Overview

""Gaines Quammen's voice is bright, engaging, and smart. She listens. She is fair. But she is not seduced by cowboy mythology. Her vision calls for an ecological wisdom that can govern our communities, both human and wild, with reverence and respect."" --TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS What happens when members of an American religion--one built in the nineteenth century on personal prophecy and land proprietorship--assert possession over western federal lands, armed with guns and a certainty that God wants them to go to war? American Zion is the story of the ongoing feud between Mormon ranching family the Bundys, the federal government, and the American public. Historian Betsy Gaines Quammen examines the roots of the Bundys' cowboy confrontations, and how history has shaped an often-dangerous mindset which today feeds the militia movement and threatens public lands, wild species, and American heritage.

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9781948814140

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Reviews

An empathetic and clear-eyed account of the intersections of faith, conservation, and Native rights in the skirmishes over Western public lands. ANDREA AVANTAGGIO, Maria's Bookshop Well-researched and compelling...required reading for anyone seeking to understand the complicated contemporary American West. Gaines Quammen is a natural storyteller. ARIANA PALIOBAGIS, Country Bookshelf I find the author's sense of the tribal perspectives spot on and sensitive. I enjoyed American Zion immensely--Betsy is a great storyteller! --WALTER FLEMING, department head and professor of Native American Studies, Montana State University A creative, deeply thoughtful work on the origins, dynamics, and consequences of the Bundy legacy. --JEDEDIAH ROGERS, author of Roads in the Wilderness

Betsy Gaines Quammen has taken a deep, fascinating dive into a uniquely American brand of religious zealotry that poses a grave threat to our national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife sanctuaries, and other public lands. American Zion provides essential background for anyone concerned about the future of open space in the western United States. It also happens to be a delight to read. --JON KRAKAUER, author of Under the Banner of Heaven A magnificent portrait of complexity, interrogating the collision between frontier thinking and the rising consciousness toward the climate crisis on public lands. Brilliant and electrifying...Gaines Quammen's voice is bright, engaging, and smart. She listens. She is fair. But she is not seduced by cowboy mythology. Her vision calls for an ecological wisdom that can govern our communities, both human and wild, with reverence and respect. --TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS, author of Erosion What J. D. Vance did with Hillbilly Elegy to explain small-town Appalachian angst, Gaines Quammen has done with American Zion to help people understand the long and convoluted issues in the American West. With shades of Terry Tempest Williams, Barbara Kingsolver, and Ed Abbey, Gaines Quammen provides an in-depth and broad view of where America finds itself today. --THANE MAYNARD, co-author with Jane Goodall of Hope for Animals and Their World I find the author's sense of the tribal perspectives spot on and sensitive. I enjoyed American Zion immensely--Betsy is a great storyteller! --WALTER FLEMING, department head and professor of Native American Studies, Montana State University A creative, deeply thoughtful work on the origins, dynamics, and consequences of the Bundy legacy. --JEDEDIAH ROGERS, author of Roads in the Wilderness Historian Betsy Gaines Quammen recounts the history of Mormons in America to help us understand how a painful abyss has formed between some of that religion's believers and management of national public lands in southern Arizona, Oregon, and Utah. Such understanding is essential for those of us working to cross that divide. --MARY O'BRIEN, author of Making Better Environmental Decisions An empathetic and clear-eyed account of the intersections of faith, conservation, and Native rights in the skirmishes over Western public lands. --ANDREA AVANTAGGIO, Maria's Bookshop Well-researched and compelling...required reading for anyone seeking to understand the complicated contemporary American West. Gaines Quammen is a natural storyteller. --ARIANA PALIOBAGIS, Country Bookshelf

Author Information

BETSY GAINES QUAMMEN is a historian and conservationist. She received a doctorate in Environmental History from Montana State University in 2017, her dissertation focusing on Mormon settlement and public land conflicts. After college in Colorado, caretaking for a bed and breakfast in Mosier, Oregon, and serving breakfasts at a cafe in Kanab, Utah, Betsy has settled in Bozeman, Montana, where she now lives with her husband, writer David Quammen, three huge dogs, an overweight cat, and a pretty big python named Boots.

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