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

Wallace Stegner

Penguin Group US, Mar 1, 1992 - History - 496 pages

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

What people are saying

Review: Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West

User Review  - Steve Smits - Goodreads

I bought this book during our first trip to the Southwest. Before this trip I had not thought too much about the West; it's there and it's big, that's about the extent of my perception. Stegner's book ...

Review: Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West

User Review  - LauraLee - Goodreads

Truly a man a head of his time.

About the author

Terry Tempest Williams is the author of "Refuge: An Unnat-ural History of Family and Place; An Unspoken Hunger; Leap; and Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert," A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Lannan Literary Fellowship in creative nonfiction, she lives in the redrock desert of southern Utah.
T. H. Watkins (1936-2000) was the first Wallace Stegner Distinguished Professor of Western American Studies at Montana State University, and the author of twenty-eight books.

"From the Trade Paperback edition.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West
• Author: Wallace Stegner
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Penguin Group US, 1992
• ISBN: 1101075856, 9781101075852
• Length: 496 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Adventurers & Explorers; History / United States / 19th Century