Atlas of the New West: Portrait of a Changing Region
The American West looms large in the national imagination as a place of  coyotes, cowboys, and wide-open spaces. But with more Americans moving there  each year than to any other region of the U.S., the reality of the new West has  become somewhat different. What happens when the West of loggers, miners,  grizzly bears, and greasy spoons gives way to that of "extreme"  recreation, telecommuting, psychic vortexes, and espresso? A group of  historians, geographers, and other intellectuals at Boulder's Center of the  American West maps these and other transformations in theAtlas of the New  West, a stunningly comprehensive look at a region in the grip of tumultuous  change.From irrigation to infrastructure, lifestyle to literature, theAtlas of the New Westconsiders almost every aspect of life in the  intermountain West, uncovering some surprising facts along the way. Who would  have dreamed, for instance, that a higher percentage of westerners than  northeasterners live in cities--or that, if evenly distributed, each resident of  Nevada's Eureka County would stand alone on 3.5 square miles of land? Statistics  like these come paired with essays, photographs, and beautiful full-color maps  depicting everything from brewpub distribution to water consumption to Superfund  sites. This handsome and thoughtful book is of vital interest to anyone who  cares about this beautiful, fragile, and complex region of the United States.