Westward Ho (which I have just learned is a building in downtown Phoenix)
Author: John McPhee
Publication: 1986
Genre: Nonfiction, History, Science
I feel guilty about the relatively low score on this one. It’s not a bad book. If written in 2021 it might even be a really good book! But both its history and its geology are dated in really glaring ways, and there’s just not enough else there to elevate it.
Rising from the Plains is the third volume that eventually comprises Annals of the Former World, a series of four wanderings across American geology and history. I was recommended the series by a fellow geologist a few years back, and I’ve been working my way through them (slowly, as I am wont to do with series). The two previous volumes are Basin and Range and In Suspect Terrain.
Plains focuses on Wyoming; a landscape with punishing climate and fascinating geologic complexity. McPhee brings to light his travels old-school field geologist and Wyoming native Dr. David Love. McPhee skillfully entwines human and geologic history into a single tale. There are cowboys and snowstorms and grumpy old-school geologists. The historical anecdotes are fun and help set the scene, but the perspective cannot help but feel dated.
It’s unfortunate that the geologic picture, too, remains stuck forty years in the past. The section that fascinated me the most concerned the volcanic islands of the world formed by hotspots under moving plates (not just the famous Hawaii!). I would love to know more about what we’ve discovered since then. As a geologist I long for an annotated version that tells me when the details are not quite right. And while they’re at it, I would kill for some glossy color images of all the glossily described formations. I don’t regret my foray into Annnals of a Former World, and I’ll likely finish it, but I’m less likely to recommend it to a general audience.