| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Wayne Aspinall and the Shaping of the American West. By Steven C. Schulte. (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2002. xiv, 322 pp. $29.95, ISBN 0-87081-665-9.)

The Politics of Western Water: The Congressional Career of Wayne Aspinall. By Stephen C. Sturgeon. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2002. xxii, 243 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-8165-2160-3.)

For almost a quarter of a century, from 1949 to 1973, the Democratic congressman Wayne Aspinall represented Colorado's Fourth District, which comprised the state's Western Slope. During those years he dominated the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, proving an ardent supporter of his constituents' water rights and the reclamation projects so vital to western growth. His position afforded him a tremendous influence on much of the environmental legislation of the era, and in the process he cemented a reputation as one of the environmentalists' most outstanding foes. In these two fine books the story of Wayne Aspinall unfolds, but not just as the sinner familiar to environmentalists nor the saint known to developers. Both tell a more complex story, complete with Aspinall's strengths as well as weaknesses, his failures as well as his triumphs. While it may be difficult to avoid bias in regard to such a controversial figure, both authors pull the task off admirably, ultimately agreeing on Aspinall's critical role in the history of the American West and the nation's environment.

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