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From San Francisco Eastward: Victorian Theater in the American West

By Carolyn Grattan Eichin

Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2020. 291 pp. Cloth, $60.00

In From San Francisco Eastward, Carolyn Grattan Eichin presents her years of research on theater in the American West. Eichin’s title aptly describes her thesis: that in the West, the business of Victorian-era theater radiated outward and eastward from San Francisco into smaller communities and rural hinterlands. As she puts it, “Victorian theater was ultimately a capitalist endeavor focused on cultural forms; thus economics ruled the theater, while culture shaped its importance” (1). Eichin also uses the perspectives of race, class, and gender to understand professional theater in the era. Maps and illustrations are a notable feature of this book, many of them depicting performers of the day and coming from the author’s own collection.

Empire’s Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad

By Manu Karuka

Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019. xv + 297 pp. Paper, $29.95

Manu Karuka’s Empires Tracks offers a bold challenge to the history of railroads in the American West. Using a theoretical framework that situates railroad expansion within the forces of capitalism, militarism, and the state, Karuka argues that colonialism dispossessed Indigenous peoples from their lands and exploited Chinese railway workers.

To illustrate the stark differences between railroad interests and their Indigenous counterparts, Karuka shapes the social dynamics of Lakota, Pawnee, and Cheyenne communities through “modes of relationship.” He contrasts Indigenous ideals of interdependence with capitalist values of resource extraction. Karuka extends this lens to Chinese rail workers. The strength of Empire’s Tracks lies in its careful application of theory to show the disruptions Indigenous and Chinese peoples experienced.

The Saints Abroad: Missionaries Who Answered Brigham Young’s 1852 Call to the Nations of the World

Edited by Reid L. Neilson and R. Mark Melville

Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, and Deseret Book, 2019. xxvii + 380. Cloth, $29.99

In 1852, Brigham Young planned a special missionary conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Saints Abroad is a collection of letters from eight missionaries who went to the church’s global missions following that conference. The letter-writers include well-known individuals, such as Dan Jones in Wales, to those less familiar, like Chauncey West in India. Biographical information on the actors involved and contextualizing information about the missions accompany the letters. This work will be of special interest to those looking for primary sources on the 1852 effort and the global LDS church.

Hill Air Force Base

George A. Larson

Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2021. 127 pp. Paper, $21.99

With Hill Air Force Base, Lieutenant Colonel George A. Larson has provided a photographic history of a major force in northern Utah. Larson briefly traces Hill Air Force Base’s (HAFB) origins in 1920 to its current position as employer of nearly 26,000 people, with an annual payroll of $1.43 billion. The book is then richly illustrated with images from the 75th Air Base Wing historian, the National Parks Service, the US Air Force, the Historic Wendover Airfield, the author’s own collection, and other repositories. Larson divides the book into sections on the Ogden Ordnance Depot, the Utah Test and Training Range, HAFB after World War II, the Ogden Air Logistics Center, the 388th and 419th Fighter Wings, and the Hill Aerospace Museum. Hill Air Force Base is sure to be enjoyed by aviation and military aficionados.