Beyond the Mythic West by Stewart Udall, et al. (review)

Reviews 171 one hundred years.” Nevertheless, much remains to be done. As much as this work is a comprehensive examination of significant issues and scholarship in the historiography of the West in this century, it is also a call for and a guide to the scholarship that is still needed. Accordingly, Nash notes that “the essays in this volume are designed to be suggestive, not exhaustive, illustrative rather than definitive.” Gerald Nash and Richard Etulain have produced a com­ mendable and invaluable contribution to western American studies that, although it may not cover all the ground that needs to be covered, charts that ground and shows us how to cover it. TIM POLAND Radford University Beyond the Mythic West. By Stewart Udall, Pat Limerick, Charles Wilkinson, John Volkman, and William Kittredge. (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, 1991. 162 pages, $29.95.) Beyond the Mythic West combines the essays of five prominent western writers with the color photographs of thirteen western photographers to form a tribute to the American West. Each of the authors contributes his or her thoughts on both the history of and the future prospects for this beleaguered region. Stewart Udall, whose book The Quiet Crisis was one of the seminal works of the 1960s and who also served as Secretary of the Interior for Presi­ dents Kennedy and Johnson, provides some startling facts: “Two generations ago, the West was home to about 250,000 people. Now it has 50 million—an increase of 20,000 percent.” Of recentpredictionsthat there willbe fourmillion people living in Phoenix by the year 2050 Udall writes, “Is this prediction, fate, fantasy, lunacy—or all of the above?” His prescription for the future is simple—more of an emphasis on public education and on nurturing human resources, and the development of a sustainable land ethic that will preserve natural resources for posterity. William Kittredge, by contrast, emphasizes in his essay the literary landscape of the West, particularly the northern West where he was born and raised. Kittredge sees a major shift in literary represen­ tations of the West over his lifetime—from the old frontier mythos of Mark Twain’s Roughing It and Charlie Russell’s dynamic oil paintings to a new realism which he calls “antimythological.” He lists those writers he believes are “writing about the West in mature ways”: Gretel Erhlich, Louise Erdrich, Ed Abbey, Tom McGuane, and others. “Over the last fifty or sixty years artists in the American West have gone through a long and difficult battle, claiming and reclaiming their emotional homeland,” Kittredge concludes. In addition to these five fine essays, there are several dozen magnificent color photographs which give the reader time to pause and contemplate the awesome beauty of this vast territory. One of this reviewer’s favorite illustrations was Tom Till’s 172 Western American Literature “Castle Rock, Kansas,” which depicts an unusual pillared limestone formation on the short-grass prairie. Just four generations ago Pawnee scouts climbed these rocks to search for buffalo and study the strange Conestoga wagons head­ ing west over the long contours of the land. Beyond the Mythic West isa fitting tribute to a land that no one can see and not fall in love with. “This book,” as North Dakota Governor George Sinner writes in the Foreword, “isfirst and foremost an expression of love for the West.” JOHN A. MURRAY University of Alaska, Fairbanks Mother Earth Spirituality: Native American Paths to Healing Ourselves and Our World. By Ed McGaa, Eagle Man. (San Francisco: Harper &Row, 1990. 230 pages, $14.95.) “If the Native Americans keep all their spirituality within their own com­ munity” the author warns with evangelical fervor, “the old wisdom . . .will not be allowed to work its environmental medicine on the world.” Perhaps not since Black Elk Speaks and Lame Deer Seeker of Visions has a Native Ameri­ can spoken so passionately about the spiritual power and value of Native American lifeways and religion. Ed McGaa, Eagle Man, himself a Sioux “mystic warrior” like Black Elk and Lame Deer as well as a Vietnam vet and lawyer, is a practitioner and teacher of sacred ceremonies. Unlike other tradi­ tional “Wichasa wakan” (holy men), Eagle Man seeks not...