The population of the Southwest is exploding. More and more people find themselves, for various reasons, drawn to the region, spawning a proliferation of new houses, roads, stores and cars. How can we preserve the Southwest's unique landscape while accommodating all of these newcomers? In other words, how can we prevent loving the Southwest to death? Reopening the American West - a collection of essays on issues ranging from water rights to overpopulation to Native American sovereignty - explores this question from many different angles. Developed in partnership with the Arizona Humanities Council, these essays are all thoughtful examinations of modern-day environmentalism by some of the top authors in the field. But each one - while well-written, intelligent, and logical - is marked by a major flaw of environmentalism: a refusal to compromise on idealism. For example, Helen Ingram's "Place Humanists at the Headgates" argues that poets should settle water-rights disputes - a theory that, while a nice fantasy, completely ignores the endless complexity of rules, regulations, and very-real needs behind water-rights agreements. Don't get me wrong; we need our dreamers, but we need practicality as well, and most of these essays fail to recognize the limitations of such idealism. Despite this flaw, Reopening the American West interjects a much-needed dose of history and perspective into topics that often go misunderstood in our sound-bite culture. You'll leave this book with a greater understanding of the complex web of issues underlying the fantastic land of the American Southwest.
This review originally appeared in The Weekly Alibi.
© Todd Meigs
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