Dismissed by the first Spanish explorers as a wasteland, the Grand Canyon lay virtually unnoticed for three centuries until nineteenth- century America rediscovered it and seized it as a national emblem. This extraordinary work of intellectual and environmental history tells two tales of the Canyon- the discovery and exploration of the physical Canyon and the invention and evolution of the cultural Canyon--how we learned to endow it with mythic significance.
Acclaimed historian Stephen Pyne examines the major shifts in Western attitudes toward nature, and recounts the achievements of explorers, geologists, artists, and writers, from John Wesley Powell to Wallace Stegner, and how they transformed the Canyon into a fixture of national identity. This groundbreaking book takes us on a completely original journey through the Canyon toward a new understanding of its niche in the American psyche, a journey that mirrors the making of the nation itself.
By:
Stephen J. Pyne
Imprint: Penguin US
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 196mm,
Width: 131mm,
Spine: 16mm
Weight: 198g
ISBN: 9780140280562
ISBN 10: 0140280561
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 01 July 1999
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Overlook: The View from Dutton Point Two New Worlds Canyon, Found and Lost Second Age, Second Chance Convergence Rim and River Lonely and Majestic Way: Big Cañon Into the Great Unknown: Grand Canyon Against the Currents: Return to Big Cañon A Great Innovation: Grand Ensemble Leave It as It Is: One of the Great Sights Canyon and Cosmos Modernism Moves On: The Populist Canyon Down the River and Back from the Brink: The Environmentalist Canyon Afterword: A Review from Point Sublime Appendix: The Grand Canyon: A Graphical Profile Notes Sources and Further Readings Index
