Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West [Paperback]

Wallace Stegner (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 1, 1992

In this book Wallace Stegner recounts the sucesses and frustrations of John Wesley Powell, the distinguished ethnologist and geologist who explored the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon, and the homeland of Indian tribes of the American Southwest. A prophet without honor who had a profound understanding of the American West, Powell warned long ago of the dangers economic exploitation would pose to the West and spent a good deal of his life overcoming Washington politics in getting his message across. Only now, we may recognize just how accurate a prophet he was.

"This book goes far beyond biography, into the nature and soul of the American West. It is Stegner at his best, assaying an entire era of our history, packing his pages with insights as shrewd as his prose." —Ivan Doig

Editorial Reviews

Review

No library of western/southwestern materials can be without this book. . . . --Books of the Southwest

This book goes far beyond biography, into the nature and soul of the American West. It is Stegner at his best, assaying an entire era of our history, packing his pages with insights as shrewd as his prose. --Ivan Doig --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

About the Author

WALLACE STEGNER (1903-1993) was the author of many books of fiction and nonfiction, including the National Book Award-winning The Spectator Bird (1976) and Crossing to Safety. Angle of Repose won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (March 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140159940
• ISBN-13: 978-0140159943
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #45 in Books > History > World > Expeditions & Discoveries
  • #79 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Scientists
  • #87 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Specific Groups > Adventurers & Explorers

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#80 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 72 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the few essential books on the American West October 15, 2002

By Robert Moore HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

This classic work is a penetrating and insightful study of the public career of Maj. John Wesley Powell, from the beginning of the Powell Survey, which most famously had Powell and his men descend for the first time by anyone the Colorado River, to his eventual ouster from the Geological Survey. Stegner does a magnificent job of detailing both the myriad accomplishments by Powell in his remarkable career as public servant, but the philosophy and ideas that undergirded his work. Most readers at the end will conclude that the history of the United States might have proceeded differently had his profound insights into the nature of the American West been heeded.

Stegner writes in a lucid, clear, frequently exciting prose style. Although his history is solid, his writing is somewhat more. For example, at one point Stegner writes of one person who was more than a little deluded about the nature of the West: "The yeasty schemes stirring in Adams' head must have generated gases to cloud his eyesight." Especially in context a brilliant sentence, and not of the quality one anticipates in a historical work, especially one that deals at length with questions of public policy. The volume also contains an Introduction by Stegner's mentor and teacher Bernard DeVoto, an essay that contains in a few pages the heart of DeVoto's own understanding of the West, and which alone would be worth the cost of the volume.

Stegner does an excellent job of relating Powell's own insights and visions to those of others of the day. He contrasts Powell's philosophy with the desires and urges of the people who were rushing to obtain land in the West, and the politicians who were trying to lure them there.... He points up similarities and differences in his way of looking at things, from those stoutly opposed to his views, and those in some degree sympathetic to him, like Charles King and the oddly omnipresent Henry Adams. From the earliest pages of the book to the very end, Stegner brings up Adams again and again, which is somewhat unexpected since Adams is not an essential participant in this story.

I have only two complaints with the book, one stylistic and the other substantive. The book contains a few maps but no photographs, and this book would have profited greatly from a number of illustrations. He refers to many, many visual things: vistas, rivers, people, paintings of the West, photographs of the West, maps, Indians, and locales, and at least a few photographs or illustrations would have greatly enhanced the book.

