Description
Book SynopsisTells the story of the region's dramatic transformation in the decades after World War II, when a loose coalition of tourist boosters fashioned alluring images of nature in the high country and a multitude of local, state, and federal actors built the infrastructure for high-volume tourism.
Trade Review"The author utilizes a bevy of archival and public documents. Photographs, maps, charts, and a substantial bibliography support the book. Recommended."
* Choice *
"William Philpott’s Vacationland: Tourism and Environment in the Colorado High Country is the best book yet published on an array of critical topics in Colorado history. . . . What’s more, Vacationland is far and away the most illuminating book yet written on postwar Colorado. Philpott’s research is exhaustive, his prose is elegant but crystal-clear, and his interpretations are almost uniformly persuasive. Vacationland seems bound to earn vociferous praise from scholars. Yet this is also a book that merits widespread attention from general readers. If I were asked to recommend just one work to citizens or visitors seeking to orient themselves to the origins of the contemporary Colorado landscape, this would be it."
-- Thomas Andrews * Center for Colorado and the West *
"Although a scholarly work of interest to environmental scientists and historians. . . the extraordinarily multidisciplinary nature of the content— illustrating economic, marketing, political, and sociological aspects of our American history—gives it broad appeal. The entertaining narrative style makes the content accessible to an audience beyond experts, suitable for students, and general readers."
-- Kathleen Butler * Electronic Green Journal *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Foreword: At Home and at Play in the High Country by William Cronon
Introduction: Seeing Like a Tourist
1. Selling the Scene
2. The Roads Nature Made?
3. Our Big Backyard
4. Blueprints for Action
5. The John Denver Tenor
Conclusion: How Tourism Took Place
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
