# Sand, Water, Salt: Managing the Elements in Literature of the American West, 1880-1925 - Hardcover

by **Jada Ach** (Author)

Jada Ach's scholarship in _Sand, Water, Salt: Managing the Elements in Literature of the American West, 1880-1925_ seeks to reevaluate the Progressive Era's environmental legacy. Taking an ecocritical approach to turn-of-the-century literature set in the American West, Ach interrogates texts by asking what kinds of environmental, national, and cultural stories the elements have to tell about land and oceanic management. _Sand, Water, Salt_ investigates managerial engagements with dynamic ecologies in three particular Western environments: the arid deserts, the semiarid high plains, and the Pacific Ocean.

At different times, and to varying degrees, Americans have deemed these environments economically unproductive, incompatible with Anglo-American settlement, and/or highly unmanageable. Despite these varied complaints, the United States has also intensely desired these "wasteland" spaces, perceiving them as sources of both national wealth and elite pleasure. _Sand, Water, Salt_ moves through a variety of novels, memoirs, and cultural artifacts from the 1880s to the 1920s, including L. Frank Baum's _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_, Frank Norris's _McTeague_, Mary Hunter Austin's _The Land of Little Rain_, _The Virginian_ by Owen Wister, _Life among the Piutes_ by Sarah Winnemucca, as well as Jack London's _The Sea-Wolf_ and Yone Noguchi's _The American Diary of a Japanese Girl_.

Ach ultimately asks what we gain by looking back at _fin-de-siècle_ American literature with a queer, ecological justice-oriented eye, a particularly invigorating conversation that uniquely uses the elements as foci.

**Number of Pages:** 320

**Dimensions:** 0.9 x 9.2 x 7.7 IN

**Publication Date:** August 31, 2021

## Details

- **Price:** 39.95 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 39.95 USD | In stock |

## Images

- Sand, Water, Salt: Managing the Elements in Literature of the American West, 1880-1925 - Hardcover

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