The Invention of the American Desert

"A timely and indispensable collection of thoughtful essays exploring contemporary issues of the arid lands of the American West that should be required reading for any serious desert scholar."--Kim Stringfellow, Project Director, The Mojave Project "This fascinating volume reveals the strange history of the meanings of the desert in the American imagination, closely examining art, architecture, film, and literature. It offers a multifaceted guide to the desert's special role as a surface for the play of modern fantasies and fears."--Joshua Shannon, Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory, University of Maryland "The breadth of this volume's subjects and voices is impressive. From essays on Will Wilson's meditative photographs about environmental despoliation to declassified films of nuclear tests, passive solar heating systems, and a modernist glass home built around a massive rock, the volume challenges the pernicious myth of the unpopulated desert while also showing how that myth continues to feed cultural production and shape governmental policy."--James Glisson, Curator of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art