Landscape Of Desire

by Greg Gordon

Landscape of Desire powerfully documents and celebrates a place and the evolutions that occur when human beings are intimately connected to their surroundings. Greg Gordon accomplishes this with a tapestry of writing that interweaves land use history, natural history, experiential education, and personal reflection. He tracks the geomorphology of southern Utah as well as the creatures and plants his student group encounters, the history lessons (planned and unplanned), the trials and joys of gathering so many individuals into a cohesive will, and his own personal epiphanies, restraints, insights, and disillusionments. Landscape of Desire examines the plight of the western landscape. It discusses a wide range of issues, including mining, grazing, dams, recreation, wilderness, and land management. Since recreation has replaced extraction industries as the primary use of wilderness, especially in southern Utah, Gordon addresses its impactful qualities. He overviews the history of the conflict between preservation and development and places these issues in a cultural context. The text is presented in a narrative format, following the individuals of one field course Gordon lead that explored Muddy Creek and the Dirty Devil River from Interstate 70 to Lake Powell. Though each chapter focuses on the geologic formation the group is traveling through, the plants, animals, ecology, and human impacts are all tightly woven into the narrative. Not only does the land affect the members of the field course, but their attitudes and insights affect the land. In Landscape of Desire Gordon achieves a vision of wholeness of this popular and contested region of Utah that centers around the implications of being human and also stewards of the wild.

220 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2003

Reviews

[KT · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book at a used bookstore in Salt Lake City because I wanted to better understand the fantastical geology I'd driven past, and also because, having experienced a class trip to east Africa, I wanted to see how a weeks-long backpacking trip through the wilderness pans out.

It's a beautiful book, combining interpersonal interaction, history, ecology, economics and policy along with geology in a well-written narrative. It's inspiring, but also depressing, at times hippy-dippy, and, depending on your political point of view, sometimes disagreeable. But it's one person's experience and viewpoint. I'm glad I had the opportunity to experience it.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I was going to start a bookclub to read books about nature and wilderness, I would start with this book.

A professor takes a group of college students into the deserts of Utah for 40 days and 40 nights. Each chapter highlights issues with the landscape around them (water, overgrazing, mining, species extinction, roads, and other human impacts) and raise questions about how we humans reconcile with the land. Along the way, the students question and find themselves, then face a brutal reentry into the "civilized" world.

Thought provoking. Full of memorable quotes and dialogue.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greg wonderfully describe the natural world. I learned so much information and enjoyed every second of it. He can easily describe the geology, biology and land issues effecting the Muddy Creek Drainage in Utah. I love how he describes the geology and tells the geologic history. Amazing Book.

[Devin · Rating 3 out of 5]

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