The Landscape of the Mind : Cultural Transformations of the American West

The Landscape of the Mind concerns itself with cultural ways of finding meaning in and imposing meaning on a specific landscape, the American West. The book traces these transformations from early Spanish explorers, to Native Americans, to Mountain Men, to The Cowboy, to an immigrant group (the Mormons), to current images. No book now in print has dealt with the nature of such transformations. The book is a direct response to Elias Canetti's insightful comment that, 'The talent for transformation which has given man so much power over all other creatures has as yet scarcely been considered or begun to be understood.'