| OCR Text |
Show BOOK REVIEWS was marked by individuals interacting with the environment, yet in the twentieth century it was, to a considerable extent, an interaction with the federal government. Those interested in this relationship will profit from reading The Federal Landscape. M. GUY BISHOP Woods Cross, Utah BOOK NOTICES 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 as 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 enumerates serious 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). A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church: Volume One, 1830-1847 By Peter Crawley (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997. 477 pp. $55.95.) Peter Crawley, professor of mathematics at Brigham Young University has compiled this magnificent volume as a culmination of his lifelong obsession with collecting Mormon publications. As he acquired books, he started an annotated bibliography on early Mormon Americana both in and out of his possession; he included any printed piece with one or more pages having text relating to some church issue. Volume One covers books produced by Mormons in support of the LDS faith during the period 1830-47. The bibliography excludes individual newspaper or magazine articles, maps, prints, bank notes, and ephemeral 185 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY pieces such as printed forms or elders' licenses. The bibliography is arranged chronologically and, for the most part, by author. Although the objective is to focus on the books themselves, not to give an historical account of the Mormon church, the book does attempt to include historical context for the publications. Following the discussion of each item is the book's citation from Chad J. Flake's A Mormon Bibliography 1830-1930 (Salt Lake City, 1978) or Chad J. Flake and Larry W Draper's Ten Year Supplement (Salt Lake City, 1989), followed by a list of libraries that own an original copy. To make the book even more useful, following the endnotes at the back of this volume are three indexes. The first is an author/short-title index to the entries in this volume. The second is an index to the biographical sketches scattered throughout the text and the endnotes, and the third is a general subject index. The Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy By Terry L. Givens (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. viii + 205 pp. $35.00.) In 1991 scholar Paul Fussell, exploring the "dumbing of America" and such ills as "BAD Advertising," "BAD Airlines," and "BAD Television," made a ludicrous inference. "When did the dumbing of America begin?" he wrote. "Some rude skeptics might want to locate the origins of'creeping nincompoopism'...in the 1830s, when Joseph Smith took from dictation a number of miserably written narratives and injunctions conveyed to him by the angel Moroni and then persuaded a number of hicks to begin a new religion" (41). Oh, well. Fussell fits right into the historical trend. Although there have been many unconventional American religious groups, author Givens claims that none has been so persecuted and derided as have Mormons. In this fascinating study, he examines how Mormons have been constructed as the great and abominable "Other." Interestingly, although the religion was once scorned for its weirdness, "it is now because Mormons occupy what used to be the center that they fall into contempt" (164). Just when the church managed to position itself in the mainstream, the "mainstream" shifted; in a postmodern era that values the margins and the unconventional, conservative Mormons seem to remain "Other." The Antipolygamy Controversy in U.S. Women's Movements, 1880-1925: A Debate on the American Home By Joan Smyth Iversen (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1997. xv + 321 pp.) Second in a series on American feminism, this volume traces the development of the antipolygamy movement. Explored are such topics as the maneuvering between Mormon and national suffragists, national and Utahn 186 BOOK NOTICES antipolygamists, the male backlash against the home purity movement, and the effects of Teddy Roosevelt's polemics against "race suicide." Roosevelt's approval of male virility and his abhorrence of birth control were actually factors in the decline of the antipolygamy movement. Indeed, he expressed admiration for polygamist fecundity. When a Mormon church official testified before the Senate that he had fathered forty-five children, Roosevelt sent him a gold button inscribed with "Bully!" Madelyn Cannon Stewart Silver: Poet, Teacher, Homemaker By LeonardJ. Arrington (Salt Lake City: Barnard and Cherry B. Silver, 1998. xvi + 331 pp.) Madelyn Silver "was not a woman who could be easily categorized. A mother and homemaker, she was filled with creativity and longed to have more time to write poems and stories. She died in 1961, before the women's movement really got underway, but she spoke out for equal rights and an end to discrimination. She was active in the LDS church and at the same time vigorously promoted the goals of Planned Parenthood. A full participant in female conventions of her time, she found some of her greatest fulfillment in the freedom and adventure of the outdoors. In writing Silver's life, Arrington has perhaps illuminated the experience of thousands of women whose lives, though placid on the surface, are filled with tensions between social expectations and the expression of individuality. Sedentism and Mobility in a Social Landscape: Mesa Verde and Beyond By Mark DVarien (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1999. xvi + 277 pp. $40.00.) Varien's research re-examines and discards the either/or approach to theories of mobility in Southwest archaeology-those approaches that contrast the frequent movement of hunter-gatherers with the sedentism of agricultural groups. Sedentism and mobility, he claims, were strategies used simultaneously by Southwest cultures. Using a variety of research methods, including the measurement of potsherd accumulations and analysis of the reuse of roof timbers, he shows that agricultural-based households and communities moved more frequently than was previously thought. Some of these moves were short in distance (in which case families could reuse roof timbers), and some were more extensive. Not only did environmental and resource issues affect these moves, but they were often socially negotiated as "well. 187 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY For Wood River or Bust: Idaho's Silver Boom of the 1880s By Clark C. Spence (Moscow and Boise: University of Idaho Press and Idaho State Historical Society, 1999. 