Land in the American West

Considers the continuing and controversial issues of who should own and have access to land, and what to do when private rights infringe on the public good.

Who owns the land? Who has access to it? What happens when private rights infringe upon the public good, or when one ethnic group is pitted against another, or when there is a conflict between economic and environmental values? This book features essays that deal with the complex, troublesome, and interrelated questions regarding land.

Throughout the history of the United States, the concepts of “land” and “the West” have fired the American imagination and fueled controversy. The essays in Land in the American West deal with complex, troublesome, and interrelated questions regarding land: Who owns it? Who has access to it? What happens when private rights infringe upon the public good, or when one ethnic group is pitted against another, or when there is a conflict between economic and environmental values? Many of these questions have deep historical roots. They all have special significance in the modern American West, where natural resources are still abundant and large areas of land are federally owned.