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kwtingley's review against another edition
4.0
Almost 2 books in one, it chronicles Powell's adventures in surveying the Colorado and then his career as administrator in DC of the USGS. The former offers some swashbuckling and magesty of the West while the latter shows powerful examples of science's clash with public myth, ignorance and private interests. A surprisingly good read.
liberrydude's review against another edition
2.0
At times as dry as the land it discusses this book is more a biography of John Wesley Powell, or perhaps hagiography. Powell was the one armed amateur scientist who quickly morphed into a selfless, skilled bureaucrat whose vision for the American West was denied by Congress and the settlers of the West. The first part of the book concentrates on Powell's expeditions and the latter part on his work in DC managing numerous surveys and agencies. Surprisingly the second part is very instructive and interesting, more so than the tedious recounting of every mile of the discovery trips. Congress in the 1880's and 1890's sounds just like today's Congress. Lots of talk of anti-science and government encroachment into the state's rights and the right of the individual to just be. If they had listened to Powell the American West would be very different. This took me over two months to read. It's one of those books you are glad to have read but you're not going to revisit. However, it's essential in any library on the American West. Stegner's prose is inviting and Powell was obviously one of his heroes. Powell set the stage for Teddy Roosevelt and Gordon Pinchot but he was just one man against a sea of selfish and impatient interests. He was an interesting man who is almost saint like in this retelling. Sadly his contributions to reclamation are overshadowed by his explorer status. He was also a cultural anthropologist and a philosopher.
ehays84's review against another edition
5.0
Wow, what a book. I’d have to say this is one of the best and most important books of US History I have ever read. It is more important than ever today with the ongoing terrible drought in much of the American West. I teach a unit on the settling of the Great Plains every year to my 8th graders, and I found myself thinking many times as I was reading, “I will change the way I teach this or that part of the unit because of this book.”
I am sure that, were I to study all of this on the grad school level, that there are further works that have been published in the decades since the 1950s that will have corrected and improved on certain elements of Stegner’s scholarship here, but I highly doubt they will have written it as well as he did. This was my first Stegner, somehow, and will certainly not be my last.
It’s hard for me to know where to begin on why I appreciated this book so much, but as someone who wrote my master’s thesis about an American in the late 19th century, this book scratched a lot of itches and connected a lot of dots. First, I found out that Powell attended my alma mater, Wheaton College, before it was named that, so that had me at hello. There is the thrilling element of the story of the exploration of the Colorado River. There is the fascinating discussion of Powell’s work on ethnology with Native Americans. This was fascinating because much of what he believed and wrote we would consider problematic and racist today, yet in his own time did much to advance at least some level of an attempt at true interest and study of Native Americans. There is his incredibly keen analysis of the workings of the American democratic system, particularly of how Congress works. I often think about how a huge problem through our nation’s history is our lack of political will to see some needed policy or reform through before it gets tossed out because something else is more captivating to voters and will keep a Congressman in office. If anyone ever needed any convincing of the truth of that pattern in our nation’s history, read this book. There is the fact Powell (and clearly Stegner) loved the landscape of what Abbey calls, “4 corners country” like few other Americans have. You could read this book just to study an aesthetic appreciation of natural beauty. There is the highlighting of Powell’s prescient understanding of the nature of the water problem in the West, which America continues to do its very best to ignore, despite failures and disaster time and time again. The Dust Bowl need never have happened if people had studied Powell more earlier on. But beyond the historical content, Stegner is just such a good writer. He can sum up something very complex with a perfect turn of phrase. His metaphors are deeply meaningful. He is quotable and profound without verging into the extreme or exaggerated. He was clearly someone who did tons of research and who was just very wise. I looked up a list of the authors that he trained while teaching at Stanford, and it’s like a who is who of American western authors of the 20th century. Now I know why.
I plan to read one of Stegner’s works of fiction next.
I am sure that, were I to study all of this on the grad school level, that there are further works that have been published in the decades since the 1950s that will have corrected and improved on certain elements of Stegner’s scholarship here, but I highly doubt they will have written it as well as he did. This was my first Stegner, somehow, and will certainly not be my last.
It’s hard for me to know where to begin on why I appreciated this book so much, but as someone who wrote my master’s thesis about an American in the late 19th century, this book scratched a lot of itches and connected a lot of dots. First, I found out that Powell attended my alma mater, Wheaton College, before it was named that, so that had me at hello. There is the thrilling element of the story of the exploration of the Colorado River. There is the fascinating discussion of Powell’s work on ethnology with Native Americans. This was fascinating because much of what he believed and wrote we would consider problematic and racist today, yet in his own time did much to advance at least some level of an attempt at true interest and study of Native Americans. There is his incredibly keen analysis of the workings of the American democratic system, particularly of how Congress works. I often think about how a huge problem through our nation’s history is our lack of political will to see some needed policy or reform through before it gets tossed out because something else is more captivating to voters and will keep a Congressman in office. If anyone ever needed any convincing of the truth of that pattern in our nation’s history, read this book. There is the fact Powell (and clearly Stegner) loved the landscape of what Abbey calls, “4 corners country” like few other Americans have. You could read this book just to study an aesthetic appreciation of natural beauty. There is the highlighting of Powell’s prescient understanding of the nature of the water problem in the West, which America continues to do its very best to ignore, despite failures and disaster time and time again. The Dust Bowl need never have happened if people had studied Powell more earlier on. But beyond the historical content, Stegner is just such a good writer. He can sum up something very complex with a perfect turn of phrase. His metaphors are deeply meaningful. He is quotable and profound without verging into the extreme or exaggerated. He was clearly someone who did tons of research and who was just very wise. I looked up a list of the authors that he trained while teaching at Stanford, and it’s like a who is who of American western authors of the 20th century. Now I know why.
