Award-winning author, curator and activist Lucy R. Lippard is one of America's most influential writers on contemporary art, and she is a pioneer in the fields of cultural geography, conceptualism and feminist art. Working from experience in a New Mexico village and inspired by gravel pits in the landscape, Lippard weaves a series of themes into a tapestry that illuminates the relationship between culture and the land. From threatened Native American sacred sites to the history of uranium mining, Lippard frames a sceptical examination of the 'subterranean economy.'