Book Reviews

Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz.

By SANDRA C TAYLOR (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993 xx + 343 pp $35.00.)

I cannot listen to the sound of trains clattering on tracks without remembering Even a half-century later the metallic clicking pierces my memory. I was a girl then. Imagine, only fourteen And I, along with almost 110,000 others, was considered a potential danger to this, my country. Our only crime was that of ancestry. We were of Japanese descent Never mind that the majority of us, almost 70,000, were American citizens. We were American by birth and heart.

But in the hysteria following the attack on Pearl Harbor we were exiled in one of the most disgraceful acts in our nation's history We were removed from our coastal homes and shipped from assembly centers to concentration camps We traveled in antiquated trains, guarded by soldiers with bayonets, ordered to keep the shades lowered But nothing could conceal our sin and shame, the color of our skin. One of the ten camps was located in Topaz, Utah During its existence near Delta it was the fifth largest city in this state. Topaz was dubbed "thejewel of the desert."

In her book, Sandra Taylor states, "the internment of the West Coast Japanese Americans was racist, illegal, unwise and highly destructive to the people involved." However, the author's conviction does not preclude her scholarly neutrality in presenting perspectives of both the incarcerated and their keepers. Her study involves fifty internees who were primarily from the San Francisco area, "the jewel by the bay." In addition to the oral interviews, records of the War Relocation Authority, which administered the camps for the Department of the Interior, are the author's main resource Much of this information was compiled by the camp's community analyst who relayed his observations to Washington, D. C.

According to Taylor, the concentration camp experience remains the focal point in the lives of many internees She is correct in the sense that whenever Japanese Americans meet, a familiar question is, "Which camp did you go to?" We know we do not speak of recreational or summer camps. It will always be the separation point in our lives, events identified as being before or after camp Those were the years of loss and sorrow. I, a citizen, was reduced to a number for identification, stripped of freedom.

Time, a half-century, has eased the pain of physical dislocation and relocation I think, I hope our faith has been restored in our nation's Constitution. For it was not the Constitution that failed us, but the men and women who were entrusted with its interpretation. The stigma of being accused of potential disloyalty to this, our country, solely on the basis of race has been legally, officially laid to rest. In 1988, forty-six years later, Congress finally apologized for the incarceration.

Beginning on October 9, 1990, payments for $20,000 began to come to surviving internees. Payment is yet incomplete It should be noted that when redress was approved almost half of the exiled were dead.

Taylor concludes her book on this note: "For the former residents who have returned (to Topaz)—and many have—the site is full of memories One can only hope that seeing it again imparts a sense of closure, a personal ending to a national episode of shame."

I share that hope with Taylor. But observing the new world economic competition and the Japan-bashing that has accompanied it here in this country, memory responds to the sound of trains clattering through the night And the lonely sound of a warning whistle echoes in the far away, long ago darkness Let Sandra C Taylor's book be a lucid reminder of what happened in this, our America, fifty years ago, and hope that that tragic mistake will never be repeated.

SACHI W SEKO Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City Underfoot: Self-guided Tours of Historic Neighborhoods.

By MARK ANGUS (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993 . x+ 187pp. Paper, $10.95.)

Too often the fascinating stories of a city's past, as told by its historic buildings, are buried in the filing cabinets of state or local historic preservation offices. This book brings those stories to light and, in the process, generates greater public awareness and appreciation for Salt Lake City's historic buildings Yet it falls short of achieving all that a historic site tour book should accomplish.

Salt Lake City Underfoot is the first attempt at a citywide tour of historic sites in Salt Lake City. Guidebooks of individual neighborhoods, such as the Avenues, South Temple, and Downtown, have been published previously and proven popular with local audiences. This book features over three hundred sites encompassed in five walking tours and six bicycle tours Maps accompany each of the tours, and high quality photographs of some of the more prominent sites accent the text. A three-page introduction summarizes the history of the city and provides an adequate background for better understanding the sites A bibliography and short glossary of architectural terms round out the book.

