
Canaries on the Rim
Living Downwind in the West
Chip Ward(Author)
Verso Books (Publisher)
Published on 17. November 1999
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-1-85984-750-3 (ISBN)
Description
In the late 1970s Chip Ward and his wife left the Sleeping Rainbow Ranch in Capitol Reef National Park to raise their children in the classic small-town American setting of Grantsville, Utah. There, on the edge of the Great Basin Desert, disturbing tales of local sickness and death interrupted an idyllic life. A seven-year quest to understand a hidden history of ecocide followed. Canaries on the Rim is Ward's firsthand account of that quest and how lessons learned in the wilderness were later applied to building opposition to toxic waste disposal, chemical weapons incineration, industrial pollution, and nuclear waste storage. The secret holocaust that is unfolding along the toxic shadow of America's Great Basin Desert is grim, but Ward's colorful and often-humorous story is not. Canaries on the Rim is a warning and a call to arms, but it is also a compelling drama and a lively primer on environmental activism. If civil action took place in Edward Abbey's West, this is the book that would result.
Reviews / Votes
Not just a memoir but a manual for citizen activism. It may be a manifesto, but its humor and informality-in and among the hair-raising details-make it an entertaining one. * Boston Globe * This book is a must read. For the beauty of the nature writing, for the humor, the intelligence, and the details on a community organization becoming a national power ... The experiences of Chip Ward need a series of books detailing his successes and failures. We could all learn from him. -- Sierra Club This call to clipboards for local activism is both hopeful and damning: a gift to the next generation and a warning that, in the end, there is no upwind. * Publishers Weekly *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 201 mm
Width: 146 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
458 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-85984-750-3 (9781859847503)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Chip Ward manages Utah's public library Development Program.