‘The Dispossessed’ follows a family’s harrowing search for safety, and asks what new policies say about the nation’s long-standing ideals.
Books
Posted inJune 1, 2020: Dissent at a Distance
American violence in the time of coronavirus
Author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz puts armed ‘reopen’ protests in their historical context.
Posted inArticles
Perpetual ‘manifest destiny’ on the shores of Santa Monica
A photographer examines westward expansion in tourist-saturated California.
Posted inMay 1, 2020: Lives on Lockdown
Amidst North Dakota’s fracking boom, people keep disappearing
Journalist Sierra Crane Murdoch documents Lissa Yellow Bird’s search for the missing.
Posted inArticles
How Mormon history helps explain today’s public-land fights
Betsy Gaines Quammen’s new book looks at the Bundy family and religion’s connection to the Western landscape.
Posted inApril 1, 2020: Land-Grab Universities
Fighting and winning with Louise Erdrich
The author opens up to Tommy Orange about family, her new novel and the third wave of Indigenous writing.
Posted inArticles
Gift and theft in the far North
‘Floating Coast,’ the first comprehensive history of the Bering Strait, offers a lesson in ecological economics.
Posted inApril 1, 2020: Land-Grab Universities
The endless search for Charles Bowden
A longtime Bowden reader remembers the complicated author through two new books.
Posted inMarch 1, 2020: Predator (Mis)perceptions
Billionaires are changing communities and the wild in Wyoming
Sociologist Justin Farrell explores the ways wealth shapes Teton County and the Western U.S.
Posted inMarch 1, 2020: Predator (Mis)perceptions
The poet on the garbage crew
In ‘Vantage,’ Taneum Bambrick digs for refuse along the Columbia River.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2020: How One Woman Took a Stand Against Tribal Disenrollment and Paid For It
A particular kind of immigrant journey
Tope Folarin’s coming-of-age story recounts the transformations of a Nigerian-American family in Utah.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2020: How One Woman Took a Stand Against Tribal Disenrollment and Paid For It
How Andy Warhol painted the West
The artist challenged ideas of masculinity but fell short of addressing racism.
Posted inDecember 9, 2019: Crossing to Safety
When post-9/11 racism haunts an American family
In Laila Lalami’s new book, a Moroccan-American family seeks a sense of belonging in California.
Posted inDecember 9, 2019: Party Favors
California’s Dream has turned into water nightmares
A new book looks at the Golden State’s history to understand its current water crisis.
Posted inNovember 25, 2019: Forever Mines
Grizzlies and the limits of coexistence
A rancher weighs the fate of wildlife and human encroachment in his new book.
Posted inNovember 25, 2019: Forever Mines
Photos explore the eerie and erotic of public lands
David Benjamin Sherry, Terry Tempest Williams and Bill McKibben celebrate what could be lost to Trump’s monument rollbacks.
Posted inNovember 11, 2019: Storied Landscapes
Joy Harjo’s singing trees and trickster saxophones
The U.S. poet laureate’s new collection of poems incorporates history and breaks time.
Posted inNovember 11, 2019: Storied Landscapes
Native nonfiction authors experiment with form in new anthology
In a collection of essays, writers defy expectations and examine place.
Posted inNovember 11, 2019: Storied Landscapes
The West is more than heroes and villains
In ‘This Land,’ Christopher Ketcham roams the West in search of both, and misses a lot in between.
Posted inNovember 11, 2019: Storied Landscapes
This season’s best reads
A roundup of the new and upcoming books that have caught our eye.