A Land Between
Subtitle
Owens Valley, California
A unique landscape history, "A Land Between" explores the central idea of how people's preconceptions and perceptions of a place ― in this case, Owens Valley ― influence their interventions on the land. Rebecca Fish Ewan draws on primary sources, oral histories, and conversations, offering a story that reaches beyond the oft-told tale of water wars with Los Angeles. Ewan's gentle and poetic essays, illustrated with historical images and her own photographs of the region, provide a complex, multifaceted perspective on the land, the history and the people of Owens Valley.
Owens Valley is renowned for its unique topography and its striking contrasts in elevation ― rising from the below-sea-level depths of Death Valley to the 14,496-foot peak of Mt. Whitney. To search for the natural and cultural history embedded in Owens Valley, the author hiked to the top of that mountain, traveled on horseback across the meadows of the Kern Plateau, ventured on every forgotten dirt road in the valley that her truck could negotiate and rambled on foot over the ancient stones of the Alabama Hills. "A Land Between" tells the stories of the people who have lived in the valley and uncovers the marks they have left on the land.
Winner of the Merit Award in Communication from the American Society of Landscape Architects.
Bio
Rebecca Fish Ewan earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Arizona State University in 2004. She is currently an associate professor of landscape architecture in ASU's Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.
Praise for this book
It's a story well told, interwoven with the author's personal history and some fictional accounts based on the lives of those who struggled to wrest a living out of the high desert ... It contains fresh insights and perspectives that a landscape architect brings to the subject ... A nice size to carry along with you as you create you own memories of a land between.
Robert Pavlik California Historical Review
'A Land Between' is a boundlessly original study, written by someone clearly invested in the local landscape yet capable of making sense of its larger patterns. Rebecca Ewan captures the qualities of the Owens Valley that make its legacy so enduring and rich.
Paul F. Starrs University of Nevada, Reno / Author of "Let the Cowboy Ride"
