The Promise of the Grand Canyon
John Wesley Powell's Perilous Journey and His Vision for the American West
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4.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“A convincing case for Powell’s legacy as a pioneering conservationist.”--The Wall Street Journal
"A bold study of an eco-visionary at a watershed moment in US history."--Nature
A timely, thrilling account of the explorer who dared to lead the first successful expedition down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon—and waged a bitterly-contested campaign for sustainability in the West.
John Wesley Powell’s first descent of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in 1869 counts among the most dramatic chapters in American exploration history. When the Canyon spit out the surviving members of the expedition—starving, battered, and nearly naked—they had accomplished what others thought impossible and finished the exploration of continental America that Lewis and Clark had begun almost 70 years before.
With The Promise of the Grand Canyon, John F. Ross tells how that perilous expedition launched the one-armed Civil War hero on the path to becoming the nation’s foremost proponent of environmental sustainability and a powerful, if controversial, visionary for the development of the American West. So much of what he preached—most broadly about land and water stewardship—remains prophetically to the point today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This enthralling tale by adventure writer Ross (Enduring Courage) focuses on the life of John Wesley Powell (1834 1902), an explorer, geologist, and early proponent of environmental sustainability. Ross portrays Powell as a practical visionary who challenged the status quo of the Gilded Age by encouraging people to "listen not only to their heart, pocketbook, and deep aspirations, but what the land itself and the climate would tell them." His early life in the Midwest as a boy working on the family farm and as a schoolteacher and budding naturalist shaped his ideas about the environment. Ross displays a flair for adventure writing as he recounts Powell's service with the Union Army during the Civil War (which cost him half an arm) and subsequent work on geological surveys of the West, and he renders Powell's 1869 expedition of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon in breathtaking detail. That trip convinced Powell that water was the key to development in the West and led to his career in the federal government, where he fought for his vision of land and water management. Ross demonstrates a facility for both human history and natural history, clearly showing why Powell's ideas matter today. Illus.
