry Sr. was an inventor and clockmaker in Connecticut. He received a United States patent for a shelf clock mechanism. He introduced mass production to the art of clockmaking, which made clocks affordable for the average American citizen. Terry occupies an important place in the beginnings of the development of interchangeable parts manufacturing. Terry is considered the first person in American history to actually accomplish interchangeable parts with no government funding. Terry became one of the most accomplished mechanics in New England during the early part of the nineteenth century. The village of Terryville, Connecticut is named for his son, Eli Terry Jr.
The Canoe River is a river in southeastern Massachusetts. It is 14.4 miles (23.2 km) long and part of the Taunton River Watershed.
Bullough's Pond, a former mill pond located in Newton, Massachusetts, is now a decorative pond in a suburban neighborhood, used for bird watching and walking. In the nineteenth century it was the site of a commercial ice business. Since the early 2000s, temperatures have warmed to the point that its winter ice is no longer thick enough to support skating safely.
Congregation Ramath Orah is an Orthodox synagogue located in Manhattan's Upper West Side, close to Columbia University. It occupies a neo-Georgian building on West 110th Street, originally built in 1921 as the first stage of a large West Side Unitarian Church.
Reflections in Bullough's Pond: Economy and Ecosystem in New England is a book by Diana Muir. The Providence Journal called Bullough’s Pond "a masterpiece," and Publishers Weekly called it "lyrical". The Massachusetts Center for the Book awarded the 2001 Massachusetts Book Award to Bullough's Pond for the author’s "engaging and accomplished storytelling."
Lake Massapoag is a 353-acre (1.43 km2), natural, springfed lake located in Sharon, Massachusetts. The name Massapoag is Algonquin, meaning "large water".
Peter Karter (1922–2010) was an American nuclear engineer and one of the pioneers of the modern recycling industry. He lived in Old Lyme, Connecticut.
Yoni Appelbaum, an American historian and journalist, is Senior Editor for politics at The Atlantic. Appelbaum was previously a columnist for the publication.
Diana Der Hovanessian, Armenian American poet, translator, and author. Much of the subject of her poetry was about Armenia and the Armenian diaspora. She wrote and published over twenty-five books.
Giants in the Land is a children's picture book written by Diana Appelbaum and illustrated by Michael McCurdy. It was published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1993.