Andrew Gulliford

I won a copy of this book via the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme; thank you to the author and publisher for this opportunity. Bears Ears is a really interesting academic account of the history of the contested Bears Ears National Monument area in SW Utah. It highlights the history and archaeology of the area, both Native and Mormon, the extent of the contested claims to the area, the political history including the impact of uranium mining on the people and landscape, the conflicts over the looting of ancestral Native sites, and the more recent politics which saw five Native tribes come together to fight for National Monument status for Bears Ears. In 2016 President Obama designated Bears Ears a National Monument, but the following year President Trump reduced the Monument's area by 85%, reopening it to claims for mining rights. President Biden has subsequently restored the original Monument area, but it looks like this land will be contested as a political football for some time to come. In the meantime, this book does a fantastic job of highlighting the significant Native presence in this landscape going back thousands of years, while also acknowledging the history of Mormon settlers and the hardships they faced when moving south to the Bears Ears area. Overall a thorough account of a truly unique and fascinating area.
… (meer)

An epic undertaking but not always the most captivating. San Juan County. Utah is a district the size of my home nation, Wales, but with a tiny population. This is its history. And what a history it is, so much of it fraught with ethnic tensions and religious intolerance, theft and murder and genocide. Within living memory uranium miners and their communities were exposed to cancer-causing substances by their employers who considered their lives worthless outside of their abilities to extract resources. What a sad sorry story. There are some amazing bits of history in here, we see the best of human beings as well as the normal. There's a lot of it though, and the writing style can be a bit dry for the casual reader. A shortened version might make a great pop-history book.… (meer)

Andrew Gulliford’s book, Bears Ears: Landscape of Refuge and Resistance, from the University of Utah Press (2022) is a history of the region in and around San Juan County in southeastern Utah where a new national monument was designated in 2016 by President Obama. The boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument have changed with each successive presidential administration. The state government of Utah and its Republican supporters oppose extending federal control over land in the region. Native Americans generally, along with those supportive of conservation interests, support the monument.

Gulliford says his book is "not a guidebook" though it is, at least, a guide's book. Gulliford is a professor of history and also a seasoned tour guide, and he says his aim here is to blend personal memoir and environmental history. In truth, the book reads like the transcript of a tour guide in a park - conversational, expansive, and often lacking tight organization. The book deals extensively with the political and economic history of the region and focuses, especially later in the book, on the political issues related to federal land management. Gulliford has compiled ample local history material and seems determined to work it all in. In its weak spots the book is less a perspective on the history of the region that would place it in the context of wider economic or social trends, than a compendium of stories.

Let me start with what I most liked about the book. Gulliford provides valuable accounts of Native American suffering at the hands of white, primarily Mormon, settlers in the region. The long history of white residents in San Juan County working to deprive Native Americans of healthcare, land, education, the right to vote, a voice in government, and even a past - through the theft of artifacts and destruction of archaeological sites — continues to this day. The story is one of malice on the part of white and Mormon settlers and citizens and it is ongoing into the present through local political disputes.

A central focus of this theme in the book is the local indifference to federal laws against removing artifacts and human remains from Native American archaeological sites, e.g. graves and dwellings. In describing the growing impetus for legal protection of native sites, Gulliford accounts for the moral complexity of the actions of a few early excavators, Richard Wetherill in particular. Although he extracted great quantities of material from native sites, Wetherill also helped to raise awareness about the need to protect the sites. The account of how American archaeology matured through this period would make for a book in itself, as would an account of almost any aspect of the mistreatment Native Americans have experienced in Utah.

Not just appalling but also frightening is Gulliford's account of the environmental history of uranium mining and the lingering hazards for those exposed to radioactive dust and unrefined ore. Driven by a national need for uranium for defense and the energy industry, the U.S. federal government sacrificed the safety of miners and area residents through lack of regulation. It's a story, again, that might make for a book in itself and one that needs to be more widely known.

Bear's Ears is very nicely designed and produced by the University of Utah Press. The images, photographs in particular, displayed beautifully on my iPad, as good as in any book I've ever had.

I found it challenging, though, that the book kept trying to become a local history despite its broad themes. The constant attention to local stories dilutes its focus. Gulliford clearly loves to relate colorful stories about characters from the region’s past, early excavators in particular. Like a knowledgeable tour guide, he adopts the tone of someone intimate with the subject matter, which make his approach easy to embrace. But as can happen once a guide finally has an audience, the pace of exposition becomes quite leisurely.

We learn a lot that might have been omitted at no cost to the story, for instance that signs about an event near Bears Ears were stolen one summer, or that a rock was thrown at a rental car parked near a community meeting in Bluff where a contentious redistricting issue was being discussed. Perhaps these events are of keen interest to those immediately involved but for many readers outside the area it’s too parochial. I cannot help but think that a firmer editorial hand would have helped Gulliford steer a more direct course through this material.

While he wants to insert himself into the story for effect, his occasional use of the first person does not always add value. Gulliford has spent time in the landscape and had personal involvement with some of the political controversies, but he seldom gives himself an interesting role in the story. At times he is able to add detail that other records don’t provide, and there’s even a rare poetic first person reflection here and there, but too often his use of the first person doesn't add new information and instead merely validates that he's been to a particular place himself or seen a landscape feature. This isn’t experiential writing like we find in a more adventurous account of exploring the region. I’m thinking here of some writing by Craig Childs. And maybe that approach would be out of place in a historical study, but if it’s going to be used at all the first person perspective should be used at least to add greater detail or stronger opinion, if not the thrill of exploration. Where I thought it might have been deployed more extensively is in his descriptions of personal interactions with those who have played a role in the recent history of the region.

The title seems seems partly inapt. The book isn't just about the controversy of the national monument, though it's that in part. The book’s scope precedes that controversy in time and goes beyond the monument boundaries geographically in almost every chapter. It's as though Gulliford is trying to rally readers to adopt a new, politically loaded nomenclature. I think the book’s title might have better described the contents through reference to a more common or generic name for the region. I’ll admit the Bear’s Ears title grew on me over time, but I still think there’s a mismatch between the broader regional history he’s presented and the reference to one landscape feature, among many, in the area.

Finally, there are compositional oddities. Sentences of uncertain relationship frequently find themselves together in paragraphs. Gulliford quotes himself as an authority at a couple of points. President Clinton is introduced as "William." The storyteller's tack sometimes takes him off course. "I've been on the trail of this potato," he writes of a small tuber which he thinks may hold economic promise for the region — if only its toxicity can be subdued. Having spent many hours with Mr. Gulliford's book, I feel certain that should he ever catch up to it, that potato will be in for a long tale indeed.

I received a free ebook copy that was provided to me with the expectation of a review.… (meer)

This is a detailed history of Bears Ears National Monument and the surrounding area from its first prehistoric human inhabitants to today. Gulliford shows care in telling the story from all sides of the spectrum, giving due respect for both the indigenous inhabitants and the white settlers. He has an obvious bias towards conservation versus economic development but recognizes the needs of the county for a sustainable economy. I recommend this for anyone interested in the history of the West, including the very early civilizations; anyone interested in the political history of national monuments in general, as well as Bears Ears National Monument specifically; and anyone interested in examining a case study of the treatment of the indigenous peoples of the United States of America.

… (meer)