Book Notices

Edited by Will Bagley (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2000. 400 pp Paper, $24.95.)

First published by Arthur H Clark as the first volume in the series Kingdom in the West, this invaluable chronicle of the initial Mormo n pioneer experience has been reissued in paperback at a more affordable price by Utah State University Press

Bullock, clerk and personal secretary to both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, was named "Clerk of the Camp of Israel." His was the official journal of the pioneer trek Oddly, William Clayton's trail guide and journal was published early and has been far more widely known, while Bullock's more detailed and interesting journals languished in the LDS Church Historical Department archives

This volume includes Bullock's account of the struggles of the "Poor Camp " across Iowa to Winter Quarters in 1846, the 1847 trek of the Brigham Young Pioneer Company to the valley of the Great Salt Lake, the early settlement efforts in the valley and the return trek of Brigham Young and a few others in the fall of that year Footnotes help the reader relate Bullock's journal entries to modern-day locations along the trail, though one could wish the editor had been more generous in this regard.

By Ronald G. Watt (Price: Price Municipal Corporation, 2001. 232 pp.

This richly illustrated and nicely designed boo k about one of Utah's most interesting and, at times, infamous communities covers more than a century of history from the initial settlement in 1879 up to the present The eight chronological chapters include a variety of topics and events. Amon g the most interesting are the different religious and ethnic groups found in Price; the role of sports, music, education, social clubs, and fraternal organizations in -weaving the social fabric of the community; the impact of major -world events including the Great Depression and the world wars; J. Bracken Lee's terms as mayor from 1936 to 1948; and the establishment, preservation, and growth of Carbon College, which became the College of Eastern Utah in 1965

(1877; facsimile reprint, Albuquerque: Fierra Blanca Publications, 2001 421 pp Paper, $17.95.)

Th e title page of this facsimile pointedly reveals the book's thrust: "Mormonism Unveiled; including the remarkable life and confessions of the late Mormo n bishop John D Lee; (written by himself) and complete life of Brigham Young embracing a history of Mormonism from its inception down to the present time, with an exposition of the secret history, sign, symbols, and crimes of the Mormo n church. Also a true history of the horrible butchery know n as the Mountain Meadows Massacre."

As interesting as the contents are, they are here not much more than a curio, for this edition lacks anything to set the "writings in a scholarly context—no current introduction, explanations, or annotations The publisher's only comments are in a back-cover blurb suggesting that what is actually a nineteenth-century artifact is straight history to be taken at face value.

(1906; reprint, Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2001 320 pp Paper, $17.00.)

Austin crafts observant descriptions of sheepherders, sheep, and landscape in a sympathetic portrayal But as appealing as her prose is, it becomes far more than a pastoral reminiscence in the light of Nelson's astute afterword (which readers would do well to peruse before reading the main text). According to Nelson, a social, philosophical, and political statement underlies The Flock. Austin, after all, writes about immigrant sheepherders, me n disdained by California's white majority. By showing their intelligence, skill, and cultural lifeways as well as by showing the intelligence of sheep—a metaphor, Nelson -writes, for the common people—Austin argues against class-based hierarchies She calls for respect for the "working person

She argues, too, that the Sierra should remain primarily the province of sheepherders, actual people in relationship with the land, not the domain of tourists The philosophy no doubt annoyed John Muir His My First Summer in the Sierra, published in 1911, may have been his answer to The Flock, and Nelson's fascinating analysis of the two viewpoints shows Muir's arrogance toward the immigrant sheepherders At least some recent scholarship appears to support Austin's views on the ecological value of sheepherding But it was Muir's views that won the sympathies of the American people, who remember his remark that sheep are nothing but "hoofed locusts"; today, tourists, not sheep, overrun Yosemite.

Edited by Larry Evers and Barre Toelken (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2001 264 pp Cloth, $39.95, paper, $19.95.)

Historically, the scholarly investigation of native cultures has involved an outside researcher extracting information from informants and producing from live traditions a scholarly product such as a transcription, monograph, or catalogue. In the case of oral traditions, "Gone are all of the performance parameters (voice, music, gesture), gone is the interactive audience and its participatory influence, gone is the network of indigenous-culture knowledge and belief that informs and quickens any verbal event by implication" (viii).

