Epiphany in the Wilderness: Hunting, Nature, and Performance in the Nineteenth-Century American West . By Karen R. Jones

Abstract

Epiphany in the Wilderness: Hunting, Nature, and Performance in the Nineteenth-Century American West . By Karen R. Jones. (Boulder. University Press of Colorado, 2015. xiii + 363 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $55.00, £39.00, cloth.) The merciless slaughter of wildlife across the American West was so pervasive that most historians have just heard it as background noise, tuning their ears instead to more exceptional melodies. But by carefully listening to hunting as a performance that communicated—and sometimes subverted—a heroic code of manly power in the nineteenth-century American West, Epiphany in the Wilderness offers a rich account of the complex ways that hunting constituted a theater where women and men could craft for themselves diverse social identities. A number of familiar voices populate its pages: Jim Bridger, William … Michael.Wise{at}unt.edu