Wrecks of human ambition : a history of Utah's Canyon Country to 1936 / Paul T. Nelson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nelson, Paul T., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Discoveries in geography.

Utah--Discovery and exploration.

Utah.

Canyons--Utah.

Canyons.

Latter Day Saints--Utah--History--19th century.

Latter Day Saints.

History.

Utah--History.

Utah--Description and travel.

Physical Description:

xv, 304 pages ; 23 cm

Other Title:

History of Utah's Canyon Country to 1936

Place of Publication:

Salt Lake City : The University of Utah Press, [2014]

Summary:

The red rock canyon country of southeastern Utah and northeastern Arizona is among the most isolated, wild, and beautiful regions of North America. In the-not-too-distant past, Europeans and Americans mostly avoided, disdained, or ignored it. Wrecks of Human Ambition illustrates how this landscape undercut notions and expectations of good, productive land held by the first explorers, settlers, and travelers who visited it. Even today, its aridity and sandy soils prevent widespread agricultural exploitation and its cliffs, canyons, and rivers thwart quick travel in and through the landscape. Eventually, the rise of tourism brought new ideas of wilderness reverence to the region, and the bad lands became valuable precisely because they were so distinct from traditionally settled lands. Much of the previous work on the history of this region has focused on either early exploration or twentieth-century controversies that erupted over mineral and water development and the creation of national parks and wilderness areas. Paul Nelson provides in clear, engaging language the most detailed examination yet published of colonial Spain's encounter with the region and lays out some of Mormonism's rare failures in settling the arid West. This volume fills a gap in existing histories by focusing on historical themes drawn from the confrontation between Euro-Christian Ideals and the challenging landscape. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: linear and crooked landscapes

Inventing Teguayo: Old World Christians and New World deserts

Encountering Teguayo: the partial legacies of Rivera and Escalante

Old Spanish trails and trappers' tales: the dawn of Canyon Country commerce

United States explorers: disgust, intrigue, and making sense of an American desert

River bottoms to mountaintops: the Canyon Country surveys of John Wesley Powell

Good settlers and bad land: Mormon views of land and environment

The rim of Mormondom I: missions to the eastern Canyon Country

The rim of Mormondom II: success and failure in the western Canyon Country

Beyond agriculture: desert gold and tourism

Coda: modernity approaches an American desert

Time line.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781607813330

1607813335

OCLC:

864676504