This book points the way to different strategies Here, Native American scholars collaborate with non-Natives in collecting and interpreting the oral traditions of their own tribes. The collaborations are as diverse as the tribes themselves.

By Rodman Wilson Paul. A revised, expanded edition by Elliott West (1963; revised ed., Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001 xx + 340 pp Paper, $21.95.)

The original classic by Paul offered a groundbreaking look at mining as a major force in the Euro-American development of the West An excellent supplement by Elliott West explores more deeply issues raised by a 21st-century consciousness, with chapters titled "Breaking and Building Communities," "The World's Convention" (about diversity), and "Worlds ofWork."

In discussing work, for instance, West writes about how the economic labors of native families required the kind of environment that minin g and settlers destroyed. Natives had to adjust to changed realities, living "as best they could in the cracks of the new society" (258). Meanwhile, the whites altered the landscape and social systems, "oblivious to the calamity they brought" (258—59). West explores the -working days of prospectors, placer miners, and lode miners in fascinating detail, as "well as the work of "women and children and those whose labors supported the mining economy. In the final analysis, West writes that the upheaval of mining served to magnify the values of the industrialized American culture of the time. These values impacted various groups. For instance, "Native Americans, marginalized and confined, stood as stark examples of the government's lengthening reach and its hardened insistence that people outside the mainstream be absorbed or pushed aside" (283).

By Howard R Lamar (1966; revised ed., Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000 xviii + 526 pp Paper, $24.95.)

Lamar has focused his study of the Ne w Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona territories on political aspects of the territorial system: political parties, federally appointed officials, elected territorial delegates, the territorial assembly, and probate judges These topics, which could become dull in some hands, come to life as Lamar asks incisive questions about how politics and people shaped the territories, exploring each territory's political development in engaging narratives His treatment of Utah Territory is balanced and insightful—and it creates a coherent story out of the complex territorial period, "with its maneuvering, controversies, and federal appointees who seemed to come and go almost as often as the days of the "week

The major addition to this revision is an excellent up-to-date bibliographic essay.

By Ray Allen Billington and Martin Ridge (Albuquerque: University of of New Mexico Press, 2001 xii + 444 pp Paper, $24.95.)

This book's first sentence refers to the "TV-Western-oriented American of today" and his or her mistaken but "happy visions of painted Indians, gaudily-dressed hurdy-gurdy girls, [and] straight-shooting cowboys" (1) But TV "westerns did not exist in 1949, "when the original edition of the book appeared, and they hardly exist today, except in reruns Certainly the TV-western-oriented American has all but vanished So in what context does this book belong?

A revision of Billington's benchmark Turnerian-based history of the frontier, the new edition states that it does not seek to reinterpret the original material. Ridge has greatly abridged the east-of-the-Mississippi chapters and given full attention to the sweeping history of expansion west of the Mississippi. The authors describe the land and its indigenous inhabitants then present chapters on the various frontiers of the West, from the Spanish-Mexican frontier to the farmers' frontier. Well-written and ambitious, the book does not avoid error. In one instance, for example, the book perpetuates the myth that the Mormo n pioneers faced a bleak Salt Lake Valley in 1947: "At their feet was a barren plain, cracked by the searing sun, dotted with a few struggling sagebrush plants" (182).

Edited by Walter Nugent and Martin Ridge (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. xvi + 335 pp. Cloth, $39.95; paper, $19.95.)

Primarily intended for college classroom use, this collection of essays (and a useful timeline) also serves as a valuable resource for those interested in the West generally. Arranged chronologically, the seventeen essays, authored by a group of well-respected historians, represent more than thirty years of scholarship, exploring familiar themes while simultaneously considering new topics. While all have been previously published in journals running the gamut from the American Quarterly to Labor History, having them gathered together in one volume is very helpful. Also useful are the editor's introductions for each selection. Taken as a "whole, the articles in this collection raise key questions facing scholars "while exploring the diversity of the American West, the ways in "which it connected -with larger patterns, and the hold it continues to have on our imagination.