The first of John McPhee's works in his series on geology and geologists, Basin and Range is a book of journeys through ancient terrains, always in juxtaposition with travels in the modern world--a history of vanished landscapes, enhanced by the histories of people who bring them to light. The title refers to the physiographic province of the United States that reaches from eastern Utah to eastern California, a silent world of austere beauty, of hundreds...

A guide to writing long-form nonfiction, written by the legendary New Yorker author and teacher, is presented as a series of lighthearted essays that share insights into the lessons he has learned on the writing process during his years at Princeton University.

"Theodore Taylor was one of the most brilliant engineers of the nuclear age, but in his later years he became concerned with the possibility of an individual being able to construct a weapon of mass destruction on their own. McPhee tours American nuclear institutions with Taylor and shows us how close we are to terrorist attacks employing homemade nuclear weaponry."--

Profiles various effects by humankind to thwart the course of nature, detailing the changing physical landscapes, as well as the political, economic, and legal battles that have arisen from these struggles.

"In Greenville, New Hampshire, a small town in the southern part of the state, Henri Vaillancourt makes birch-bark canoes in the same manner and with the same tools that the Indians used. The Survival of the Bark Canoe is the story of this ancient craft and of a 150-mile trip through the Maine woods in those graceful survivors of a prehistoric technology. It is a book squarely in the tradition of one written by the first tourist in these woods, Henry...

Depicts the problems which ensue when a mining engineer, a resort developer, and a civil engineer alternately confront a militant conservationist.