260 pp. $29.95.) For one high-energy decade, Idaho's Wood River region pulled in fortune-seekers -who turned the place into a moderately booming mining district- one with strong ties to Salt Lake City's financiers. This volume admirably tells the story of boom-to-bust as it played out on the Wood River. All of the usual players and themes are here but "with their own individuality. One account is of the 119-day strike, the longest up to that time, by the Broadford Miners' Union during the silver slump of the mid-1880s. Although the strike led to a cry of "$4.00 a day or blood," the miners ultimately got neither. Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1864-1868, vol. 9 Edited and compiled by Kenneth L. Holmes (Reprint ed.; Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. xi + 258 pp. Paper, $13.00.) From the present standpoint, the overland migration seems to have the qualities of the archetypal hero's journey: the venture into unknown space in search of a better life, the almost-overwhelming tribulations, the gaining of new perspective. The diaries in this lightly annotated volume are records of the day-today experience of this "archetype." In the introduction Sherry L. Smith writes that each diary suggests "that the trail experience was not a joyous adventure but one of drudgery characterized by mile after mile of dust, dangerous river crossings, and death by disease or accident. It was an experience to be endured and, hopefully, survived. It was.. .the bridge from one life to another." America's National Historic Trails By Kathleen Ann Cordes (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. xii + 370 pp. Paper, $19.95.) The country's twelve National Historic Trails include a variety of paths, such as explorations, voluntary and involuntary (Indian) migrations, gold-seeking (Iditarod), and civil rights activism (Selma to Montgomery).This volume outlines the history, present state, and important sites of each, and it provides photos and maps. Although these introductions are competent and interesting, the book is not a comprehensive guidebook. Those -who plan to explore the trails will -want to obtain more detailed information. 188 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.) Expanded and updated since its original publication in 1981, this book 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 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 create insight into the evolution of this unique state. In particular, the rise of gaming, -with all of its undercurrents and effects, is shown 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. The Mountains We Have Crossed: Diaries and Letters of the Oregon Mission, 1838 Edited by Clifford Merrill Drury (Reprint ed.; Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. 336 pp. Paper, $15.00.) In 1938 Asa and Sarah Smith set out with idealistic zeal to cross the continent. Along with three other newly wed couples and a single man, they had committed their all to preaching among the Indians of the Northwest as reinforcements for the mission that Marcus Whitman and Henry Spalding had established there. The journey and subsequent mission efforts were marred by Asa's impatient and critical nature and Sarah's fragile health. For her, the 1,900-mile side-saddle journey was not as exhilarating as it had been for Narcissa Whitman, to say the least, and in Oregon the Nez Perce called Sarah the "weeping one." Yet she and UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY her husband remained zealous in their desire to convert and "civilize" the Indians. Sarah's diaries and Asa's letters and other mission-related documents are ably presented and edited in this volume. HISTORICAL NOTES Brigham Young's Death: A Proposal for a Different Diagnosis Brigham Young is the American Moses and is so characterized by historian Leonard Arrington in his exhaustively researched book Brigham Young: American Moses, published in 1985. Brigham Young had earned that appellation by leading the first contingent of Mormon emigrants across the central plains from Missouri to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake in 1847. Thirty years later, in 1877, Brigham Young, age seventy-six, was dead after suffering an acute intestinal illness for six days. Newspaper accounts of the time state the cause of the leader's death as "cholera morbus." What is "cholera morbus"? At the time of Young's death it was a nonspecific term used to denote a variety of acute abdominal catastrophes characterized by diarrhea, cramps, and vomiting. The term is not used in present medical terminology and has no relationship to the cholera epidemics in some parts of the "world. What, then, is the diagnosis in present medical terminology? An excerpt from Dr. Arrington's book states, "A medical historian who has carefully considered the notes kept by his doctors suggests that what they called 'cholera morbus' was, in reality, the as-yet-unidentified condition of appendicitis. Brigham expired from the infection produced by a ruptured appendix." The clinical and pathological condition we now know as appendicitis was first described and so named in 1886 by Dr. Reginald Fitz. It has been generally accepted that Young died of a ruptured appendix. An article by Dr. Lester E. Bush, Jr., entitled "Brigham Young in Life and Death: An Overview" and published in the Journal of Mormon History also suggests that a ruptured appendix was the cause ofYoung's death. I propose a different cause of death. Other excerpts from Dr. Arrington's book tend to support my thesis. Those excerpts, plus some medical probabilities and a little medical conjecturing, lead me to a different diagnosis, one that I think is more likely in this particular instance. My proposal is not unique, however. Others have proposed the same diagnosis. In 1876 Brigham Young was in his seventy-sixth year. He had been very active in his last year of life attending to the improvement of the administration of the 190 |
