Oregon: This Storied Land

Oregon is a landscape of brilliant waterfalls, towering volcanoes, productive river valleys, and far-reaching high deserts. It is also a land of stories. People have lived on the Oregon landscape for at least twelve thousand years, and during that time they have established communities, named places, built railroads, harvested fish and timber, and made laws that both protected and threatened the land. It is a history of commodification and conservation, of despair and hope, of progress and tradition.Oregon: This Storied Land tells many of those stories, giving us a broad, sweeping history of a state that has resisted being made into a stereotype. "We live in a place rich with complex social, economic, cultural, and ecological meaning," the author tells us, and then he proceeds to unravel the complexities and uncover the riches for us. William G. Robbins, emeritus professor of history at Oregon State University, is one of the Pacific Northwest's most respected scholars. His many books include Hard Times in Paradise: Coos Bay, Oregon, 1850-1986; Landscapes of Promise: The Oregon Story 1800-1940; and Landscapes of Conflict: The Oregon Story, 1940-2000.