The second complaint is more serious. Stegner is completely unsympathetic to the attacks of Edward D. Cope on Othniel C. Marsh and, primarily by association, Powell. The Cope-Marsh controversy was, as Stegner quite rightly points out, the most destructive scientific controversy in United States history, and one that does absolutely no credit to either major participant. My complaint with Stegner's account is that he makes Cope sound more than a little psychotic, and his complaints more symptoms of mental illness and irrational hatred than anything generated by reasonable causes. Cope's hatred of Marsh was not rational, but neither was it baseless. Cope had indeed suffered grievously at the hands of Marsh, who had used his own considerable political power to prevent Cope from obtaining additional fossil samples. In this Powell was not completely innocent. I believe that anyone studying the Cope-Marsh controversy in greater detail will find Cope and not Marsh to be the more sympathetic figure, and certainly the more likable. The careers of both Cope and Marsh were destroyed by their controversy, but so also was that that of Powell greatly diminished. I can understand why Stegner is so unsympathetic to Cope, while at the same time believing that he overlooks the justness of many of Cope's complaints. Read more ›

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent adventure and history book September 16, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Wallace Stegner combines the adventure of John Wesley Powell's historic running of the Colorado River and the story of government science. Powell's river running is a dramatic yarn, and Stegner draws on his strengths as a historian to debunk some of the exaggerations of Powell's own writings. Stegner has quite a way with words and brings Powell's story to life. The second half of the book is somewhat dry, but it is an important document of the history of government-funded science in this country. (Powell played an important role in government science.) He does an excellent job of enlivening the characters, and the history has important implications today. While this is not Stegner's best book, it is a good read, especially for fans of the American West.

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars History of water in the west; rollicking adventure story March 25, 2002

By xaosdog

Format:Paperback

Stegner is a prolific historian of the American West, as well as a prolific author of fiction. To my mind, his nonfiction is always a notch better than even the best of his fiction; to my mind, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian is the best of the lot.

To be sure, my view that this one is his best is likely colored by my impression that it treats the most important issues dealt with within Stegner's œuvre, namely, the question of water use in the American West. However, independent of the book's importance in understanding the history of water use, it is also a rollicking adventure tale of a one-armed madman shooting hellacious rapids the likes of which our continent no longer knows, while strapped to a wooden boat.

Powell was a brilliant, eccentric man, and the United States would be a better place if the policies he suggested had been intelligently implemented (rather than first ignored and subsequently mis-applied). His life is well worth learning about.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Powell Looks Even Wiser 100 Years Later August 23, 2002

By ram

Format:Paperback

This book written in 1954 not only captures the story of this remarkable man, Major John W. Powell, but also discusses and reflects on the challenges of too many people living in the Western desert. As a resident of a now "drought impacted state" the wisdom of Powell's ideas and the lack of implementation of those ideas are represented in the chaos local and state governments are facing as they attempt to keep lawns green, golf courses open, and drinking water available for all of the "new" residences of the state. I only hope that some of this generations politicians pay attention to Powell's "topographical" analysis and begin shaping more effective land and water policy for the West. A terrific read with many classic Stegner quotes.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book by a cranky old guy October 6, 2005

By Mike Smith VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

This is an excellent biography of John Wesley Powell--exlorer, geologist, scientist, writer, and politician.

Anyone who reads this is sure to increase the amount they know about this historic figure, and about the West in general as the stories of each are inextricably tangled. The book excels at its account of John Wesley Powell's life AFTER his famous trips down the Colorado River, and does a great job of describing Powell's role in the battle against over-populating the West.

If the book has faults though, they lie in that many of Stegner's sources have since been expounded upon or dismissed entirely, and so the facts in this book aren't entirely current. Also, Stegner dismisses too quickly the merits of the story of James White, a man who very possibly went down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon two years before Powell did.

And, it's kind of ridiculous how Stegner criticizes Powell's second expedition's photos as if they were famous works and art: This photo "is marred by too much nondescipt low-water beach in the foreground," and that sort of thing.

This is a great book for anyone interested in John Wesley Powell or the Colorado River. It's possibly Stegner's best nonfiction work, though "Mormon Country" is good as well.

For another great account of John Wesley Powell, read "Down the Great Unknown" by Edward Dolnick.

Or, for a half-decent book about Wallace Stegner's peculiarly white view of the American West, read, "'Why I Can't Read Wallace Stegner' and Other Essays" by Elizabeth Cook-Lynn. That one's kind of interesting.