Reclaiming the American West

Rating:
Summary: Post Technological Landscape
Review: This book is the first book I have read in the past 5 years that is so visually captivating I could not put it down. Berger uses his own gorgeous aerial and ground photographs, and visionary mapping techniques to show the world a new type of landscape that is being produced via landscape devastation and reclamation. He coins a new term -Post Technological Landscape-to describe the artificial landscapes being formed by humans in the post-mined areas of the western U.S. An introduction to the book, by the enigmatic poet Frederick Turner, also helps define this term. There is a very interesting,if not dry, appendix that reveals how each western state technically defines the term "reclamation" and what they have accomplished to clean up industrial leftovers in the landscape. I highly recommend this book for anyone thirsting for landscape photography, landscape theory, ecology and nature.