Angus has included most of the major buildings in the walking tour neighborhoods, along with a number of less prominent structures. He has managed to condense the important historical facts and architectural descriptions into a short paragraph or two for each building—about the right length for most guide users He points out architectural details casual observers might otherwise overlook, including urban design features such as sandstone sidewalks, carriage steps, and historic light posts in some of the neighborhoods. Though his historical accounts are generally straightforward and fair, he has a tendency toward sensationalism at times, highlighting scenes of murders, prostitution, and other illicit and titillating activities more than they perhaps deserve.

Despite its wealth of facts, the book has a number of shortcomings, some just irritating and others more serious. The format of prescribed tours is more rigid than most visitors need or want and involves detailed directions that clog the text at times and are occasionally inaccurate. This format creates some awkward routes in order to ensure that tours begin and end at convenient locations Most readers will be disappointed with the few photographs that accompany the text This is especially true for the large number of armchair tourists who will not venture into the neighborhoods to see the buildings in person The book's lack of an index will prove frustrating for those searching for a building by its historic name rather than its location. Even the maps, though excellent overall for the walking tour segments, have irritating glitches. For example, the prominent Union Pacific Depot and Devereaux Mansion are not numbered on the map and therefore appear to have been excluded from the book Descriptions of these buildings are included in the book, however; they are just buried, unlabelled, in the text of a side trip description.

Officially designated historic districts are virtually unmentioned, and only the more obvious National Register sites are consistently credited with the distinction. While this may seem like a small issue, it perpetuates the misconception that smaller, less distinguished vernacular buildings are not significant.

The bicycle tours are disappointing in their historical coverage They rush headlong past too many key buildings and historical facts to give one an accurate perspective of the outlying areas The Sugar House tour, for example, fails to note that the area was once the incorporated town of Forest Dale and that its bungalow neighborhoods were formerly prime farmland. It also ignores a number of prominent sites, including the state's oldest golf course clubhouse (Forest Dale) and the striking Kearns/St. Ann's Orphanage (St. Ann's School), the only facility of its kind still standing in Utah.

Even with its shortcomings this book is a commendable effort at promoting the city's historic sites. It will appeal to out-of-town tourists and satisfy local historic building enthusiasts as well.

ROGER ROPER Utah State Historical Society

Federal Land, Western Anger: The Sagebrush Rebellion and Environmental Politics.

By R MCGREGGOR CAWLEY (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993 xii + 195 pp $29.95.)

As rhetoric about a "War on the West" echoes throughout the West in response to the Clinton administration's public land policy reform agenda, R McGreggor Cawley's Federal Land, Western Anger is a timely study of the interest conflicts inherent in public land policy It analyzes the confrontation between public land commodity users and the federal government that came to be called the Sagebrush Rebellion.

Cawley seeks to provide readers with an understanding of why the Sagebrush Rebellion arose and what it hoped to accomplish by examining how the people and groups behind the revolt saw the issues at controversy. This leads Cawley to conclude the Sagebrush Rebellion was motivated by more than economic self-interest but was mostly a debate over the meaning of "conservation."

The Sagebrush rebels adhered to the old definition of conservation which stressed use and development of resources, whereas the new definition that had arisen with the environmental movement underscored protection and preservation. Moreover, the new definition of conservation, in the eyes of the insurgents, had come to dominate public land policy and had resulted in an environmental bias in federal resource decision-making and greater power to federal land managers.

To Sagebrush rebels the only way to halt the changing situation was to bring about an open confrontation with the federal government "The shot heard around the world" for the Sagebrush Rebellion was the Nevada legislature's assertion that the public lands within its borders belonged to the state This challenge to the federal government's sovereignty set off a rancorous debate over federal land management policy and practices that led to calls from other states for the cession of federal lands.

