Imperial

Imperial

Hardback (30 Jul 2009)

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Publisher's Synopsis

An epic study of an emblematic American region by one of our most celebrated writers

It sprawls across a stinking artificial sea, across the deserts, date groves, and labor camps of southeastern California, right across the Mexican border. For generations of migrant workers, from Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl of the 1930s to Mexican laborers today, Imperial County has held the promise of paradise-and the reality of hell. It is a land beautiful and harsh, enticing and deadly, rich in history and heartbreak. Across the border, the desert is the same but there are different secrets. In Imperial , award-winning writer William T. Vollmann takes us deep into the heart of this haunted region, and by extension into the dark soul of American imperialism.

Known for his penetrating meditations on poverty and violence, Vollmann has spent ten years doggedly investigating every facet of this bi-national locus, raiding archives, exploring polluted rivers, guarded factories, and Chinese tunnels, talking with everyone from farmers to border patrolmen in his search for the fading American dream and its Mexican equivalent. The result is a majestic book that addresses current debates on immigration, agribusiness, and corporate exploitation, issues that will define America's identity in the twenty-first century.

About the Publisher

Viking

Viking

Viking publishes the widest possible range of literary fiction and non-fiction. Our fiction list includes John le Carr?, Nick Hornby, Will Self, Colm T?ib?n, Nicole Krauss, William Trevor, Catherine O' Flynn, Jonathan Coe, and Joshua Ferris. In non-fiction, the range covers current affairs, history, biography, memoir, narrative non-fiction, music and sport. Our authors include Antony Beevor, Andrew Rawnsley, Mark Bostridge, Sarah Bradford, Saul David, Catherine Bailey, Lynn Barber, Claire Tomalin and John Stubbs.

Book information

ISBN: 9780670020614
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Imprint: Viking
Pub date:
DEWEY: 304.87949907208624
DEWEY edition: 22
Number of pages: 1344
Weight: 1710g
Height: 235mm
Width: 163mm
Spine width: 62mm