Long viewed as a tabula rasa, the deserts of the American West have
played a distinct role in the projection of American cultural
identities. Historically represented through fantasies of individualism,
frontier ruggedness, and land acquisition, the desert is also the site
of extreme social and environmental violence. The Invention of the
American Desert brings together a wide-ranging group of
interdisciplinary essays that explore, through diverse perspectives,
dialectical problems posed by an environment that has served as a
testing ground for modernist experimentation in art and architecture,
military-industrial incursions, and ecological disasters throughout the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In light of the urgent climate
crisis and the planet's increasing desertification, this volume reflects
on the nature and legacy of the desert as a crucible for competing
visions of land, environment, and art.