The election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency and Republican wins in Congress should have brought victory to the Sagebrush rebels, but instead it resulted in schism The new administration and congressional allies, who had openly supported the insurgents, chose not to adopt the more radical changes wanted by libertarian economists and others. Instead they adopted "less dramatic policy shifts" through administrative policy processes, causing many Sagebrush rebels to feel abandoned.

Was the Sagebrush Rebellion successful? In addressing this question Cawley feels that in the less tangible context of political influence, the movement did successfully slow the environmental movement's momentum. Yet at the same time the Sagebrush Rebellion actually served to strengthen the environmental movement, even helping to spawn a few of the more rabid environmental groups that exist today.

Although Federal Land, Western Anger is a timely study with useful insights into the motives of those behind the Sagebrush Rebellion, it unfortunately has several failings. The work would have profited by a better discussion and understanding of past public land controversies Cawley also fails to understand key elements of the debate over public land policy. For example, the disagreement between traditional users and environmentalists was less a debate about the underlying meaning of conservation than a question: To whom do the public lands belong? The author also at times makes assertions that his research cannot support He unconvincingly attempts to cast Secretary of the Interior James Watt as a political moderate. He also speaks of the Sagebrush Rebellion as a "pivotal event" in the shaping of federal land policy, similar to the conservation and environmental movements, but fails to show what significant legislative and legal changes the movement produced to justify such a contention Still, even with its shortcomings, this book will interest students of federal land policy politics.

JAMES MUHN Bureau of Land Management Denver, Colorado

The People: Indians of the American Southwest.

By STEPHEN TRIMBLE (Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1993. xvi + 496 pp. Cloth, $50.00; paper, $29.95.)

Increasingly books are dealing with smaller topics, shorter eras, and more discrete subjects. In this work, Stephen Trimble reverses all of these trends His subject is the Indian tribes of the American Southwest, more than twenty-five tribal groups This task is daunting, and the author tries to encapsulate the history and comments on the present condition of each of the tribes To achieve such aims with any sense of literary quality is difficult. But Trimble succeeds, and very well at that!

This work combines wide and deep use of libraries with personal interviews with tribal members The author conducted the interviews on the reservations and in the Indian communities. These interviews, liberally quoted in the text, add significantly to the Indian voice that is an important part of the book.

Trimble's work is doubly blessed by his writing and his photography He includes historic photographs as well as a formidable list of his own Many of his photographs are of excellent quality, and some are destined to become classics in the history of the Indians of our time He has carefully chosen his subjects, both persons and objects, and has included shots of spectacular scenery The photos are intelligently dispersed throughout the work rather than placed in groups as are so many photos in recent publications The reading matter and the related photos are together—what a refreshing change!

There is an additional dimension that makes this book very important School teachers who come to the various reservations in the Southwest are usually unprepared to adjust to a new culture. Trimble gives a picture of the Indians of the area that is timely and accurate This volume should be required reading for all teachers of the region, Indian and non-Indian. The source material presented here will be of lasting value for educators at all levels.

For nearly a generation professional historians have written the large part of their product on narrower and still narrower topics. Historians have the tendency to write works that will please their fellow professionals. This pattern has left the broader interpretations to those who are not associated with universities In this book we find such a broader interpretation. Stephen Trimble is to be congratulated for a contribution that will be of great benefit to Indian and nonIndian alike. It will benefit readers in a wide range of fields.

FLOYD A. O'NEIL University of Utah

Father DeSmet and the Indians of the Rocky Mountain West.

By JACQUELINE PETERSON with LAURA PEERS (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press in association with the DeSmet Project, Washington State University, 1992 192 pp Paper, $24.95.)

This beautiful volume of fairly large size (10" x 11") is filled with not only beautiful full-page color panoramas of the mountain country of western Montana, northern Idaho, and western Washington but also myriad photos of the persons and artifacts of two very different cultures, the Native Americans who inhabited the land and the Christian heritage introduced among them Sacred Encounters is a printed record of these treasured items assembled by the DeSmet Project of Washington State University.

