Vanishing America: In Pursuit of Our Elusive Landscapes [Hardcover]

James Conaway (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2007

The rich American landscape, both natural and cultural, is being threatened and in some cases wiped away completely. Preservation Editor-at-Large James Conaway takes to the road in Vanishing America, exploring the places, people, and traditions that have helped to shape our national identity.

Part personal narrative and part travelogue, his journey offers a smart and informative account from across the country. From D.C’s National Cathedral to a deserted cabin in Big Sur, from dinosaur bones in New Mexico’s Bisti Badlands to the weatherworn façade of New Orleans, along the way Conaway meets cowboys, hippies, real estate developers, and many others whose stories weave into a national identity at once created, disappearing, destroyed, and continually redefined. Many of the best reflections of what the country once stood for lie around us abused, exploited, or ignored. How do we resolve the notion of preservation within a culture so dependent on growth and prosperity?

With wit and acute urgency, Conaway reminds us that every bit of property, historic landmark, and distinct community, is vulnerable. These essays serve as a lament for what’s being lost, a prompt for what we still have to preserve, and a celebration of our nation’s unique characteristics.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In these perceptive essays, Conaway (The Far Side of Eden) shows how development and tourism are laying waste to America's natural and cultural landscapes. Entertaining as well as astute, the pieces revolve around his impressions of exceptional places he considers physical and spiritual barometers of the country's health, including the Boise River in Idaho (overused and polluted), Napa Valley in California (disfigured by gigantic wineries and McMansions) and national parks (considered saleable products by elected officials and adversely affected by too many tourists, toilets, buses, concessionaires and paved highways). On Western communal lands that should be preserved by the Bureau of Land Management, such as New Mexico's Bisti Badlands and Wyoming's Big Piney, energy exploration and extraction, grazing and all-terrain vehicles are taking their toll. On the grounds of Washington, D.C.'s National Cathedral, development needs have resulted in new buildings, accommodations for tour buses and a huge gymnasium, so that an institution supposedly dedicated to saving souls has been turned into an engine of tourism, development, and controversy. Conaway argues persuasively that these irreplaceable landscapes stand for the real America, but because we are sacrificing them to material concerns, we're losing our culture along with the very ground upon which America was built. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint; 1ST edition (September 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593761287
• ISBN-13: 978-1593761288
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,640,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James (Jim) Conaway grew up in Memphis but lived in Europe for several years before moving to Washington, D.C. A former Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford University, he's the author of two novels and nine books of non-fiction, the most recent being "Vanishing America: In Pursuit of Our Elusive Landscapes", described by writer Tracy Kidder as "an enthralling, lovely tribute to a lot of what is precious in America."
His previous book, "The Far Side of Eden", was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year in 2002 and a sequel to his best-selling "Napa: The Story of an American Eden", described in the New York Times Book Review as "an important story, emblematic of our time."
His other books include the memoir, "Memphis Afternoons", and "The Kingdom in the Country", a personal journey in a van through the public lands of the American West and described by Stegner as "a very lively book... He got into places and activities that most westerners never even get close to." Author Jim Harrison called it "a wonderful, well-considered evocation of the New West."
Jim's first novel, "The Big Easy", is based on his experiences as a police reporter in New Orleans; his second novel, "World's End", is a Louisiana coastal saga ofr politics and crime described as "a combination of All the King's Men" and "The Godfather." He has just completed a new novel set in California.
Jim has written for many magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Atlantic, Harper's, The New Republic, Gourmet, Smithsonian, and National Geographic Traveler. He divides his time between piedmont Virginia and Washington.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wake Up and See America Before It's Gone, February 13, 2010

By 

C. Davis "Bargain Hunter" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Vanishing America: In Pursuit of Our Elusive Landscapes (Hardcover)

This is a fascinating though shameful account of how much we take for granted in the scope and variety of U.S. geography - and how much of it is disappearing forever. Get out there and see all the great and unique places before they are desecrated or destroyed altogether.