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Show UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY West: An Illustrated History, by Geoffrey Ward. A companion to the PBS documentary series of the same name, this book uses extensive quotations to personalize the stories of the West, is based on current scholarship, and contains essays by outstanding modern scholars. Its chronological approach makes for a more coherent telling of the western saga. Buy The American Frontier for its wonderful illustrations and displays of "Old West" material culture. For an eloquent and thought-provoking rendition of the western past, buy The West while it still remains on the bargain rack. MICHAEL W.JOHNSON Utah State University B O O K N O T I C E S And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps By John Tateshi (Reprint; Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 1999. 300 pp. Paper, $17.95.) Real voices of real people can be powerfully affecting. In this case, with so much at stake, the voices are that and more. They are disturbing. They are heartbreaking. Subjected to unthinkable injustice in the "land of the free," these former internees relate wrenching memories. Each is a unique narrative; but, of course, the accounts are also all the same story. These voices describe one of America's most disgraceful actions, a time when racism all but snuffed out justice and humanity for Japanese Americans. Those who know little about the Japanese American internment in World War II should read this book-but so should those who think they already know the whole story. Desert River Crossing: Historic Lee's Ferry on the Colorado River ByW. L. Rusho (Revised ed.; Salt Lake City: Tower Productions, 1998.187 pp. Paper, $16.95.) Through an abundance of historical photos and a finely written narrative, this updated edition of W L. Rusho's book records the depth and breadth of events at Lee's Ferry. And the place has a broad history indeed; the 90 BOOK NOTICES paths of Native Americans, explorers, Mormons, outlaws, ranchers, miners, and engineers have all intersected with the Colorado River at this point. The book covers this history from the earliest travelers to the 1996 condor release at the Vermilion Cliffs. It also provides, for on-the-ground investigators, information on sites and area exploration. Faces of Utah: A Portrait Edited by Shannon R. Hoskins (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 1996. 224 pp. Paper, $8.95.) When the Mountain West Center and the Utah Humanities Council put out a centennial call for essays about living in Utah, some 100,000 responses flooded the office. This volume collects only a fraction of them, a representation of the whole. Among the strengths of this collection is the diversity of age and background among the writers. The book also presents a diversity of experience and opinion about the state. Along with-and among-the inevitable essays focused on natural beauty, heritage, and nostalgia are individual voices that defy generalizations. These voices include expressions of anger, thoughtful examination, worry, bemusement, gratitude, and more. The essays, then, provide a glimpse into a whole range of Utah experience. To read them and thereby understand others' perceptions should be enlightening to Utahns of all persuasions. No Western Parallel: The Story of Questar Corporation By David Hampshire (Salt Lake City: Questar, 1998. 224 pp. $33.00.) The author was allowed to ask "the most impertinent questions," and company officials "made a conscious effort" to avoid striking unflattering passages. Inevitably, though, this is still corporate history, told from Questar's point of view. Outsider and antagonistic voices are largely silent. For instance, the account of the company's 1970s clashes with the Public Service Commission does not include interviews with PSC commissioners or staffers. Nevertheless, the book is a valuable contribution to history, giving a solid overview of an important player in the state of Utah. Interesting historical photographs spice up the first half of the book. Particularly fascinating are the accounts and photos of early industrial techniques and workers: the adventures of pipeline construction, the line riders who rode along the pipeline looking for problems, and the welders who worked on leaks until they passed out then were dragged away from the pipe, revived, and sent back to work. 91 BOOK NOTICES The Frontier Army in the Settlement of the West By Michael L.Tate (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. xx + 454 pp. $34.95.) It was a military man, Gen. Philip Sheridan, who rescued the Yellowstone region from development and environmental plundering; his vision and efforts led to the transfer in 1885 of these endangered lands to military management. The army took immediate steps to protect the ecosystem. Soldiers explained safety rules and environmental philosophy to tourists-and those tourists who harmed the park's natural features might find themselves locked in the guardhouse ofYellowstone Fort. The purpose of this engaging book is to look beyond the army's stereotype as Indian fighters. Soldiers explored, built roads, did scientific studies, aided overland travelers, served as advocates of Indian tribes, assisted in disasters, acted as lawmen, provided medical services, and much more. As this volume convincingly demonstrates, the army's contribution to Euro-American settlement of the West was large indeed. Washington Matthews: Studies of Navajo Culture, 1880-1894 Edited by Katherine Spencer Halpern and Susan Brown McGreevy (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997. xix + 304 pp. $70.00.) The first generation of anthropologists has been "dismissed by later generations of academically trained anthropologists as merely descriptive ethnologists," states the foreword to this volume, but "these men and women were the first to breach the ethnocentrism which blinded the American academic world to the value of non-western cultural traditions and in so doing laid the foundation for a new discipline" (ix). Washington Matthews was the first systematic, sympathetic observer of the Navajos. An army surgeon commissioned by John Wesley Powell to study the culture, Matthews took important notes on mythology, ethnobotany, ceremonies, and arts of the Navajos. The first section of this volume contains essays examining his methodology and the value of his work; the second half presents field notes, drawings, publications, and lectures by Matthews himself. News of the Plains and Rockies, 1803-1865: Original Narratives of Overland Travel and Adventure Selected from the Wagner-Camp and Becker Bibliography of Western Americana. Vol 2: Santa Fe Adventures, 1818-1843; Settlers, 1819-1865 Compiled and annotated by David A.White (Spokane: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1996. 510 92 BOOK NOTICES pp. $50.00.) Vol 3: Missionaries, Mormons, 1821-1824; Indian Agents, Captives, 1832-1865 Compiled and annotated by David A.White (Spokane: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1997. 