I plan to read one of Stegner’s works of fiction next.
jerrica's review against another edition
5.0
This book gave me such a thorough education on the figure of John Wesley Powell and how instrumental he was in trying to shape policy with regards to settlement in the West. I was constantly spouting off facts to people and probably will continue to do so. Powell's attempt to use science and history as a means to settle the West, rather than corporate interest and blind patriotism, was an admirable one. The West would be a very different place had he been allowed to set the guidelines for its settlement, and this book helped me understand the basis for a lot of the current issues out West.
Powell was truly ahead of his time and would still be ahead of his time today, sadly, since we still cite money as the most important basis for making a decision, rather than scientific or historical fact.
Powell was truly ahead of his time and would still be ahead of his time today, sadly, since we still cite money as the most important basis for making a decision, rather than scientific or historical fact.
lambici's review against another edition
3.0
It is a great historical read but not a great narrative read. It is worth reading though.
kfreedman's review against another edition
4.0
At times highly entertaining, at other times boring and could only get through a couple of pages without nodding off. History books for ya. A look at Wesley Powell and his work to understand the West, including the Colorado River, and his fight in Washington to get the government to fund science. Cool time in history, that's for sure!
pldean's review against another edition
4.0
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian deserves its iconic status; it is a work of both scholarship and poetry. It relates the life of a unique, talented, and farsighted man; it also portrays that man's attempt to save the Western United States from its worst myths and preconceptions about itself. One can come away saddened that then, as now, facts and science can be ignored by selfish, greedy, narrow interests. However, one can also be heartened by the way in which finally, reality tends to vindicate those who have eyes to see.
tjmcq's review against another edition
3.0
First part of the book is great. John Paul explored beyond the hundredth meridian to the west. Last part of the book gets tougher to read about the politics involved. B-
bobbo49's review against another edition
4.0
As I am a Stegner devotee, this biography of John Wesley Powell - and indeed, of the exploration and evolution of the American West and its waters - has been on my to-read list a very long time. My interest was piqued when David Abelson called me recently to urge me to pick it up, and so I did - and what an amazing book it is.
The first third is a riveting account of Powell's exploration of the Colorado River and as the first non-native American down the Grand Canyon; not just a great outdoor tale, it presents the development of Powell's post-Civil War scientific explorer persona.
The second third of the book covers the immediate post-Colorado River years, during which Powell evolved his relationship with Congress and government funding, while also performing deep and broad ethnological research on the remaining native tribes.
The last third of the book is essential background for the water wars of the last 100 years in the West. Powell devoted twenty years to a scientific and bureaucratic and political effort to reign in the corporate cannibalizing of western lands and water. Powell's efforts were aimed at a rational, federally-funded study of the topography and water resources of the west, while further claims on federal lands were suspended until a local cooperative or state-based system of dams and water and irrigation rights could be implemented. While he obtained substantial support and funding from Congress initially, political, media and capitalist forces worked in Congress and, through a public spectacle of half-truths and anti-federalist fears, defeated Powell's project half-completed. While Stegner documents the subsequent periodic resurgence of Powell's ideas in the first half of the twentieth century, the second decade of the twenty-first century provides ample evidence that these battles will not cease until the rivers are dry and the soil is dust.
While parts of the book - the middle third, in particular - are a bit slow, most of the writing is Stegneresque, and the life of John Wesley Powell is one that all Americans - and especially we westerners - should know and appreciate.
The first third is a riveting account of Powell's exploration of the Colorado River and as the first non-native American down the Grand Canyon; not just a great outdoor tale, it presents the development of Powell's post-Civil War scientific explorer persona.
The second third of the book covers the immediate post-Colorado River years, during which Powell evolved his relationship with Congress and government funding, while also performing deep and broad ethnological research on the remaining native tribes.
The last third of the book is essential background for the water wars of the last 100 years in the West. Powell devoted twenty years to a scientific and bureaucratic and political effort to reign in the corporate cannibalizing of western lands and water. Powell's efforts were aimed at a rational, federally-funded study of the topography and water resources of the west, while further claims on federal lands were suspended until a local cooperative or state-based system of dams and water and irrigation rights could be implemented. While he obtained substantial support and funding from Congress initially, political, media and capitalist forces worked in Congress and, through a public spectacle of half-truths and anti-federalist fears, defeated Powell's project half-completed. While Stegner documents the subsequent periodic resurgence of Powell's ideas in the first half of the twentieth century, the second decade of the twenty-first century provides ample evidence that these battles will not cease until the rivers are dry and the soil is dust.
While parts of the book - the middle third, in particular - are a bit slow, most of the writing is Stegneresque, and the life of John Wesley Powell is one that all Americans - and especially we westerners - should know and appreciate.