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How the Canyon Became Grand: A Short History |
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How the Canyon Became Grand: A Short History
List Price: $15.00
Our Price: $15.00
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Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Author: Stephen J. Pyne
Binding: Paperback
Publication Date: 1999-07-01
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Number Of Pages: 240
Features:
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Editorial Review:
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.
"This extraordinary document puts the national landmark in the context of nothing less than the intellectual history of Western civilization -- in 200 pages." --New York Newsday
"Unique and revealing . . . offers great grist for discussion, perhaps as deep as the Grand Canyon itself." -USA Today
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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 
Interesting ideas and information, but socially very biased 2006-05-03
This book like others on the Grand Canyon's history as national monument discusses various visits by European and US explorers. Dr. Pyne's book approaches the topic from a different slant. By focusing on the effect of cultural and psychological filters he explains why the geologic phenomenon has been valued differently through time. Especially in this book as unlike others, the author shows why the canyon was "seen" or not and why parts were included in an individual's perspective or not. This was something new to me, something that is apparent once voiced but not necessarily obvious until pointed out.
I once took a speech-communications class called "persuasion" in the course of which it became obvious that 1. context contributes a great deal to message, and 2. not all communication is intended. At the time it struck me that the dead communicate, namely the most salient point about themselves, ie. that they are dead, however few would say that they "intended" to do so. Likewise, a canyon or other environmental configuration can communicate to an observer, but the message sent and received is determined by the filters of the recipient, his/her cultural, social, and psychological context. Pyne's book makes it evident that the message of the Grand Canyon is different for each age and for each person, and is shaped as much by our expectations and cultural orientations as by anything else. He does an excellant job of showing how the canyon and the Colorado River have changed their cultural identity through time, even in our own time.
For those looking for something of a biography of the discoverers of the Canyon and explorers of the Colorado River system, this is probably a less detailed book than you might like. A more thorough account is available in The Grand Canyon: Solving Earth's Grandest Puzzle by James Lawrence Powell. It does include a bibliography of works, however, including some of the original publications by the 19th century explorers themselves. These might provide you with more of what you're looking for, particularly accounts by John Westly Powell. For those looking for a brief overview, however, this will certainly provide you with a good start. Although I've studied geology, the geology and history of the Colorado was not familiar to me, so I found the book helpful.
I was not entirely certain I agreed with the author's rather vaunted sense of "elite" and "intellectual," and his negative attitude toward popular-that is middle class-culture. I agree that we are given to commercialism and mass consumerism, but that pretty much cuts across the social boundaries. There are reasons why the 19th century wealthy could endow entire museums with their private art collections and furnish their homes in wall to wall Tiffanies. The difference between middle class and upper class consumerism appears to be the expense of the items purchased. I see no difference in the desire of a middle class individual to investigate the unique in his/her environment than in that of a wealthy, educated individual pursuing his or hers. If anything, it would appear to have been the spread of education throughout society during the latter part of the 19th century and earlier portion of the 20ieth that gave more people access to the information and orientation that allowed more people to appreciate something like the Grand Canyon.
I also disagreed with the author's by-the-by negative attitude toward the "Democrates" at whose doorstep he laid the building of dams and other projects. I do agree that doing so damaged a scenic environment of great value emotionally to the nation, I even agree that it was environmentally an unsound decision. But given the information at the time, the needs and social issues of the time, the decisions made may have appeared acceptable to those who made them at the time. Twenty-twenty hind-sight and values based on modern perspectives is a waste of time. It's usefulness is questionable, like exhuming Attila the Hun and trying him posthumously for crimes against humanity; what's the point? We too will be judged in our turn by the future, and who knows what "crimes" we will be determined to have committed?
Poetic History of the Grand Canyon 2005-12-29
The author provides a detailed history of the Grand Canyon in a more poetic and spiritual sense. Thus, it may be more appropriate for someone that appreciates prose and an appreciation for language. If you are looking for a more straightforward history of the Grand Canyon, this book is probably not for you. I fell into the latter category and on my vacation to the Grand Canyon; I was looking more for an industrious quick read, which this book is not. I was amused that the author seemed so surprised that the Conquistadors did not write much at all about the Grand Canyon but where we today appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of the Canyon, the Conquistadors in their search for gold may have been more perplexed in how to get to the other side.
Take this off the Gift Shop Shelves!  2003-09-08
I agree with most of the reviews here. I'm not sure why this book was included at the gift shop at the Grand Canyon. I'd better imagine it gathering dust on a shelf at an academic library, where it belongs. On my honeymoon out west, I continually tried to read this book, but every time I picked it up, I was confused and frustrated with the deliberately obtuse and arrogant language Pyne uses throughout this impenetrable tome. As most other reviewers said--view the canyon through your own eyes and avoid this book at all costs
Great intellectual history  2002-10-16
This book is a great intellectual history of a subject that tends to be considered so trite as to be mundane. In the course of the 20th Century the wonders of the Grand Canyon have been so often noted that they have become a cliche of commercialism. Pyne takes us back to the Spanish explorers and helps us to understand why their intellectual powers were inadequate to interpret the meaning of the Canyon when they first encountered it. Pyne describes 3 great ages of exploration, and devotes considerable space to the explanation of the geology of the canyon, first discovered in the late 1800's by John Wesley Powell and his associates. He also makes frequent reference to the human representation of the Canyon in art; he considers this, it would appear, to be as significant as its geology. He relates this art to the modernistic movements in Europe. He describes the advent of commercialism and of the ecology movement by men like Joseph Wood Krutch, who wanted the Canyon maintained in its pristine state for the enjoyment of all. He describes how the Canyon has become less important in scientific circles with the advent of the theory of plate tectonics and of crater impact zones, of space exploration.
broad world view 2002-10-13
Pyne puts the Grand Canyon in the context of world history with numerous references to the "First, Second, and Third Ages Of Discovery", the first represented by Coronado, the second represented by Powell, the third represented by space exploration, and with numerous references to geology, (somewhat surprisingly) to art, and to nature writing. This book details the extensive geologic exploration of the canyon in the late 1800's, the art it produced, and the effects of European trends in art on the Canyon art, and the changing view of the canyon as a result of space exploration and environmentalism. A lucid and compelling work.
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