495 pp. $50.00.) The narratives in these superb volumes are absorbing in themselves. But the elegantly efficient and helpful manner in which they are presented makes them even more valuable. A "Perspectives" essay precedes each section of the book, as do maps and travel times. Each narrative is then introduced with brief paragraphs on the narrative's significance, the author's life, the author's travel itinerary, the highlights of the narrative, and the legacy of the events described. Bone Deep in Landscape: Writing, Reading, and Place By Mary Clearman Blew (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. 208 pp. $22.95.) Memoir, history, land, literature, notes on writing, tales, diaries, notebooks, letters: Blew stitches these "scraps," as she calls her material, into her essays. Ranging across the landscapes of Montana and Idaho, the essays attend to specific places-the Judith River, for instance, or a fenceline built by the author's grandfather-exploring the stories that reside in each. Blew is a quilter, and, like a patchwork quilt, her writing may at first glance seem like a collection of disparate material, but these bits and pieces form patterns that show how place connects divergent stories, people, and times. The Kachina and the Cross: Indians and Spaniards in the Early Southwest By Carroll L. Riley (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1999. xiii + 336 pp. $34.95.) An excellent new look at contact, conquest, and cultural interchange from the first Spanish explorers to the end of the seventeenth century, this book is a fascinating synthesis of recent scholarship. Anthropology, archaeology, and history all contribute here. For example, an analysis of the religious beliefs of the intersecting cultures is important to the book's chapter on missionization. To Franciscan priests, for instance, the Hopi Kachinas and other supernatural beings of the Southwest Indians were not imaginary but were actual minions of Satan- thus the priests' fervor in wiping out the Pueblo religions. Throughout the book, insights into the material and non-material culture of both Spanish and Pueblos similarly enrich the narrative and illuminate the historical record. 93 BOOK NOTICES Portraits of Basques in the New World Edited by Richard W Etulain and Jeronima Echeverria (Reno: University of Nevada Press. 328 pp. $31.95.) The first archbishop of Mexico was a Basque. So was Juan de Onate, the first governor of New Mexico and the explorer who searched for the " r i c h e s " of Quivira. Starting with essays on these early players in the Europeanization of the New World, this book presents writings on a diversity of Basques. As the title states, these are mainly portraits of individuals, yet they do demonstrate the range of Basque experience in the West, and they contribute an important perspective to the study of immigration. All are interesting, but the stand-out essay returns to a theme commonly associated with Basques-sheepherding. In it, Rene Tihista remembers his family's history and sheep business and his own teenage years herding for the family. The book is worth picking up for this one unforgettable memoir. Singing Stone: A Natural History of the Escalante Canyons By Thomas Lowe Fleischner (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1999. xix + 212 pp. Paper, $17.95.) Fleischner's goal is to write natural history the way it was written before science and emotion went their separate ways. His own love for the Escalante country, then, plays a prominent but not usually syrupy part in the book, and it is amply diluted by geology, geography, biology, prehistory, and history. The scientific/historical/naturalist aspects of the book are by no means complete, however. Nor are they completely accurate. The author lets stand implications that the Escalante is in the Great Basin (67), uncritically ascribes the Hopi creation story to the Anasazi (13), and cavalierly reads the minds of Archaic peoples (76). In addition, Fleischner has perhaps fallen into the habit that many nature writers do, that of manipulating reality for dramatic purposes. For instance, he describes camping in "subzero air" in Bryce Canyon one night and the same day sweating heavily and gladly walking in water in the Escalante canyons, only 4,000 feet lower. But the project's goal is a worthy one. The account of the evolution of grazing policy, for instance, benefits both from the science and the "emotion" of earlier chapters. Anti-environmentalists may dismiss the book after a glance at the first page or even the title; nevertheless, the book is a valuable document that shows how all aspects of a place are interrelated. 94 BOOK NOTICES Preserving the Glory Days: Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Nye County, Nevada By Shawn Hall (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1999. xiv + 301 pp. Paper, $21.95.) First published in 1981, this expanded and updated edition gives directions for locating nearly 200 sites, along with town histories, photos, and assessments of present conditions. Lacking in the directions are explanations of road conditions, however. Are four-wheel drive vehicles necessary for some of the roads? The book does not say. What it does show is that, beyond the long stretches of Nevada highways, ghost towns and old stories are hidden in nearly all directions. The Western Range Revisited: Removing Livestock from Public Lands to Conserve Native Biodiversity By Debra L. Donahue (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. xii + 388 pp. $47.95.) As both a wildlife biologist and professor of law, Donahue knows her stuff. She contends that livestock should be completely removed from large tracts of BLM lands. It's a radical proposal, but the arguments, based on history, economics, science, ecology, and the law, are compelling. The traditional rationalizations for public land grazing-that it sustains a traditional culture, that it is key to the economies of the rural West, and that it is important to the preservation of open space-have driven land management decisions for decades.Yet Donahue points to flaws in these beliefs and concludes that "the current federal grazing policy is a largely unintended artifact of history, perpetuated by myth" (7) and that allowing grazing on arid lands is "indefensible public policy" (9). The Maverick Spirit: Building the New Nevada Edited by Richard O. Davies (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1999. x + 304 pp. Paper, $17.95.) Added together, the profiles of fourteen Nevadan leaders in this collection illuminate the evolution of this unique state. The book describes the rise of gaming, with all of its undercurrents and effects, through many angles. An oddly diverse group has helped birth the "new Nevada." The profiles, then, necessarily include such different individuals as the pugnacious and influential Las Vegas Sun editor Hank Greenspun, politicians Sue Wagner and Paul Laxalt, writer Robert Laxalt, casino promoter Bill Harrah, mob-man Moe Dalitz, civil rights activist James McMillan, and UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian. 95 |
