Annals of the Former World was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1998, collecting five books written over twenty years: Basin and Range (1981), In Suspect Terrain (1983), Rising from the Plains (1986), Assembling California (1993), and Crossing the Craton (new, 1998). The collection won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1999.
The organizing conceit: McPhee drives across the United States along Interstate 80 (roughly the fortieth parallel) from New York to San Francisco, accompanied by different geologists for each section. Each geologist reads the landscape through their expertise and their personality — Kenneth Deffeyes (Basin and Range) is exuberant and digressive; Anita Harris (In Suspect Terrain) is precise and skeptical; David Love (Rising from the Plains) is laconic and deeply rooted in Wyoming history. The geology is inseparable from the geologists: McPhee understands that science is a human activity, and that how a scientist sees is shaped by who they are.
The achievement is staggering: McPhee makes four billion years of geological history comprehensible, dramatic, and beautiful. He teaches the reader to see landscape as text — to understand that a road cut reveals a chapter of Earth’s autobiography, that a mountain range records a collision of continents, that a valley floor documents the retreat of glaciers. The prose accomplishes what seems impossible: it makes rocks interesting — not through metaphor or anthropomorphism but through the patient accumulation of understanding.
First edition (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1998): Thick cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $40–$100
- Very good: $20–$40
- Signed: $100–$200
- First editions of component volumes (1981-1993): $30–$75 each
Projected values (2026–2036): Strong appreciation. Pulitzer Prize winner.
Four Billion Years
Annals of the Former World (1998) is McPhee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning omnibus — a 700-page journey across the geological history of North America, structured as a series of road trips along Interstate 80 with various geologists. The book assembles four previously published volumes (Basin and Range, In Suspect Terrain, Rising from the Plains, Assembling California) plus a new linking narrative, Crossing the Craton. McPhee makes Deep Time comprehensible — the reader comes away understanding plate tectonics, mountain-building, and the formation of the continent with a visceral clarity that no textbook achieves.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I read the individual volumes or the omnibus? The omnibus is the definitive edition and includes the connecting Crossing the Craton section. However, first editions of the individual volumes are the primary collecting targets.