Power and Place in the North American West

Perhaps the most important thing about this book of essays is the intellectual daring of the editors and the contributors in tackling the extremely important but extremely difficult linkage of power and place in the West. This is an admirable example of innovative, pioneering scholarship. -- Richard M. Brown, University of Oregon A fine collection of provocative essays. The apparently straightforward term 'power,' like 'place,' offers multiple angles of understanding and opens our appreciation of the splendid complexity of these topics. -- Elliott West, University of Arkansas

Western historians offer a dozen essays grouped by the themes of Indians and non-Indians, race in the urban West, environment and economy, and gender on the unique geography, actions, and expectations that have shaped today's US West. Originated from a Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest

Western historians continue to seek new ways of understanding the particular mixture of physical territory, human actions, outside influences, and unique expectations that has made the North American West what it is today. This collection of twelve essays tackles the subject of power and place from several angles—Indians and non-Indians, race and gender, environment and economy—to gain insight into major forces at work during two centuries of western history.

The essays, related to one another by their concern with how power is exercised in, over, and by western places, cover a wide range of times and topics, from 18th-century Spanish New Mexico to 19th-century British Columbia to 20th-century Sun Valley and Los Angeles. They encompass analyses of the concept and rhetoric of race, theoretical speculations on gender and powerlessness, and insights on the causes of current environmental crises.