Book Notices

Ways to the West:

How Getting Out of Our Cars Is Reclaiming America’s Frontier

BY TIM SULLIVAN

Logan: Utah State University Press, 2015. xxv + 324 pp.Paper, $24.95

Beginning with an introduction to a black LeMond Poprad cyclocross bike, Tim Sullivan invites his readers to join him on an interactive journey across the West to observe how efforts to move toward more sustainable transportation have affected landscape, social interaction, and a personal understanding of environment for American westerners. As he moves through cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, Boise, and Salt Lake City, Sullivan abandons the convenience of traveling by automobile and focuses on his experiences relying on busses, bikes, railways, and his own two feet. He addresses the history and development of city planning, as well as the contemporary challenges that arise when traditional automobile transportation practices are tested with new ideas, giving way to pedestrian traffic, bike routes, and community transit. Sullivan talks to a wide array of people including locals, business owners, city planners, politicians, and transit CEOs, to name a few. Ways to the West provides an interesting look at the evolution of transportation and city planning across the American West, as well as an exciting experience in meeting the people who are directly involved and affected by its changes.

Mormonism and American Politics

EDITED BY RANDALL BALMERAND JANA RIESS

New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. xiii +244.Paper, $30.00

Mormonism and American Politics includes a compilation of essays from thirteen scholars in Mormon history. The essays cover a vast history of Mormon involvement in politics, starting with Joseph Smith’s political position as the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in nineteenth-century Illinois and ending with Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential bid. The writings in this book address the various political positions that leaders in Mormonism have taken on some of the twentieth century’s hottest topics, including social reform, race, and women, as well as the Mormon struggle to be taken seriously as patriots and contributors to the American political system. Altogether, the essays are tied together by their observation of an effort by Mormons to assert their positions in politics and achieve acceptance in America’s political system.