Book Notices

Escalante: The Best Kind of Nothing

By Brooke Williams and Chris Noble.(Tuscon: University of Arizona Press,2006.x + 96 pp.Paper,$14.95.)

Escalante, a region in south central Utah, has the distinguishing characteristic of being the last place in the continental United States to be mapped. Brooke Williams and Chris Noble seek to pay tribute to this amazing land in this remarkably illustrated and entertainingly written gift book. Touching on topics from the indigenous life of the area to the efforts to secure and protect Escalante as the Grand Staircase National Monument, Williams’ prose and Noble’s photographs present a stunning portrait of this remarkable area.

After Lewis & Clark: The Forces of Change, 1806-1871

By Gary Allen Hood. (Norman:University of Oklahoma Press, 2006.96 pp.Paper,$24.95.)

This book narrates the period of the Lewis and Clark Expedition via the artwork that that period and event produced. Using a collection of paintings currently housed in the Gilcrease Museum of Tulsa, Oklahoma, this extensively and necessarily illustrated book also provides context, background, and explanations of each painting included. As artists often accompanied the explorers of the American west in the nineteenth century, their visual renderings are some of the most vivid and telling accounts of the frontier period. The book includes sixty-seven beautifully done illustrations and accompanying text.

By His Own Hand?: The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis

Edited by John D.W.Guice.(Norman:University of Oklahoma Press,2006.xxi + 208 pp.Cloth,$24.95).

In By His Own Hand, four writers analyze the death by gunshot of Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The format and chronology of the book follow that of a trial. The introduction by Clay Jenkinson provides a context for the event. In the next two chapters, the case for suicide is argued by James J. Holmberg, and the case for homicide by John D.W. Guice. In the final chapter, Jay H. Buckley, professor of history at Brigham Young University, conducts a postmortem trial by recounting the arguments for suicide and murder and by comparing the death of Meriwether Lewis with the deaths of three other leading figures of the expedition—William Clark, York ,his slave, and Sacagawea. Buckley concludes that until the body of Lewis is exhumed and sufficient DNA evidence is recovered to provide a definitive answer, historians will be unable to give a final answer as to whether Lewis’ death was a suicide or murder.

The Southwestern Journals of Zebulon Pike,1806–1807.

Edited by Stephen Harding Hart and Archer Butler Hulbert.(Albuquerque:University of New Mexico Press, 2006.vi + 280 pp.Cloth,$27.95.)

In 1806 U.S. Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike was assigned to explore the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red rivers. Along his way, he recorded in detail his observations about the land and the peoples he encountered. In 1810 Pike wrote his only book, An Account of Expeditions to the Sources of the Mississippi and through the Western Parts of Louisiana. This volume, published to commemorate the bicentennial of Pike’s journey through the American Southwest, includes the long-out-of-print journals, with notes, commentary, and essays by the editors on the nature and significance of the expedition.

Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life.

By Kingsley M.Bray.(Norman:University of Oklahoma Press,2006.xv + 484 pp.Paper,$34.95.)

Historian Kingsley M. Bray revisits the life and context of Crazy Horse, the Lakota chief so mythologized in Western American history. Through extensive and meticulous primary source research, the author has created a more comprehensive and nuanced picture of Crazy Horse. Additionally, the narrative offers insight into the complex relationship between the United States and the Lakota Indian tribe, and the tenuous position of Native American nations in the second half of the nineteenth century. Clearly written and well-noted, Bray’s biography offers a fresh vision of this Native American leader and the world in which he existed.

The Oatman Massacre: A Tale of Desert Captivity and Survival

By Brian McGinty. (Norman:University of Oklahoma Press,2006.xiv + 258 pp.Paper,$14.95.)

On February 18,1851 ,a band of southwestern Indians attacked the family of Roys Oatman near the confluence of the Gila and Colorado rivers in present-day Arizona. Oatman, a dissident Mormon, and his family of nine were enroute from Illinois to the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers. Only three members survived. McGinty uses firsthand accounts and recent work on nineteenth-century southwestern Indian peoples to demythologize the story of the Oatman Massacre and correct the anti-Indian bias so prominent in previous tellings.

The Office Journal of President Brigham Young,1858-1863,Book D.

Edited by Fred C.Collier.(Hanna,UT:Collier’s Publishing Company,2006.xvii + 470 pp.Cloth, $35.00.)

This edited volume is the last of ten known office journals of Brigham Young. The journal is written in the third person by various clerks. Entries describe the day-to-day activities of Brigham Young and his many visitors. Most daily entries are very brief. Divided into six chapters corresponding to years of the office journal, the volume also contains an extensive index and includes an appendix with the minutes of four meetings held during the forepart of 1860 concerning doctrinal disputes between Brigham Young and Orson Pratt.

Clarence Edward Dutton: An Appraisal.

By Wallace Stegner.(Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,2006.xvi + 40 pp.Cloth,$25.00.)

This reprint of Wallace Stegner’s 1936 publication is a facsimile of a once rare and out-of-print book. Stegner’s account of Clarence Edward Dutton is well-written, at times gripping, and consistently accessible. The assessment of Dutton’s life also touches on his geological expertise, his involvement with John Wesley Powell, and his unsurpassed ability to describe the natural scenery of the Colorado Plateau. As Stegner’s first published work of nonfiction, this assessment of Dutton led to Stegner’s epic history published in 1954, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West.