| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Land in the American West: Private Claims and the Common Good. Ed. by William G. Robbins and James C. Foster. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000. xii, 222 pp. Paper, $20.00, ISBN 0-295-98020-6.)

Although my credentials are in political science, early in my career it occurred to me that trying to understand the politics of land in the American West without attention to history was analogous to the fable of the blind men defining an elephant. If nothing else, the collection of essays assembled by William G. Robbins and James C. Foster confirm that the politics and the history of the West are joined at the hip. But I think these essays offer much more than that. Indeed, I wholeheartedly agree with Foster's assessment that this collection offers "promise of generating further creative discourse over land in the American West." 1

Robbins's lead essay does a skillful job of weaving together key themes—past with present, Euro-American views with indigenous views, the urban West with the rural West, the abstract West with the real West—while simultaneously offering a good cross section of the literature in the field. The three essays of part 1 lay out the central premises of the collection in a comprehensive but accessible manner. Daniel Bromley provides a forceful voice for the common good, and Bruce Yandle, an equally forceful voice for private claims. Sarah Pralle and Michael McCann then offer an intriguing framework that demonstrates how these postures fit in and play out within the context of a broader debate about deeply held values in American political history. . . .

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