"From ski towns to national parks, fresh fruit to environmental lawsuits, the Sierra Nevada has changed the way Americans live. Where there was gold to be mined (and where there was not) redefined land, mineral, and water laws. Where rain falls (and where it doesn't) determines whose fruit grows in trees and whose appears on slot machines. All this emerges from the geology of the range and how it changed history, and in so doing, changed America. The Mountains That Remade America combines geology with history to show how the particular forces and conditions that created the Sierra Nevada have influenced broad outcomes and daily life in the United States in the past and continue to do so today. Making connections between events in historical geology and contemporary society, Craig H. Jones makes geological science accessible and shows the vast impact this mountain range has had on the American West."--Provided by publisher.