Delusions and Grandeur

Auteur

Mark Sundeen is the author of four other books about the American West: The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Today's America; Car Camping: The Book of Desert Adventures; The Making of Toro: Bullfights, Broken Hearts, and One Author's Quest for the Acclaim He Deserves; and The Man Who Quit Money, which was a national bestseller and has been translated into six languages. A contributing editor for Outside Magazine, his work has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic Adventure, The Believer, and Best American Essays. He is an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of Montana.

Texte du rabat

In these new and selected essays, Mark Sundeen recounts two decades of political activism, outdoor exploration, and empathetic curiosity. He was both witness to and active participant in pivotal cultural and political events of the new millennium, from Howard Dean's presidential campaign to the Iraq War protests and the NoDAPL uprising in Standing Rock. But what brings these large phenomena into humanistic focus is the cast of idiosyncratic people he meets. Using first-person reportage, well-crafted storytelling, and wry, self-deprecating humor, Sundeen's keen observations illustrate what everyday life is like for people in the contemporary American West, with all their systemic precarities and individual triumphs.