John McPhee has written over 30 non-fiction works in his career. He is an English professor at Princeton, and has highly readable, efficient and precise manner of writing.

Several years ago, he wrote about 4 sections of Interstate 80 as it cuts across the US. The research and writing occurred over a period of years when McPhee traveled with several geologists each in those areas.

One piece included an extensive discussion of the UP's Sherman Hill district beginning in Cheyenne. Another lengthy article covered the SP's Donner Pass through the Sierras. (He also wrote pieces about the Delaware Water Gap and I-80 through Nevada.)

Each section was syndicated in the New Yorker and later published in four books: Basin & Range (1981), In Suspect Terrain (1983), Rising From the Plains (1986) and Assembling California (1993.)

The four books were eventually combined with some new material, and published as Annals of the Former World (1998; Farrar, Straus, Giroux; ISBN 0-374-10520-0), for which McPhee received the Pulitzer Prize in 1999.