Western United States - History - General & Miscellaneous, Landscape & Environment, Western U.S. Travel - General & Miscellaneous, United States - Travel Essays & Descriptions - General & Miscellaneous, U.S. Travel - National Parks & Historic Sites, Nucle

Savage Dreams

Name: Savage Dreams
Author: Rebecca Solnit
ISBN: 9780871565266

by Rebecca Solnit

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Overview

In 1851, a war began in what would become Yosemite National Park, a war that has yet to come to a real conclusion. A century later and about a hundred and fifty miles away as the crow flies, another war began when the U. S. government began setting off nuclear bombs at the Nevada Test Site, in what was called a nuclear testing program but functioned as a war against the land and people of the Great Basin. Savage Dreams is an exploration of these two landscapes, the arid and forbidden expanse of the Nevada Test Site, and the celebrated, crowded landscape of Yosemite National Park. Together they serve as our national Eden and Armageddon, though their real histories complicate the meanings of such mythical places. Savage Dreams is a story about civil disobedience, landscape painting and photography, Indian wars, place names, Henry David Thoreau, many heroines, a few conquistadors, Adam and Eve in and out of Paradise, physicists, country music, nuclear fallout, gardens, storytelling, walking, traveling, home and friendship.

Behind the scenic beauty of the American West is a bloody history of conquest, conflict, and exploitation. Part travelogue, part history, and part literary meditation on the landscape, this book describes in convincing detail how this violent heritage has left the region with many unresolved problems and much ongoing suffering.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Since 1951, the U.S. has set off more than 900 nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site, and recently Yucca Mountain in the state was chosen as a major radioactive waste dump. According to Solnit, an art historian, environmentalist and antinuclear activist, the federal government is hell-bent on rendering public and Shoshone lands ``useless for everyone for all time.'' She explores two federally managed landscapes: the Nevada Test Site, which she characterizes as Armageddon, and California's Yosemite National Park, which she links to Eden. She depicts the latter in its change from native stronghold to war zone during the 19th-century annihilation of Indians to today's tourist attraction. Flinging her net wide, Solnit evokes powerful images of destruction and conquest as she explores governmental abuses in the region. (Oct.)

Booknews

Solnit (art history, San Francisco Art Institute) offers a first- person account of her expeditions in California and Nevada, focusing on the politics and history of the Nevada Test Site and Yosemite National Park. She explores the connections between the political history of the West and its cultural history, which has been obscured by the reality of the violent past. Solnit weaves the story of the Danns, two Western Shoshone sisters who have fought the US government in an effort to reclaim their ancestral lands, into her narrative. Lacks an index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)