Betsy Gaines Quammen: Myth & Mending In The American West

This is a segment of episode 354 of Last Born In The Wilderness, “True West: Myth & Mending In The American West w/ Betsy Gaines Quammen.” Listen to the full episode: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/betsy-gaines-quammen-2

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Historian and author Betsy Gaines Quammen returns to the podcast to discuss her new book, True West: Myth and Mending on the Far Side of America, published by Torrey House Press. Building on her previous book, American Zion, Gaines Quammen follows the historical roots and trajectories of troubling political trends in the Western United States, decoupling the myths and material realities of the landscapes and the peoples and the more-than-human lives that occupy them.

“True West explores myths of the West and how, if left unexamined, they distort the realities of the present and exacerbate polarizations. These misperceptions about land, politics, liberty, and self-determination threaten the wellbeing of western communities overrun by newcomers seeking a dream—and the country, unless America recognizes the dangers of building a national identity on illusion. Gaines Quammen interrogates it all by listening, carefully, to people from varying political and cultural perspectives as she seeks to reconcile the deep anger and broad misunderstandings that linger amid myths that define and impede the West and America.”

Betsy Gaines Quammen is a historian and writer. She received a PhD from Montana State University where she studied religion, history and the philosophy of science. Her dissertation focused on Mormon history and the roots of armed public land conflicts occurring in the United States. She is fascinated at how religious views shape relationships to landscape. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Daily News, and the History News Network. She is the author of American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God, and Public Lands in the West and True West: Myth and Mending on the Far Side of America. Betsy lives in Montana with her husband, writer David Quammen, three giant dogs, a sturdy cat, and a lanky rescue python.

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