Too High and Too Steep

Too High and Too Steep is a wonderful, fascinating, and surprisingly poignant rendering of the birth of Seattle, my favorite city. Scrubbed for millions of years by glaciers, inhabited for thousands of years by Native Americans, sculpted for decades by men with volcanic egos, the spirit of Seattle remains true to itself, and yet is informed by the many tremendous forces drawn out in Williams's engrossing, captivating tale. I loved this fabulous book, and consider it required reading for anyone interested in the Northwest and the history of American cities. -- Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain and A Sudden Light No matter how well you think you know Seattle, David B. Williams knows it better. On every block, hill, stream, mudflat, or bit of shoreline, Williams has drilled down to the bedrock of revelation. Too High and Too Steep showcases Williams's unique talent for exploring the strange combination of natural history and human passion that continues to shape our fair city. He writes with zest and brio, he sees with acuity, he synthesizes with dazzling leaps through time and space. Williams's awe (in all senses of the word) at what our species has done to this city's geography and topography during its scant history is infectious. Read this book and you will see Seattle in a brilliant new light. -- David Laskin, author of The Children's Blizzard and The Family: A Journey into the Heart of the 20th Century In Too High and Too Steep, geologist David B. Williams serves as an erudite and witty guide to the ever-changing topography of our city. The story is fast-paced and alive, from native middens, to the Denny regrade, to the modern dismantling of the viaduct. After reading this book, I look out over Seattle, and I can almost feel the earth moving beneath my feet. -- Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild Seattle, it might be said, is a strange place to build a city, and David Williams's book captures that strangeness beautifully. Through excavations in the archives, musings on the nature of nature, and his own wanderings around the urban landscape, Williams offers us a way to decode--and perhaps come to terms with--the radical transformations that have made the city what it is. Those changes came with a cost, too, a fact that Williams doesn't let us forget. -- Coll Thrush, author of Native Seattle Too High and Too Steep shows the dramatic, visionary sculpting of the Seattle cityscape from founding to the present day-and into the future. Williams explores the irony that the Emerald City, surrounded by blue water and forested mountains, may be the most engineered metropolis on earth, and he shows us how to discover the original topography, man-made cityscape, and ongoing evidence of glaciers, faults, and tides. Seattle, he convinces us, will continue to shape its landscape, and that landscape in turn will continue to shape Seattle. -- Lorraine McConaghy, author of New Land, North of the Columbia and Warship under Sail

Residents and visitors in today’s Seattle would barely recognize the landscape that its founding settlers first encountered. As the city grew, its leaders and inhabitants dramatically altered its topography to accommodate their changing visions. In Too High and Too Steep, David B. Williams uses his deep knowledge of Seattle, scientific background, and extensive research and interviews to illuminate the physical challenges and sometimes startling hubris of these large-scale transformations, from the filling in of the Duwamish tideflats to the massive regrading project that pared down Denny Hill.

In the course of telling this fascinating story, Williams helps readers find visible traces of the city’s former landscape and better understand Seattle as a place that has been radically reshaped.

Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af51FU8hHLI

Too High and Too Steep was made possible in part by a grant from 4Culture's Heritage Program.