NOTICES
Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2019. xi + 352 pp. Paper, $19.95
By James H. Knipmeyer
The writer and photographer Stephen Trimble has contributed a fine addition to the series of national park readers published by the University of Utah Press. Selections are drawn from a wide cast of characters, from explorers like Solomon Nunes Carvalho, scientists like Clarence Dutton, writers like Ann Zwinger, and many others. Trimble, with his long history working and living in and writing about Capitol Reef, leaves autobiographical imprints throughout— his relationships, recollections, writings, photographs. Although most of the selections have been previously published, this reader curates and packages them in a fresh, accessible way. People familiar with Capitol Reef will find the book to be required reading. So, too, will people passing through.
Outdoorsy Utah readers may have seen a Denis Julien rock inscription along the banks of the Green and Colorado rivers. A French fur trader with a Native American wife, Julien ventured west to the Colorado Plateau in the late 1820s. While records from that period are slim, James Knipmeyer fills in the gaps of Julien’s story with a history of the contemporaneous fur trade in an attempt to better understand Julien himself. Tracing Julien’s life, from his mysterious early life to his apparent death in 1844, Knipmeyer presents a portrait of early western exploration and a glimpse of the different cultures that encountered each other in what would become Utah. While many facts about Julien remain unknown, the book does paint a vivid picture of the world he occupied.
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Chula Vista, CA: Aventine Press, 2018. 123 pp. Paper, $11.50
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Edited by Stephen Trimble
The Life and Times of Denis Julien, Fur Trader
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The Capitol Reef Reader
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Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West By Sara Dant Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2016. xiii + 221 pp. Paper, $29.95
Since its inception, the field of environmental history has had a close association with the American West. Sara Dant, a professor of history at Weber State University, draws on a literature now spanning decades to show how the human–nature interaction has unfolded in the West, from prehistory to the present. A survey rather than a deep dive, Losing Eden seeks not to cast blame for environmental problems but to show the environmental toll and what it means for those living there and elsewhere. Although ambitious in scope, Dant recognizes the limitations of such a wide lens, so she also provides suggested readings at the end of each chapter. Losing Eden is an excellent starting point for students, scholars, and others interested in the field.
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