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Reviews
Western Places, American Myths: How We Think about the West
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Edited by Gary J. Hausladen
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University of Nevada Press, Reno, 2003. Illustrations, photographs, maps. 360 pages. $49.95 cloth.
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Reviewed by Martha Henderson
Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington
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| Winner of the Wilbur S. Shepperson Humanities Book Award for 2002, Western Places, American Myths is an engaging set of essays. The promise of defining western boundaries and identities is a powerful yeast in American historical geography. Like a mouth-watering campfire dessert, Western Places, American Myths could cap off a dusty day of separating the real from the mythical West. Unfortunately, when we get to the bottom of the pan, where a baker's real abilities are shown, we find that the bottom layer of this dessert is burned. |
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Every essay is well written and has a great deal to offer serious scholars of western studies. The book is divided into three sections. Historical chapters include Paul F. Starrs on the endurance of the ranch as the blueprint of the West, John B. Wright on land tenure, and Lary M. Dilsaver on the National Park System. Ethnic diversity is well documented in essays by Richard H. Jackson on the Mormon West, Terrence W. Haverluk on the Mexican American West, Akim D. Reinhardt on the indigenous West, and Karen M. Morin on a woman's interpretation of the nineteenth-century West. Considering the West as a region of (misplaced) hope, Pauliina Raento investigates historical and contemporary gambling, Peter Goin gives us surreal photographs of western places and people, and Dydia DeLyser illustrates the role of ghost towns as historic and contemporary islands of promise. Gary J. Hausladen adds to the examination of the fictional West with his chapter on western films. The concluding chapters return readers to idea that belief is more important than evidence in the West. It is a delight to bite into each chapter. The knowledge base and intellectual contribution to historical geography by each writer are filling. The chapters are excellent examples of the use of the science of geography to separate mythical from real, if one believes such a thing is possible. |
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Three chapters begin an interesting conversation about myth. Goin's beautifully published color photographs superimpose multiple images in one frame to capture visions of reality. The photographs are an excellent example of the roles of imagined and real that combine to create views of the West. Hausladen's chapter on the role of western films in describing and forging western regional and national identity includes perceptive research and an excellent analysis of the role of myth in place making. DeLyser begins a serious analysis of the significance of myth and geography by stating that "... the mythic West and what, for lack of a better term, we might call the 'real' (or historic) West have existed not separately but rather together, each one helping to create the other...." (p. 276-7). |
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Unfortunately, the other authors add myth as a postscript to their otherwise excellent research. There is little that explores myth, myth-making, or mythic thinking about a region or how they affect the national perception of a region. One of the best reviews of historical geography published in recent years appears in the first chapter, "Understanding Western Places: The Historical Geographer's View," by William Wyckoff. This excellent review article should be assigned to every historian who has a taste for things geographic. Had the volume been solely about historical geography, this chapter would be essential. What is needed in this volume, however, is an equally fine review of the power of myth in creating places, spaces, and regions. Also missing is a concluding chapter that probes the contributors' attempts to deconstruct their topics as mythical versions of western regional identity. The book is incomplete without an analysis of the role of myth in creating and sustaining western identity and regional boundaries in American spatial consciousness. Still, it is well worth reading for the good scholarship in each chapter. |
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