As stated above, this book is outstanding. Weurthner doesn't use schmaltz or gross florid language to help readers better understand the varied CA wilderness areas, and his knowledge is super accurate. GW also doesn't insult readers by giving ridiculous and pedantic trail descriptions (you know who you are Jeff Schaffer and Company!). This book resonates with a lot of dignity and will complement those automatonic guidebooks that you already own.

I absolutely love this book. The pictures are outstanding. I love his style of writing. He's very matter of fact and tells it like he sees it. Hiking the areas he describes is what I want to do when I retire. Forget the rocking chair.

An excellent value. Beautiful photographs, with concise text on natural history, including geologic formation, human history, ecology, climate, and flora and fauna. A well balanced, informative introduction to the region. I plan on buying more from Wuerthner.

Filled cover to cover with 115 beautiful color photography of flowers, trails, and natural splendor, Oregon's Best Wildflower Hikes: Northwest Region is an amazing and informative guide showcasing 51 day hikes for prime wildflower viewing of such stunning visual beauty that it is a wonder for both avid hikers and armchair travelers alike. Specific hiking paths through Columbia Gorge, Cascade Ranger, Willamette Valley and more are presented with 52 "user friendly" maps and 52 plant life profiles in this superbly presented guidebook which is especially recommended for flower and nature lovers who yearn to enjoy all that Oregon's Northwest Region has to offer. If you are planning a field trip or outdoor vacation in the northwest region of Oregon, begin with browsing the pages of George Wuerthner's Oregon's Best Wildflower Hikes!

A large-format (8.5x11", oblong) color photo book of Big Bend National Park and vicinity. Includes shots of canyons, deserts, ghost towns, local flora and fauna, park map. 60% photos, 40% text.

"Yosemite - the Grace & Grandeur" is a must-have for anyone who plans to visit this beautiful park or who wants to re-live the memories of having visited it. While it's chock-full of beautiful photos (it's also called "A Pictorial Discovery Guide"), it also contains wonderfully written text about everything from the Park's history to its wildlife. We just got back from a visit to the park a couple of weeks ago, and immediately knew this one was a keeper!

Short descriptions of all the desert wilderness areas in California. Great Photos !

I found a few errors in relation to directions (north, south, east, etc.) and other minor range info inaccuracies

Although it is refreshing to see the authors opinions right in the title, it is distressing to have that be the sum total of the facts to back up the opinion. If you are looking for a book to confirm your thoughts that the federal government is a good caretaker of the land, then this is it. If your experience with government agencies leads you to believe that they may not be the best guardians of the west, you may have issues this book.

I was disappointed that the editors have clearly tried to sell their opinion, rather than inform or enlighten. This book is as one sided as a new car brochure. There have been hundreds of studies that compare land that is used for grazing, with land where all grazing has been stopped, and none of these studies are mentioned in this book. To bad many people will take this book as a presentation of facts.

Dan Dagett's book Beyond the Rangeland Conflict is a far better balance of the facts, and one I would highly recommend. To buy this book is to encourage an elitist and imperial view of the west, and one that is based on glossy misrepresentations.

Through wonderful pictures and thoughtful essays by leading historians, scientists, and economic and policy experts, this book superbly shows the environmental crisis that the US West faces due to livestock production, an industry that uses more land and water than any other. A statement on the cover flap summarizes the problem well: "Over decades, the placement of exotic, water hogging, ill-adapted livestock on western lands has changed diverse native plant communities into monocultures of weeds; turned perennially flowing creeks into dry stream beds; relegated large predators such as wolves and grizzly bears to only the most remote wilderness areas; and forced many wildlife
species to the edge of extinction.
The book is awesome. Instead of the common book size, 5 inches by 8 inches, it is an eye-catching 12 inches by 13.5 inches. Many of its spectacular pictures completely cover two facing pages. Particularly effective are three consecutive such pictures, showing (1) "How It Was" (a beautiful natural area with a variety of covered plants), (2) "How It Is" (many cows and their manure on land completely devoid of plants), and (3) "How It Can Be" (another natural area with grass and some native animals). There are over 90 consecutive pages of pictures under the heading, "How to Look ... and See," with text referring to numbered places on the pictures that illustrate harmful effects of animal grazing.
The wide variety of photographs vividly show the contrast between land used to raise cattle and the relatively few places that have been protected from its damaging effects. To dramatize the scope of the problem, each odd-numbered page without a picture has "300 million acres at stake," written at the bottom of the page. This area, equal to that of three Californias, or the entire eastern seaboard of the United States, from Maine to Florida, with Missouri added, is the amount of public land grazed by livestock in the U.S, West, at great cost to society. What makes the situation even worse are the many subsidies, courtesy of taxpayers, that public lands ranching operations receive, including low-interest loans, predator "control," fencing, government-funded range "developments," and emergency bailouts - hence the book's title: "Welfare Ranching."
The book does not only paint a negative portrait of current conditions on public lands. It also presents an alternate vision that can renew and restore these lands, if enough citizens demand that governments shift land management priorities to benefiting people and the environment and away from facilitating private gain.
I am proud that my article (co-authored by Mollie Matteson), "Eating Is an Agricultural Act: Modern livestock Agriculture from a Global Perspective," appears in the book. When I was asked to submit an article, I readily consented, but I never imagined that it would appear in such a spectacular book.
While not a typical vegetarian-promoting book, the book's giant size, marvelous pictures, and cogent essays give it great potential to capture people's attention to how harmful animal-based diets are and thereby to help shift them away from unhealthy diets and help shift society away from harmful agricultural practices. I hope that it gets the wide audience it so richly deserves so that it can help move our precious planet away from its present perilous path to a more sustainable one.

 

Livestock grazing in the arid West has caused more damage than the chainsaw and bulldozer combined. "Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West" is a seven-pound book featuring 346 pages of articles and photographs by expert authors and photographers on the severe negative impacts of livestock grazing on western public lands. Finally we have a book that honestly depicts in full-color the damage caused by a few thousand ranchers and their livestock to millions of acres of public lands. But don't take my word for it--or any other book "reviewer"--buy the book and see for yourself!