A biography of the leader of the first group of European Americans to explore the wonder he named - the Grand Canyon. Upon his return to Washington, he oversaw federal bureaus and began his advocacy for the West that lasted the remainder of his life. "Thought-provoking.... Powell's public activities, in the American West and in the mires of Washington, supply readers with an unusually interesting and instructive tale.... The surrender of self-righteousness would be an enormous boon to the environmental cause. Acknowledging the unedited, complicated, utilitarian John Wesley Powell as an ideological parent would be a big step in that laudable direction, and it is this step that Worster's thorough and empathetic biography makes possible."--Patricia Limerick, Los Angeles Times Book Review