In Suspect Terrain by John McPhee [FIRST PAPERBACK PRINTING] 1983 • Farrar Straus Giroux

  • $14.00


In Suspect Terrain by John McPhee [Annals of the Former World #2]

FIRST TRADE PAPERBACK PRINTING [1983] FARRAR STRAUS & GIROUX 

Book is in excellent condition with some minor trace wear.  Reads like new.  *small inscription on front endpaper.


From the outwash plains of Brooklyn to Indiana's drifted diamonds and gold In Suspect Terrain is a narrative of the earth, told in four sections of equal length, each in a different way reflecting the three others―a biography; a set piece about a fragment of Appalachian landscape in illuminating counterpoint to the human history there; a modern collision of ideas about the origins of the mountain range; and, in contrast, a century-old collision of ideas about the existence of the Ice Age. The central figure is Anita Harris, an internationally celebrated geologist who went into her profession to get out of a Brooklyn ghetto. The unifying theme is plate tectonics―here concentrating on the acceptance that all aspects of the theory do not universally enjoy. As such, In Suspect Terrain is a report from the rough spots at the front edge of a science.