A native of the Near Southwest bio-region stretching from New Mexico to Louisiana, environmental historian Dan Flores previously published a human and natural history of his homeland entitled Horizontal Yellow. This new text examines his adopted environs in the Rocky Mountains and the neighboring Great Plains under a similar set of spectacles, looking for man's place in an environment that, many suspect, would be better off without him.
The introduction and 10 essays in this book combine science, literature and Flores' personal reflections in their examination of the environmental histories of the Rockies, the Great Basin, the Red River, and the Plains. Human impacts on the grizzly and bison are studied in separate chapters, as is an examination of efforts aimed at restoring the West to a more natural state.
Flores describes the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains as two regions "anciently spooled together in a kind of ecological yin/yang interlock... The Plains is western America's great experiment with privatization, the Rockies our historic communal lands experiment. That we're now entering the second century of these two radically different land-use strategies coexisting side by side makes comparative environmental history here interesting to ponder."