Page Stegner's extensive writings on American history have made him a popular and critical favorite. "Adios Amigos" maintains his high standard. These essays expertly interweave natural history, conservation polemic, ecology, and wilderness adventures on a number of the West's major whitewater rivers. Stegner moves effortlessly from his own experiences on the Colorado, Yampa, Green, San Juan, Dolores, and Missouri rivers to first explorations by historical figures like Lewis and Clark and John Wesley Powell to modern controversies that threaten the continued existence of these special places. From its opening essay, a hilarious, albeit hazardous, journey down the Owyhee River in southeastern Oregon, to its final impeachment of Lake Powell, Stegner's articles are rich in vivid detail, laced with sardonic humor, and always grounded in a passion for the West -- both its heady past and the promise of its future.

A book about America by one of the greatest writers of the American West This book is an attempt, by sampling, to say something about how the American people and the American land have interacted, how they have shaped one another; what patterns of life, with what chances of continuity, have arisen out of the confrontations between an unformed society and a virgin continent. Perhaps it is less a book about the American land than some ruminationsabout the making of America. . . . We are the unfinished product of a long becoming. --from American Places For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.