The Promise of the Grand Canyon: John Wesley Powell's Perilous Journey and His Vision for the American West

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars | 111 ratings

Price: 17.72

Last update: 11-09-2024


About this item

“A convincing case for Powell’s legacy as a pioneering conservationist.” (The Wall Street Journal)

"A bold study of an eco-visionary at a watershed moment in US history." (Nature)

A timely, thrilling account of the explorer who dared to lead the first successful expedition down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon - and waged a bitterly contested campaign for sustainability in the West.

John Wesley Powell’s first descent of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in 1869 counts among the most dramatic chapters in American exploration history. When the Canyon spit out the surviving members of the expedition - starving, battered, and nearly naked - they had accomplished what others thought impossible and finished the exploration of continental America that Lewis and Clark had begun almost 70 years before.

With The Promise of the Grand Canyon, John F. Ross tells how that perilous expedition launched the one-armed Civil War hero on the path to becoming the nation’s foremost proponent of environmental sustainability and a powerful, if controversial, visionary for the development of the American West. So much of what he preached - most broadly about land and water stewardship - remains prophetically to the point today.


Top reviews from the United States

Greenes, Colleen & Jeff
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book about the Colorado River exploration and the bureaucratic fight to tame the west!
Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2023
During our recent trip to the awe-inspiring national parks of Utah, I felt compelled to find a book about John Wesley Powell's expedition down the Colorado River. I didn't know much more about him other than he was the first white man (and probably the first man at all) to do it, and it sounded like a wild story.

It really was an amazing feat with the gear and equipment they had available at the time, and the story was very well written. What surprised me was that when the story of the initial exploration was over, I was only halfway through the book!

Turns out there was a LOT more to the story of John Wesley Powell, and the book turns to a surprisingly engaging battle between him and the military and the bureaucracy and Congress over who would get to map the entire United States and his ideas about how the only way to make the west prosper was to irrigate/dam the rivers.

As an outdoors/map/history geek, this book really was very enjoyable and totally worth reading for a new perspective on how the west was won.
Customer image
Greenes, Colleen & Jeff
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book about the Colorado River exploration and the bureaucratic fight to tame the west!
Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2023
During our recent trip to the awe-inspiring national parks of Utah, I felt compelled to find a book about John Wesley Powell's expedition down the Colorado River. I didn't know much more about him other than he was the first white man (and probably the first man at all) to do it, and it sounded like a wild story.

It really was an amazing feat with the gear and equipment they had available at the time, and the story was very well written. What surprised me was that when the story of the initial exploration was over, I was only halfway through the book!

Turns out there was a LOT more to the story of John Wesley Powell, and the book turns to a surprisingly engaging battle between him and the military and the bureaucracy and Congress over who would get to map the entire United States and his ideas about how the only way to make the west prosper was to irrigate/dam the rivers.

As an outdoors/map/history geek, this book really was very enjoyable and totally worth reading for a new perspective on how the west was won.
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Lucky Husband
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Read
Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2018
Entertaining and informative.
Jeff M. Schwehn
5.0 out of 5 stars Adventurous History
Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2019
A wonderfully integrated 19th century American environmental/social/political/cultural biography built around the person and ideas of American scientist and explorer, John Wesley Powell. Adeptly researched and clearly, economically written, this volume doubles as an exterior exploration down the Colorado River coupled with an interior exploration of the intellectual tributaries of America's Manifest Destiny philosophy and beginnings of a national ecological movement. Ross's ability to navigate the political conflict among Powell and his political detractors and supporters smooths our understanding of the ways Powell fought for scientific, fact-based topographical/geological assessment of Western lands and waters against the rain-follows-the-plow commercialism of railroad companies/land developers and ambitious self-made power brokers. It is heart-breaking to consider how the hopeful, hard-working settlers of the northern and southern plain states farmed against the grain of soil and moisture givens resulting in the devastating high plains ecological and economic disasters of the 1890's and 1930's. As our climate changes and moisture resources shift, we'll sorely need Powell's fact-based, locally sourced, decision-making process about land and water use to guide us through the steep, narrow canyons of our increasingly restricted choices. As a New Mexican, I have two bones to pick with the book: First, New Mexico was left off the list of State land areas acquired after the Mexican-American War and second, the blithe characterization of William H. Bonney (aka "Billy the Kid") as "a psychopathic, serial killer" only serves to negatively simplify a complex New Mexican frontier figure who has been the focus of prodigious historical research and the stuff of legend and fiction for nearly 100 years.
J. Mallin
5.0 out of 5 stars A great adventure -- and more
Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2022
I saved this book for vacation and started reading it in the ideal place — on a rafting trip down the Green River and through Utah’s beautiful Desolation Canyon. John Ross’s account of John Wesley Powell’s background and the ambitious and what seemed likely to be ill-fated expedition that Powell assembled — his men had no experience rowing on rivers! — makes great reading. I found myself re-telling the stories from this account to my adult children as we journeyed down the same river as Powell and his men.

But then the trip ended and it was back to reality, before I’d had a chance to read the second half of the book. Yet as I continued back at home I found that Ross’ account of Powell’s later career turned out to be an even closer, and certainly more disturbing, reflection of present-day reality than the river exploration had been to our Green River trip. There’s the broad anti-science, anti-expert sentiment Powell was forced to confront. There was the stubborn resistance of politicians, populace and wealthy railroad companies to recognizing the realities of water in the American West. And there was the venomous and highly personal abuse of power by a prominent U.S. senator.

All in all, if you’d like background on how perhaps the most remote area in the continental U.S. was finally mapped and on how American thinking about the West and Manifest Destiny evolved, this book has it.

But it’s also a great read if you happen to be sitting in the shade of a cottonwood tree by a Western river, and you’re interested to hear the tall-tale account of how a one-armed explorer’s life was saved through the quick deployment of a pair of well-worn long johns.
Amazon Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent well documented history
Reviewed in the United States on November 27, 2018
Good on the early “active” river part. Too slow on the later “politics” part.
GA Lindsay
5.0 out of 5 stars a treasure chest of American history, high adventure and stewardship
Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2019
This book was so much more than I expected. I love the way Ross writes and the myriad of details he brings to the reader. It is a wonderful biography of John Wesley Powell and his immense impact on developing the west, but so much more. The first part of the book is a detailed account of exploring, navigating and scientific surveying of the Colorado River by this one-armed Major and his hardy crew-members (Powell had lost an arm in the battle of Shiloh). The last part covers details of his fights in Congress with competitors and senators over methods to manage river waters in the arid and wild west. Powell was a conservationist with strong interest in documenting and protecting the original native peoples and their cultures in the west. But he also had wise vision on how to balance federal and local control of water for the rapidly-expanding population of farmers and fortune-seekers. This a book is a treasure to be relished. Congratulations to John F. Ross.
Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Exploration of the West
Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2019
Ross's narrative had me on the edge of my chair for the first 2/3rds of the book as Powell navigated the Colorado River. I couldn't wait for the turn in the river. The latter part of Powell's career was very important but not with the same excitement. A good read for those interested in our discovery and development of the West and how important were our pioneers. Wilson

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