| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

C. L. Higham and Robert Thacker, editors. One West, Two Myths: A Comparative Reader. Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press. 2004. Pp. xxi, 183. $44.95.
This book looks at the vast topic of the interrelationship between geography and the nation state as it applies to western North America. As editors C. L. Higham and Robert Thacker note in their introduction, the North American West had, on the one side, the forces of geography and climate, while, on the other side, the powerful forces of the "consolidating modern state" brought history, policy, and law to bear on the land and the people who lived there. In the process the region was divided: by an east-west border, by historical memory, and by national mythology.	1
This book derives from a conference, and such volumes always face a dilemma. The desire to be inclusive and eclectic at a conference leads to an interesting variety of speakers and attracts an audience. The same eclecticism in the published work can, too often, yield a disconnected series of articles, papered over by desperate editors in an equally desperate-sounding introduction. In this instance, however, the work displays a pleasant and intellectually satisfying level of continuity. Of course, no single work could possibly cover the broad questions raised by a theme involving the interplay of region, nation, and geography. The reality is that the vast majority of essays in this work focus on one important component of the imposition of the two national states upon the land. The result, whether by luck or by design, is a well-connected set of articles. Thus, much of the book can be read as a single, coherent analysis, a rarity in postconference publications.	. . .

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