Aspen, Colorado: elevation 7900 feet, resident population 6000; America's largest ski resort; site of the prestigious Aspen Music Festival and School and the Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies. Home of leading pop singer John Denver, leading outlaw- journalist Hunter S. Thompson, leading best-selling novelist Leon Uris, leading comedian Steve Martin, leading man Jack Nicholson. Described by national media as "the place of the seventies."Like New York and Hollywood, Aspen describes a state of mind and a way of life. In its 100-year history, the town has staged the birth, death, and resurrection of the "American Dream." It is the legend of that attainable dream that Peggy Clifford illuminates in her story of the growth of this American town.We see the dream take root and flower silver when Aspen is founded by a group of prospectors on a mother vein forty miles wide; we see it wither and die some ten years later. We see it manifest again as a Chicago industrialist comes to town in the 1940s with a host of co-big daddies including Albert Schweitzer and Mortimer Adler, and goes about making a place where America can turn from things to ideas, aiming for a "total synthesis of human life."But the directions of dreams are not always consistent. The town-out-of-time attracted innocents, dreamers and fugitives from the Land of Plenty, but the town of art and sport they created attracted others smart enough to know a good and profitable thing. Ski facilities were expanded, boutiques appeared, a wall of condominiums separated town from mountain. Once out of step, Aspen is in vogue, and a more modern version of the dream motivates the place: pleasure is business, and business is a pleasure.

What began as a small mining camp during the Colorado Silver Boom of the late nineteenth century has since become the preferred getaway of the world's elite. Treasured for what's above ground rather than below, Aspen, Colorado has a storied history almost as dense as the directory of A-listers who have adopted the jewel of Pitkin County as their second home, or who have settled in its slopes indefinitely. With an introduction from longtime resident Aerin Lauder, Aspen celebrates and pays homage to the stark glamour, the working-class history, and the romance of the virtually untouched landscape that gives the town the unique charisma that continues to draw new devotees with each season. Exploring the rustic-chic atmosphere of the Hotel Jerome, the architectural excellence of Herbert Bayer's restored Wheeler Opera House, and local culture found at Schlomo's Deli & Grill, to name a few, this deluxe volume is brought to life with stunning current and historical imagery capturing the prodigious evolution of this mountain town over the last century.

The West is popularly perceived as America's last outpost of unfettered opportunity, but twentieth-century corporate tourism has transformed it into America's "land of opportunism." From Sun Valley to Santa Fe, towns throughout the West have been turned over to outsiders—and not just to those who visit and move on, but to those who stay and control. Although tourism has been a blessing for many, bringing economic and cultural prosperity to communities without obvious means of support or allowing towns on the brink of extinction to renew themselves; the costs on more intangible levels may be said to outweigh the benefits and be a devil's bargain in the making. Hal Rothman examines the effect of twentieth-century tourism on the West and exposes that industry's darker side. He tells how tourism evolved from Grand Canyon rail trips to Sun Valley ski weekends and Disneyland vacations, and how the post-World War II boom in air travel and luxury hotels capitalized on a surge in discretionary income for many Americans, combined with newfound leisure time. From major destinations like Las Vegas to revitalized towns like Aspen and Moab, Rothman reveals how the introduction of tourism into a community may seem innocuous, but residents gradually realize, as they seek to preserve the authenticity of their communities, that decision-making power has subtly shifted from the community itself to the newly arrived corporate financiers. And because tourism often results in a redistribution of wealth and power to "outsiders," observes Rothman, it represents a new form of colonialism for the region. By depicting the nature of tourism in the American West through true stories of places and individuals that have felt its grasp, Rothman doesn't just document the effects of tourism but provides us with an enlightened explanation of the shape these changes take. Deftly balancing historical perspective with an eye for what's happening in the region right now, his book sets new standards for the study of tourism and is one that no citizen of the West whose life is touched by that industry can afford to ignore.

From the backside of Aspen Mountain five men forged a community. Grounded in commitments to local silver mines, their stories interweave three generations. These leaders believed in the future of Aspen and its natural treasures. Their pluck and optimism overcame devastating challenges. And their noble vision of the town's future invigorated the mining economy and guided it through a transition to skiing.

Let your hair down, Caroline, they said. It'll be fun, they said. I know I've closed myself off in a major way in the past year, ever since “the incident” where I messed up my life completely. It's past time I try to live again or just give up completely. But this is quite possibly the craziest thing I've ever done. In a last ditch effort to invigorate myself, I'm standing outside Oren Tenning's bedroom, I just peeled off the sexiest pair of underwear I own, and my hand is already raised to knock. My brother would disown me for doing anything with his best friend, and he'd probably kill Oren. But if I play my cards right, no one will ever know about this. Not even Ten. Maybe after tonight, I’ll finally get over this stupid, irrational crush I hate having on the biggest jerk I’ve ever met. Or maybe I’ll just end up falling for him even harder. Maybe I’ll discover there’s so much more to my crude, carefree hunk than meets the eye.

From the author of Losing Earth, a beautifully told exploration of our post-natural world that points the way to a new mode of ecological writing. We live at a time in which scientists race to reanimate extinct beasts, our most essential ecosystems require monumental engineering projects to survive, chicken breasts grow in test tubes, and multinational corporations conspire to poison the blood of every living creature. No rock, leaf, or cubic foot of air on Earth has escaped humanity's clumsy signature. The old distinctions—between natural and artificial, dystopia and utopia, science fiction and science fact—have blurred, losing all meaning. We inhabit an uncanny landscape of our own creation. In Second Nature, ordinary people make desperate efforts to preserve their humanity in a world that seems increasingly alien. Their stories—obsessive, intimate, and deeply reported—point the way to a new kind of environmental literature, in which dramatic narrative helps us to understand our place in a reality that resembles nothing human beings have known. From Odds Against Tomorrow to Losing Earth to the film Dark Waters (adapted from the first chapter of this book), Nathaniel Rich’s stories have come to define the way we think of contemporary ecological narrative. In Second Nature, he asks what it means to live in an era of terrible responsibility. The question is no longer, How do we return to the world that we’ve lost?It is, What world do we want to create in its place?