In the fall of 1839 Father PierreJean DeSmet, aJesuit priest originally from Belgium who was in charge of the St Joseph Catholic Mission on the frontier near present-day Council Bluffs, was visited by two Iroquois Indians then living among the Salish (Flathead) Indians far to the west They, like three previous delegations, had come to appeal to the Black Robes (as the Jesuits were called by the Iroquois) to come among the Salish and the Nez Perce tribes.

Obtaining the permission of his superiors, Father DeSmet, guided by the two Indians, undertook the long journey up the Missouri River the following spring and summer to the Rocky Mountain country of present-day Idaho and western Montana. During the summer rendezvous that year he met with Salish leaders, became convinced of their sincerity, and promised to return the following summer to live and work among them.

Thus began the future Jesuit presence in the country of the Salish, the Nez Perce, the Coleville, the Coeur d'Alene, the Pend Oreille, the Blackfeet, and the Kootnai tribes, ever dogged by the conflict of world views And so too began the future career of DeSmet, the man who in succeeding years would be recognized as one who understood the plight of Native Americans as they experienced the growing invasion of settlers on the lands of the American West.

Sacred Encounters is indeed about Father DeSmet and his special talent at finding some common ground of understanding between the cultural heritage of the Native Americans and that of his historical Christianity. But it is more, reflecting through the art of photography—much in superb color—the persons, places, and artifacts that capture a feeling for that encounter. The volume is in fact a stunning catalogue of the multitude of materials assembled for an exhibition—items gathered from some thirty archival collections in the United States, Canada, and Belgium as well as special collections among the Coeur d'Alene, the Confederated Salish, and the Kootnai tribes.

Only in the final pages of this book does one learn something of the full dimension of the exhibition this book catalogues, namely that it "examines the historical encounter and dialogue between peoples . . . [with] . . . two different world views" (p 182) The exhibition received an enthusiastic reception from the public when it opened in the spring of 1993 at its initial venue, the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana.

JEROME STOFFEL Salt Lake City

Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case.

By RICHARD E. TURLEY, JR (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992. viii + 519 pp. $27.95.)

This book comes long after the tragic bombings that shook Utah's Mormon history community in 1985 It follows Mark Hofmann's guilty plea to second degree murder in the deaths of Steve Christensen and Kathy Sheets. And it comes after a host of other books, both scholarly and sensational, on this notorious subject. What can we gain from yet another work? Why would a Mormon church insider want to reopen what are, clearly, painful wounds to the church? What new information is now to be found?

Happily, this book provides valuable and fascinating insights and new information on the Hofmann case Written, as the author states, from the victim's point of view, it seeks to set the record straight It tries to "correct some misconceptions about the case"—misconceptions that, according to Turley, result when "in the absence of accurate data, speculation uncritically hardens into 'fact'. ..."

Because Victims relies heavily on the insights of those LDS church employees and General Authorities who were intimately associated with the case, it nicely complements Salamander (1988) Salamanders authors, Allen Roberts and Linda Sillitoe, had access to the inside workings of another group of Hofmann's victims: the Mormon history underground. This group consists of that informal collection of historians and buffs who pursue Mormon historical esoterica Both books make it clear that Hofmann cynically ingratiated himself into each camp to achieve his selfish and ultimately murderous purposes.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Turley's work is the use of contemporary writings of many church leaders and employees of the church's Historical Department Entries from their journals, diaries, and memos reveal much of the inside workings of church headquarters They also tell of the relationships between the church and Hofmann and later between the church and the investigators and prosecutors in the case.

The author is clearly an apologist for the Mormon church. As the attorney he is, Turley presents an excellent brief for his client. He succeeds in showing that the church is, indeed, a victim But the picture painted is not altogether flattering.

