How can we face the road ahead politically, economically, environmentally, technologically and culturally if we aren’t talking?
—BGQ
True West: Myth and Mending on the Far Side of America
Released October 2023
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.
American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God and Public Lands in the West
Released March 2020
What happens when members of an American religion, one built in the nineteenth century on personal prophecy and land proprietorship, assert possession over western federal lands with guns and a certainty that God wants them to go to war? The answer is an ongoing and dangerous feud between Mormon ranchers, the federal government, and the American public.
The Earth Will Appear as the Garden of Eden: Essays on Mormon Environmental History
Released in 2019
Contributing writer:
“American Zion, the Building of Zion National Park”
Biodiversity of the World, Conservation from Genes to Landscapes: Snow Leopards
Released in 2016
Contributing writer:
“Introduction to Religious and Cultural Impacts on Snow Leopard Conservation”
Encyclopedia of Nature and Religion
Released in 2005
Contributing writer:
“Mongolian Buddhism and Taimen Conservation”