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While The Atomic West documents historical solutions to historical problems, some contributors to Reopening the American West propose new approaches. Char Miller's witty "Tapping the Rockies" points to the work and legacy of conservationist Gifford Pinchot as perhaps having some pertinence today, while Helen Ingram suggests that the answer is to "Place Humanists at the Headgates." Asserting that engineers and politicians lack the vision to solve equitably issues such as water re source allocation, she calls upon historians and creative writers "to take their rightful role as leaders of the discussion."
Somewhere between Ingram's Utopia and Mike Davis's Dystopia, most westerners are getting on with their lives—too busy, they would no doubt say, to be bothered with the products of academic symposia. May be a good dose of their own history is exactly what they need.
Charles Palmer is presently cowriting, with Preston Jones, a history of San Bernardino, California, since World War II.
Copyright © 1999 by the author or Christianity Today International/Books & Culture Magazine. Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.
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