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✹ As I spread a map of the United States before me, the Great Basin’s geographical position seems secure, locked safely between imposing mountain borders that buffer it from geopolitical storms. But Lewis Mumford’s woeful words are on my mind as I ponder the Great Basin’s changing position in world affairs on a drive from Salt Lake City to western Nevada. Mumford’s use of the word refuge reminds me of the Mormons’ search for sanctuary in the Great Basin, but the state of modern world affairs—with its ever-present concern about religion-fueled terrorism—makes no place really safe. As a closer look at any modern map of the Great Basin also reveals , there is a strategic military presence here. Military bases and gunnery ranges occupy huge areas from Utah’s Dugway Proving Ground to Nevada ’s legendary Nuclear Test Site (fig. 10.1). A closer look at maps of the Great Basin in two different periods, say the early and late twentieth century, confirms that geography and history constantly intersect. They did so on the eve of the Second World War, when American sociologist-philosopher Lewis Mumford pondered the shrinking size of the world as fascist despots reigned. In despair, Mumford penned his lament as part of a 250-page book that he furiously wrote in less than three weeks.1 Energized and yet depressed by the condition of the world, Mumford believed not only that civilization was threatened by fascism, but that a spiritual crisis now confronted humankind. The twentieth century had, in Mumford’s words, “inherited a morality which it had never worked for.” One major reason for this, he claimed, was that “[r]eligion ceased gradually to be a social force and became a private idiosyncrasy; or rather, where it was most active and positive as a social force it tied itself, not to Landscapes of Armageddon 10 Now,for the first time in human history there is no spot on earth where the innocent may find refuge. —lewis mumford, Faith for Living, 1941 185 Francaviglia/167-206 6/9/03 7:20 PM Page 185 the interests of the poor and lowly, but to the profits of those who governed them.” As a disenchanted liberal, Mumford lamented the fact that “Christianity was not practical in this new society: so practice was only in the rare instance Christ-like.” True, Mumford conceded, “[t]here was perhaps a closer unity between faith and act among the Jews and the Mohammedans” But, he hastened to conclude, “wherever modern industrial society was strongest, the hypocrisies and dissimulations of the pious expanded.”2 Mumford recognized an age-old struggle between the forces of “good” and “evil”—forces that, more often than not, involve religion on at least one side, and often both sides. It is one of mankind’s great spiritual ironies that religion can be both a creator and destroyer, and can breed both morality and hypocrisy. Ever the perfectionist, Mumford railed at Christianity ’s “hypocritical” role in world affairs. Although Mumford’s blaming despotism on industrial capitalism may have been a bit simplistic, he was right on two counts. Modernity had created a spiritual crisis, and world war was inevitable. When the United States entered that war in December of 1941, it found itself unprepared to wage it on two fronts—Europe and the Pacific—without a massive arms buildup. That forging of swords involved herculean effort, and the Great Basin found itself center stage overnight. Within a short time, the map of the region was festooned with gunnery ranges and military airbases. The dry clear air of the Great Basin made it well suited for war games. The army airbase at Tonopah was a case in point: located in west-central Nevada, the site hummed as military exercises eclipsed the mining that had dominated the local economy and mindset since 1900. Beginning with World War II training missions, the landscape of the Great Basin came under increasing attack as the military tested its prowess . In one of the classic conflicts of cultural values, distinctive topographic features that were important to the region’s Native Americans now became targets for gunnery and bombing practice. For example, northeast of Fallon, Nevada, Job’s Peak is the site of creation to the Cattail-eater Northern Paiute peoples; the peak represents the two parents present at creation. But it presented a tempting target and was disfigured by flyers using it for target practice in World War II...

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