New Books In Geography

When did the West lose its way? In 1889, when the US government carved five states out of the spawling Dakota Territory, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and North and South Dakota, all created state constitutions that enshrined certain progressive values into their structre of government. These included the right for women to vote, the power to curtail monopolies, and the ban on child labor. They also maintained a community ethos, as represented by the state ownership of running water and state-owned banks. Yet, in the 2024 presidential electinon, all five states gave their electoral votes to the hyper-individualistic conservatism of Donald Trump's Republcian Party. In The Spirit of 1889: Restoring the Lost Promise of the High Plains and Northern Rockies (UP of Kansas, 2024), longtime western journalist and educator Samuel Western traces the roots of this shift, and charts a pathway into a new, community oriented, future. Rather than purely extractive industries, Western argues for a socially and ecologically sustai