In 1969, archaeologists uncovered a large circle of roughly piled stones about twenty miles north of Lake Tahoe. In The Circle of Stones, Richard Schwartz sets out to determine who built this mysterious ring and what its original purpose was. In his search for answers, Schwartz compares the Circle to known similar occurrences and explores local history, including the lives of the many people who passed through this area, from indigenous societies to the white, African American, and Chinese settlers of the nineteenth century.