Big Sur : the making of a prized California landscape
Shelley Alden Brooks (Author)
"Big Sur embodies much of what has defined California since the mid twentieth century. A remote, inaccessible, and undeveloped pastoral landscape until 1937, Big Sur quickly became a cultural symbol of California and the West, as well as a home to the ultra-wealthy. This transformation was due in part to writers and artists such as Robinson Jeffers and Ansel Adams, who created an enduring mystique for this coastline. But Big Sur's prized coastline is also the product of the pioneering efforts of residents and Monterey County officials who forged a collaborative public/private preservation model for Big Sur that foreshadowed the shape of California coastal preservation in the twenty-first century. Big Sur's well-preserved vistas and high-end real estate situate this coastline between American ideals of development and the wild. It is a space that challenges the way most Americans think of nature, its relationship to people, and what in fact makes a place "wild." This book highlights today's complex and ambiguous intersections of class, the environment, and economic development through the lens of an iconic California landscape."--Provided by publisher
Print Book, English, 2017
University of California Press, Oakland, California, 2017
xiii, 261 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
9780520294417, 9780520294424, 0520294416, 0520294424
976253271
Jeffers' Country
Nature's highway
Big Sur: utopia, U.S.A.?
Open-space at continent's end
The influence of the counter-culture, community, and State
The "battle" for Big Sur, or debating the national environmental ethic
Defining the value of California's coastline
Epilogue: millionaires and beaches: the socio-political economics of California coastal preservation in the twenty-first century