How the Canyon Became Grand by Stephen J Pyne

How the Canyon Became Grand by Stephen J Pyne

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.

Stephen J. Pyne is a historian in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. He is the author of more than 30 books, mostly on wildland fire and its history but also dealing with the history of places and exploration, including The Ice, How the Canyon Became Grand, and Voyager. He is also the author of multiple volumes surveying the American fire scene, including Between Two Fires: A Fire History of Contemporary America and To the Last Smoke, a suite of regional reconnaissances, all published by the University of Arizona Press.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780140280562
ISBN 10	0140280561
Title	How the Canyon Became Grand
Author	Stephen J Pyne
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Putnam Inc
Year published	1999-07-01
Number of pages	240
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.