Delusions and Grandeur: Dreamers of the New West [Paperback]

Shortlisted for the 2026 Reading The West Book Award in Memoir/Biography

Longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay

From the author of bestseller The Man Who Quit Money, this collection of personal essays recounts 20 years of Mark Sundeen's gonzo journalism, political activism, and steadfast humanism in the modern American West.

In these new and selected essays, Mark Sundeen recounts two decades of political activism, outdoor exploration, and empathetic curiosity. He was both witness to and active participant in pivotal cultural and political events of the new millennium, from Howard Dean’s presidential campaign to the Iraq War protests and the NoDAPL uprising in Standing Rock. But what brings these large phenomena into humanistic focus is the cast of idiosyncratic people he meets. Using first-person reportage, well-crafted storytelling, and wry, self-deprecating humor, Sundeen’s keen observations illustrate what everyday life is like for people in the contemporary American West, with all their systemic precarities and individual triumphs.Mark Sundeenteaches at the University of Montana. He is the author of five other books about the American West, including, mostly recently,Delusions and Grandeur: Dreamers of the New West(UNM Press). He is a contributing editor forOutside Magazine, and his work has appeared inThe New York Times,National Geographic Adventure,The Believer, andBest American Essays.“Delusions and Grandeuris about what it means to be a man in the West—but if that conjures images of steely-eyed cowboys and oilmen, put those out of your mind. What struck me most is just how gorgeously tenderhearted, vulnerable, and emotionally engaged these essays and their characters are. If a smallish group of men have been the main perpetrators of the destruction of our planet, a larger group, including many of thoslƒŽ