Jan 16, 2016 - collection explore one or more of these char.. acteristics. The first three essays examine mountains as barriers; John Allen reviews the history of.
Book Reviews
BRADLEY H. BALTENSPERGER Michigan Technological University
The Mountainous West: Explorations in Historical Geography. Edited by William Wyckoff and Lary M. Dilsaver. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. 420 pp. Illustrations, maps, charts, tables, notes, in.. dex. $25.00, paper.)
One of the ongoing debates in western history is how to define the West. Among the so..called characteristics of the West are such things as the high level of federal land ownership, the concentration of the popula.. tion in urban areas, the diverse ethnic and racial mix, and of course aridity. To this list of regional characteristics, William Wyckoff and Lary Dilsaver wish to add the claim that the West is first and foremost a mountainous region. Wyckoff and Dilsaver not only argue that the mountainous terrain of the West makes the region unique from the rest of the United States, but they also argue that these alpine areas are a distinctive subregion unto themselves. This subregion is defined by the five roles that mountains play in the West: barriers, islands of moisture, zones of concentrated resources, areas of government control, and restorative sanctuaries. Each of the 13 historical..geography essays in this
collection explore one or more of these char.. acteristics. The first three essays examine mountains as barriers; John Allen reviews the history of efforts to map the Rocky Mountains, while Duane Smith and Cathy Kindquist both contribute essays that trace the commercial development of the San Juan Mountains in Colorado. Thomas Vale's essay looks at mountains as sources of water for nearby arid lowlands. The next three essays, by Randall Rohe, Victor Konrad, and Michael Williams, discuss the mountainous West as an eco.. nomic base for the mining and timber indus .. tries, as well as for homesteaders. Richard Jackson explores the role of the federal gov.. ernment in controlling the mountains of the West, while Lary Dilsaver examines the ef.. forts by environmentalists to set aside parts of Kings Canyon and Sequoia National parks as wilderness. The final three essays combine all five characteristics of the mountainous West: John James looks at the efforts to pro.. teet Lake Tahoe, John Dietz and Albert Larson examine the San Luis Valley in Colo.. rado, and Jeanne Kay discusses the physical and cultural role that mountains played in Mormon life. Ultimately, however, for a book that claims mountains are central to understand.. ing the West, it seems odd to find those mountains relegated to the background in the essays themselves. Despite Wyckoff and Dilsaver's interesting model, most of these essays are simply the histories of mountain.. ous regions, histories that fail to demonstrate the importance of mountains in understand.. ing the West. By comparison, Jeanne Kay's essay on Mormons and mountains is the most successful one in the book because she makes the mountains central to her argu.. ment. Wyckoff and Dilsaver clearly have made a useful contribution to the debate over defining the West. Hopefully, someone will develop their model more fully. STEPHEN C. STURGEON University of Colorado at Boulder
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included in the glossary. In some instances, the author has failed to provide up..to ..date citations to accessible and important works. Joe Wood's pathbreaking work on the early dispersal of New England farmsteads is ac.. knowledged, but Price cites only Wood's 1978 dissertation, rather than his more re.. cent articles in the] oumal of Historical Geog.. raphy. These minor lapses aside, Edward Price has provided scholars with a valuable survey of how colonies divided and distributed land and promoted settlement.
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