Desert Images

This new edition of the 1979 conservation masterpiece includes 150 unparalleled photographs of the American Desert Southwest landscape paired with Abbey’s eloquent text.

When first published, Desert Images was a watershed project in the nascent environmental movement—bringing together two titans of American literature and art in their heyday. Still resonating all these decades later, Muench’s evocative photography and Abbey’s fiery, poetic text remain an unsurpassed tribute to this extraordinary American landscape. Those who imagine that the desert is merely a monotonous vista of sand and rock will be surprised by the variety of landforms, plants, and other natural phenomena shown on these pages.

As Abbey wrote, “For some of those who have learned not only to live in but also to love the desert, it offers rewards greater than its visual appeal to the sense of beauty—the promise implicit in all that rugged wildness, that open, unfenced, untrammeled space—the sense of adventure, the reality of freedom, the hope of a refuge.” This photographic and literary passport to a great American wilderness will be treasured by all those who cherish the natural world.

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental groups, and the nonfiction work Desert Solitaire. David Muench is an American landscape and nature photographer known for portraying the American western landscape. In 2000, Muench received the National Parks Conservation Association’s Robin W. Winks Award for Enhancing Public Understanding of National Parks. Craig Childs has published more than a dozen books, winning accolades including the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award three times. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, and The New York Times, where he has been called “a modern-day desert father.”