Atlas of the New West: Portrait of a Changing Region

Rating:
Summary: An essential reference
Review: For anyone who loves the West -- Old or New -- this innovative atlas must find a place on your bookshelf. Created at the University of Colorado's Center of the American West, it charts beautifully and eloquently how the American West has evolved. This volume will help you understand how some myths of the West grew out of proportion to the facts, and how some are not myths at all, but semi-fantastic truths.

To understand the contemporary West, this book would be a good starting place.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Illustrations of the Changes Underway in the West
Review: One of the best introductions to social, economic and environmental trends taking place in the Western United States. The graphs and photos highlight the new trends from water usage to ethic population patterns. The 7 chapters and two essays provide telling examples of how communtities are adapting to the changes (or not adapting in some cases). The work is footnoted to provide jumping off points for more research. Also, I found the quotes that are placed throughout the margins of the text to be extremely insightful.

The book shines at showing how the West is moving away from a culture of exploiting natural resources for basic industry and instead exploiting the natural beauty to draw ever increasing numbers of residents and visitors.

Rating:
Summary: At last, a current guide to the geography of hope.
Review: The University of Colorado's School of Geography uses basic demographic and economic data to profile in understandable maps and graphs the population explosion occurring in the Western United States. The Atlas gives a dramatic presentation of the net in migration into an area with little water and vast amounts of open space. It chronicles the shift in economic activity from traditional industries such as mining and logging, to new industries such as information technologies and service activities. The latter having a special, and economically, rewarding basis in tourism. The Atlas portrays, in graphic form the perdictions made in Cadillac Deseret. It is a must read for anyone concerned about perserving western heritage for future generations.