The Pacific Northwest - Tapa blanda

"The fascination of this book is in its life stories...a remarkable tour de force...a fine and comprehensive guide and a rich bibliography"--Pacific Northwest Quarterly; "Gastil and Singer find important themes in surprising places"--Western American Literature; "valuable"--Pacific Historical Review; "achieves what no other book has done for the Pacific Northwest...fills a gap...a valuable guide to an often-overlooked topic and deserves wide attention among professors, students, and general readers"--Oregon Historical Quarterly; "A unique book. All scholars in the field, as well as the educated public, will find it valuable."--Michael Allen, Professor of History and American Studies, University of Washington, Tacoma.

The Pacific Northwest - composed for the purposes of this book of Oregon, Washington, Western Idaho, and Northwestern Montana - has been accused by many as a region devoid of any significant cultural history. While it is home to some of the nation's most idyllic environmental wonders, the region has always been plagued by the general notion that the best and brightest often left the area in search of greater things, that the mainstream world 'out there' was generally thousands of miles away - or at least as far south as California. This book describes the Pacific Northwest's search for a regional identity from the first Indian-European contacts through the late twentieth century, identifying those individuals and groups 'who at least struggled to give meaning to the Northwest experience'. It places particular emphasis on nineteenth-century writers and other celebrated individuals in the arts, detailing how their lives and works both reflected the region and also enhanced its sense of self.