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America's Eden in an Age of Calamity
by James Conaway
A New York Times bestselling author reveals how the beautiful, isolated Napa Valley wine region of California exploded into an extraordinary outsized version of the American dream and whose vineyards sparked an unbelievable power struggle between old family stewardship and multinational corporations.
Not so long ago, wine was an exclusively European product. Now it is thoroughly American; emblematic of Napa Valley, an area idealized as the epicenter of great wines and foods and a cultural tourist destination. But the romanticized accounts you find about it and its denizens is not what you'll encounter in James Conaway's candid book.
Napa at Last Light exposes the often shadowy side of the latter days of Napa Valley - marked by complex personal relationships, immense profits, passionate beliefs, and sometimes desperate struggles to prevail. In the balance hang fortunes and personal relationships made through hard work and, in too many cases, manipulation of laws, people, and institutions.
Napans who grew up trusting in the beneficence of the "vintner" class now confront in the twenty-first century multinational corporations and their allies who have stealthily subsumed the old family landmarks and abandoned the once glorious conviction that agriculture is the highest and best use of the land. Inherent in that conviction is the sanctity of the place, threatened now by a relentless drive for profits at the expense of land, water, and even life.
Hailed as the definitive Napa writer, Conaway has spent decades covering the region. Napa at Last Light showcases the greed, enviable profits, legacy, and tradition that still collide in this compelling story. The area is still full of dreamers, but of opposing sorts: those longing for a harmonious society based upon the vine envisioned by Thomas Jefferson more than two hundred years ago, and self-styled overlords yearning for wealth and the special acclaim only fine wine can bring. Bets are still out on what the future holds.
"Starred Review. This is a stunning and sad look at how an idyllic community (which has recently been ravaged by fire) became a victim of its own success." - Publishers Weekly
"Vivid storytelling by an author who knows the Napa Valley geography and people well. Recommended for a range of collections, not just where books on wine are popular." - Library Journal
"A strong plea for responsible stewardship of the land." - Kirkus
This information about Napa at Last Light was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
James Conaway grew up in Memphis, but lived in Europe for several years before moving to Washington, DC. A former Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford University, he's the author of thirteen books, including Napa at Last Light and the New York Times bestseller, Napa: The Story of an American Eden. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Harper's, The New Republic, Gourmet, Smithsonian, and National Geographic Traveler. He divides his time between Washington, DC, and California.
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