The Political Culture of the New West by Jeff Roche

Abstract

being deemed by some as "themost deplorable event in thehistory ofAmerican ornithology" (p. 30). Still,a pluralist element persisted,with native- and foreign-born Americans alike con tinuing to customize ecosystems with advanta geous creatureswithout regard toorigins. The promises and perils ofbiocontrols were repeat edly tried and tested, as when sparrowswere released against a host of noxious arthropods; yet the war between foreignpredators and their foreign hosts inevitably brought side effects, many of them more transformativethanbefore. With thepassing of decades, some Americans proposed that the sparrow be naturalized, so pervasive were its effects on Yankee ecosystems. For better orworse, this winged Brithad come to stay, despite eugenic conservationists' efforts at itsexpulsion. Friends of sparrows considered itonly fairthatthe featheredforeignerreceivea "square deal in theLand ofLiberty,"regardless of how much ecological havoc itwreaked (p. 57). Invasion biologists (and historian Alfred Crosby) have subsequently attributed sparrow success to itsmarvelous adaptability to the human-dominated environment of roadway, hedgerow, citypark, and tilledfield ? condi tions long true fortheEnglish countryside and recentlytruefortheAmerican one. But Coates complicates this explanation by reminding us that ragweed and redwood and grey squirrel have been America's own contentious gifts to the restof theworld, so that there must be more to invasion biology than an alien's ability to thrive in a humanized world. Western readers will find Coates's pages especially discerning, because his tale runs westward as it runs to the present, reflecting the trails of Euro-American co-invaders and the fact thatmore of thenation's biodiversity is harbored in the West. More single species are found in the Pacific states than any other American region,with correspondinglymore interestshown therebynative-species enthusi asts, and more aversion to such invading aliens as eucalyptus, aka "The Universal Australian" (pp. 123-150).Nevertheless, biodiversity enthu siasts occasionally acknowledge that alien crea tures have increased arboreal, entomological, and ornithological diversity in North America, because such aliens can augment local floras and faunas. In the end, Coates has given us a remarkably nuanced and richly researched overview of U.S. attitudes toward alien species, providing an eminently readable account about how Americans have come toview thisforeign element in theirforests,fields,waterways, and flyways. Marcus Hall University ofUtah THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF THENEW WEST editedbyJeff Roche foreword by David F?rber University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, 2008. Illustrations, photographs, notes, index. 396 pages. $40.00 cloth. $24.95 paper. This very interestingvolume brings together twelve essays originally presented at a sympo sium sponsored by the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University. The Clements Center, which dates to 1996, has rapidly become an important focusing agent forhistorical schol arship about a broadly conceived Southwest that stretches from the sandy shores of the Gulf ofMexico to the sometimes precipitous coast of California, and these essays enhance its reputation. Editor Jeff Roche and theassembled authors are all engaged in an effortto look behind the voting returns at the basic values and social patterns that underlie electoral politics. The common concept is "political culture," a term that tends tomake political scientists uneasy (how do youmeasure it?)but thatmay bring smiles to the facesofhistorians because we get to talkabout "soft"topics such as the meanings 304 OHQ vol. no, no. 2 ofBarryGoldwater's cowboy hat or thepoliti cal implications ofhip entrepreneurialism ? la Patagonia clothing. Several of the chapters take a new look at a familiar historical category. Douglas Hurt draws on his expertise in agricultural history todescribe the transformation of agricultural policy inwhich claims forprotection by small farmers were appropriated by agricultural industrialists. Ignacio Garcia examines Latino political culture, Bradley Shreve looks at the rise of a national political movement among American Indians, and Scott Tang explores the tangled racial politics of post-World War II San Francisco. Another group of scholarsprobe the ways in which ideas of "West" and "westernness" have affectedpolitical life. Robert Goldberg follows his earlierbiography of BarryGoldwater with a fascinatingdiscussion of theway Goldwater and Ronald Reagan defined themselves as ruggedwesterners asmuch by their choice of clothing (those cowboy hats) as their actual policy choices, a trope thatGeorge W. Bush utilized somewhat less convincingly. In a very different way, as Karen Merrill points out, the image and self-imageof the"Texaswildcatter" as...