Designated in 2016 by President Obama and reduced to 85 percent of its original size one year later by President Trump, Bears Ears National Monument continues to be a flash point of conflict between ranchers, miners, environmental groups, states' rights advocates, and Native American activists. In this volume, Andrew Gulliford synthesizes 11,000 years of the region's history to illuminate what's truly at stake in this conflict and distills this geography as a place of refuge and resistance for Native Americans who seek to preserve their ancestral homes, and for the descendants of Mormon families who arrived by wagon train in 1880. Gulliford's engaging narrative explains prehistoric Pueblo villages and cliff dwellings, Navajo and Ute history, impacts of the Atomic Age, uranium mining, and the pothunting and looting of Native graves that inspired the passage of the Antiquities Act over a century ago. The book describes how the national monument came about and its deep significance to five native tribes. Bears Ears National Monument is a bellwether for public land issues in the American West. Its recognition will be a relevant topic for years to come.

More college students than ever are majoring in Outdoor Recreation, Outdoor Education, or Adventure Education, but fewer and fewer Americans spend any time in thoughtful, respectful engagement with wilderness. While many young people may think of adrenaline-laced extreme sports as prime outdoor activities, with "Outdoors in the Southwest, "Andrew Gulliford seeks to promote appreciation for and discussion of the wild landscapes where those sports are played.

Advocating an outdoor ethic based on curiosity, cooperation, humility, and ecological literacy, this essay collection features selections by renowned southwestern writers including Terry Tempest Williams, Edward Abbey, Craig Childs, and Barbara Kingsolver, as well as scholars, experienced guides, and river rats. Essays explain the necessity of nature in the digital age, recount rafting adventures, and reflect on the psychological effects of expeditions. True-life cautionary tales tell of encounters with nearly disastrous flash floods, 900-foot falls, and lightning strikes. The final chapter describes the work of Great Old Broads for Wilderness, the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, and other exemplars of "wilderness tithing"--giving back to public lands through volunteering, stewardship, and eco-advocacy.

Addressing the evolution of public land policy, the meaning of wilderness, and the importance of environmental protection, this collection serves as an intellectual guidebook not just for students but for travelers and anyone curious about the changing landscape of the West.

"Preserving Western History" is the first college reader to address public history in the American West. Andrew Gulliford's collection of essays explains the research and work that public historians do and the complicated issues of historic site preservation and interpretation.

The contributors' writings document the application of public history to specific Western themes, places, and personalities. Subjects range from the Little Big Horn Battlefield to Route 66 and from historic brothel buildings at the Mustang Ranch in Nevada to Nikkei removal from Bainbridge Island, Washington. Other chapters interpret the Ludlow Massacre Site, define Hispanic identity and lifeways in New Mexico, discuss wild land firefighter memorials and explain the Wilderness Act as a case study in western public history. Other studies focus on Sand Creek, Colorado and Western Mining Landscapes.

Each section begins with an introductory essay that surveys the literature and relevant publications, and each chapter includes endnotes and study questions. The appendix lists academic centers in the West.

Contributors to "Preserving Western History" include:

Ben Nighthorse Campbell, former Congressman and U.S. Senator from Colorado and member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe
James E. Fell, Jr., adjunct associate professor of history, University of Colorado, Denver
Art GA3mez, supervisory historian in the Intermountain Region of the National Park Service, Santa Fe
Jon Hunner, director of the public history program at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces
Jan MacKell, archivist at the Cripple Creek District Museum in Cripple Creek, Colorado
Sally Mcbeth, professor of anthropology at theUniversity of Northern Colorado, Greeley
Thomas J. Noel, professor of history and director of public history at the University of Colorado, Denver
Douglas D. Scott, Great Plains Team Leader with the National Park Serviceas Midwest Archeological Center and is adjunct professor at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln
William Wroth, former Curator of the Taylor Museum of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center

With a New Afterword First published in 1989, Boomtown Blues examines the remarkable 100-year history of oil shale development and chronicles the social, environmental, and financial havoc created by the industry's continual cycles of boom and bust.

Winner, 2019 National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum Western Heritage Award for the Best Nonfiction Book Winner, 2019 Colorado Book Awards History Category, sponsored by Colorado Center for the Book In The Woolly West, historian Andrew Gulliford describes the sheep industry's place in the history of Colorado and the American West. Tales of cowboys and cattlemen dominate western history-and even more so in popular culture. But in the competition for grazing lands, the sheep industry was as integral to the history of the American West as any trail drive. With vivid, elegant, and reflective prose, Gulliford explores the origins of sheep grazing in the region, the often-violent conflicts between the sheep and cattle industries, the creation of national forests, and ultimately the segmenting of grazing allotments with the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. Deeper into the twentieth century, Gulliford grapples with the challenges of ecological change and the politics of immigrant labor. And in the present day, as the public lands of the West are increasingly used for recreation, conflicts between hikers and dogs guarding flocks are again putting the sheep industry on the defensive. Between each chapter, Gulliford weaves an account of his personal interaction with what he calls the "sheepscape"-that is, the sheepherders' landscape itself. Here he visits with Peruvian immigrant herders and Mormon families who have grazed sheep for generations, explores delicately balanced stone cairns assembled by shepherds now long gone, and ponders the meaning of arborglyphs carved into unending aspen forests. The Woolly West is the first book in decades devoted to the sheep industry and breaks new ground in the history of the Colorado Basque, Greek, and Hispano shepherding families whose ranching legacies continue to the present day.