The church comes across as sometimes naively overeager, willing to trust a clever amateur, especially when faith-promoting documents are involved. Ironically, at other times the church seems secretive and suspicious, not only of the investigators and prosecutors but also of the professional staff in its own Historical Department.

The most interesting example of the long-term and perhaps ongoing lack of trust is the revelation that the church did have, for nearly eighty years, a William McLellin collection. The fictional McLellin collection figured large in the events leading up to the bombings. Hofmann used it as collateral to raise money to keep his confidence game alive No one, including those closest to the top of the church hierarchy, was aware that the real collection had been kept in the First Presidency's vault since 1908. Turley's book, on pages 248-50, tells for the first time about this collection and how it came to light during the investigation. While the church's secretiveness did not make Hofmann a criminal, it did create a climate of susjDicion and doubt that allowed him to take advantage of so many people for so long.

Victims makes a valuable contribution to the literature on Mormonism and Mormon historiography.

MAXJ. EVANS Utah State Historical Society

The Search for Harmony: Essays on Science and Mormonism.

Edited by GENE A. SESSIONS and CRAIG J OBERG (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993 xxii + 297 pp Paper $17.95.)

Although the leaders of the Mormon church have expressed confidence in the methods and results of scientific thought in official statements since the church's first years, the members of the church, in a movement initiated by Joseph Fielding Smith, have in recent decades tended to join with the Christian fundamentalist movement in rejecting science in general and ideas of organic evolution in particular, especially human evolution. This anthology of sixteen essays explores efforts to harmonize and reconcile scientific and religious truths within the Mormon church. Fifteen of the collected papers were previously published between 1960 and 1988, ten of them in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Nine of the essays are focused directly on scientific theories of evolution and the Mormon religion.

Several of these papers are thorough scholarly efforts. Duane Jeffrey's careful historic analysis of the church's statements on specific elements of evolutionary theory is excellent work and has often been cited Its accessibility is enhanced by its inclusion in this volume Together with accounts of evolution controversies among church figures in 1911 (Gary James Bergera), the 1920s and '30s (Richard Sherlock and Jeffrey E Keller), and the 1950s (Stephen H Heath) it forms the core of the collection. Surrounding these five scholarly studies are various personal statements of accommodations made by contemporary Mormon scientists and academicians between faith and intellect, scripture and science, Mormon doctrine and evolution. A few essays in the collection, however, seem unconnected to the book's theme. A catalog of ethical dilemmas posed by new capabilities in biotechnology discusses no science. Laudatory scientific biographies of Harvey Fletcher and Henry Eyring hardly mention their faith The story of James Talmage's desire for education in the eastern states recounts adjustments to the temporal demands of his church offices, not reconciliation of his science with his religious ideology.

The editors' introduction and their concluding bibliographical essay provide useful overviews of changing attitudes within the church Even more useful would have been an account of changes in scientific thought on evolution since 1859 Brigham Young and Parley Pratt did not discuss the same body of theory and evidence that Henry Eyring and Joseph Fielding Smith debated in 1955, and even more extensive growth and development of evolutionary biology have occurred in the last thirty-nine years. A brief exposition of these changes in science would have created a context for the variety of attitudes expressed by Mormon figures in different eras. Also, several of the collected essays refer to each other The editors would have served their readers better by indicating in the bibliographical essay and footnotes to all the papers that some entries were reprinted in the present collection so that readers would not be inconvenienced by searching the library for a paper that was already in hand.

As several of these papers point out, the official statements of the Mormon church have carefully avoided directly opposing the ideas of evolution and other scientific theories. Nevertheless, Mormons today encounter within their church a growing attitude of opposition to scientific ideas that allows no debate of narrow, literalist interpretations of scripture. This book offers Mormon men a demonstration that it was not always so and that "empirical and theological insights" can readily be combined Mormon women, not represented among the authors or the subjects of these collected papers, may have to look elsewhere.

MICHAEL P DONOVAN Southern Utah University