What do you think?
Rate this book
Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books
How to Read the American West: A Field Guide
From deserts to ghost towns, from national forests to California bungalows, many of the features of the western American landscape are well known to residents and travelers alike. But in How to Read the American West , William Wyckoff introduces readers anew to these familiar landscapes. A geographer and an accomplished photographer, Wyckoff offers a fresh perspective on the natural and human history of the American West and encourages readers to discover that history has shaped the places where people live, work, and visit.
This innovative field guide includes stories, photographs, maps, and diagrams on a hundred landscape features across the American West. Features are grouped according to type, such as natural landscapes, farms and ranches, places of special cultural identity, and cities and suburbs. Unlike the geographic organization of a traditional guidebook, Wyckoff's field guide draws attention to the connections and the differences between and among places. Emphasizing features that recur from one part of the region to another, the guide takes readers on an exploration of the eleven western states with trips into their natural and cultural character.
How to Read the American West is an ideal traveling companion on the main roads and byways in the West, providing unexpected insights into the landscapes you see out your car window. It is also a wonderful source for armchair travelers and people who live in the West who want to learn more about the modern West, how it came to be, and how it may change in the years to come.
Showcasing the everyday alongside the exceptional, Wyckoff demonstrates how asking new questions about the landscapes of the West can let us see our surroundings more clearly, helping us make informed and thoughtful decisions about their stewardship in the twenty-first century.
This innovative field guide includes stories, photographs, maps, and diagrams on a hundred landscape features across the American West. Features are grouped according to type, such as natural landscapes, farms and ranches, places of special cultural identity, and cities and suburbs. Unlike the geographic organization of a traditional guidebook, Wyckoff's field guide draws attention to the connections and the differences between and among places. Emphasizing features that recur from one part of the region to another, the guide takes readers on an exploration of the eleven western states with trips into their natural and cultural character.
How to Read the American West is an ideal traveling companion on the main roads and byways in the West, providing unexpected insights into the landscapes you see out your car window. It is also a wonderful source for armchair travelers and people who live in the West who want to learn more about the modern West, how it came to be, and how it may change in the years to come.
Showcasing the everyday alongside the exceptional, Wyckoff demonstrates how asking new questions about the landscapes of the West can let us see our surroundings more clearly, helping us make informed and thoughtful decisions about their stewardship in the twenty-first century.
440 pages, Paperback
First published June 10, 2014
3 people are currently reading
397 people want to read
About the author
William Wyckoff
41 books3 followersI was born and raised in sunny Southern California and explored much of the Golden State as I grew up there in the 1960s and 1970s. After living back East and attending graduate school (M.A. and Ph.D. in Geography) at Syracuse University in Upstate New York (1977-1982), I returned west in 1986 to become a college professor at Montana State University in Bozeman, MT. Since then, I have taught classes in World Regional Geography, Cultural Geography, Geography of the United States, and Geography of the American West in the Department of Earth Sciences.
I have managed to explore many corners of the West, eventually visiting every county in the 11 western states. Books on the West's mountains (THE MOUNTAINOUS WEST: Explorations in Historical Geography), Colorado's landscape (CREATING COLORADO: The Making of a Western American Landscape, 1860-1940), and Montana (ON THE ROAD AGAIN: Montana's Changing Landscape) were great preparation for completing my most recent book entitled HOW TO READ THE AMERICAN WEST: A Field Guide (University of Washington Press, 2014).
The Field Guide encourages people to explore the West's contemporary landscapes (both rural and urban) and to appreciate all the ways in which environment, history, and culture mingle in this amazing setting!
I have managed to explore many corners of the West, eventually visiting every county in the 11 western states. Books on the West's mountains (THE MOUNTAINOUS WEST: Explorations in Historical Geography), Colorado's landscape (CREATING COLORADO: The Making of a Western American Landscape, 1860-1940), and Montana (ON THE ROAD AGAIN: Montana's Changing Landscape) were great preparation for completing my most recent book entitled HOW TO READ THE AMERICAN WEST: A Field Guide (University of Washington Press, 2014).
The Field Guide encourages people to explore the West's contemporary landscapes (both rural and urban) and to appreciate all the ways in which environment, history, and culture mingle in this amazing setting!
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 11, 2022
A quick overview of the different ecosystems of the West. I thought it would be more in depth with specifications of each, but it was still informative and an easy read
November 25, 2014
This guide is unusual as it isn't dry and just state facts. The University of Washington states "Features are grouped according to type, such as natural landscapes, farms and ranches, places of special cultural identity, and cities and suburbs. Unlike the geographic organization of a traditional guidebook, Wyckoff's field guide draws attention to the connections and the differences between and among places."
If you want to see the West, you must see the ghost towns, the mining camps to know the history. Wyckoff has done this and shown pictures that lets you feel you are there with him. One example is Bisbee, AZ. He also has a map showing the major mining towns in the Sierra Nevada and Northern Rockies. There are also areas that have 'special cultural identity' for example as Indians in Arizona, Spanish influence in Southern California, and Mormons in Utah.
Overall, I liked the book and will keep it out to review again and again and to have others see it also as I like history. I am glad that there are books like this so we don't lose history of what this country was made of and became.
If you want to see the West, you must see the ghost towns, the mining camps to know the history. Wyckoff has done this and shown pictures that lets you feel you are there with him. One example is Bisbee, AZ. He also has a map showing the major mining towns in the Sierra Nevada and Northern Rockies. There are also areas that have 'special cultural identity' for example as Indians in Arizona, Spanish influence in Southern California, and Mormons in Utah.
Overall, I liked the book and will keep it out to review again and again and to have others see it also as I like history. I am glad that there are books like this so we don't lose history of what this country was made of and became.
February 3, 2016
Part textbook, part coffee table book, this one is unlike anything I've ever come across before. Wyckoff is a Montana-based geographer who knows how to see the layers in landscape many of us otherwise miss – natural, agricultural, economic, political, cultural, and recreational. This one is already changing how I "read" the landscapes around me here in the desert Southwest.
November 27, 2015
Great way to explore the American West and think differently about its diverse landscapes
August 19, 2015
I must admit that I mostly just read the captions and dipped into the text when something caught my eye...
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews