The photographs were shot during 1970-71 across all of the Great Plains states from Montana south to New Mexico and Texas. There"s a great variety of images impossible to summarize here, including white markers in the grass of the Little Big Horn, a full moon over bluffs, sunsets, abandoned farm buildings, vacant store fronts, cars and trucks parked in front of a bar, wheat fields, hay fields, windmills, an old tractor, railroad tracks, an endless freight train, riverbeds and dry water holes, stormy skies, badlands, the faces of rural people, and the backside of one cowboy sitting on the top rail of a fence. Plowden has caught the Great Plains in all kinds of moods and conditions, and the images just take your breath away.The book also has a considerable amount of text. Being a Sierra Club publication, there is a sense of both loss and anger at the failure of humans to be more respectful of the earth. A section called "The Short grass and the big sky" describes the terrain, climate, plant and animal life. A longer section follows called "The way it was when the way was west," providing a history of the area"s immigrants, beginning with the Spanish. The final section, "The way it is," describes life on the Great Plains as Plowden found it in 1970-71, and the book introduces several people he talked to, including farmers and ranchers.