Reviews By August, Lewis ordered the miners to return to work, setting off a conflict between the UMWA and the Roslyn local, where militant leaders accused him of selling out their battles for better pay and a shorter work day. After a leader of the militant faction was elected president in October,Lewis decertified the local union and put his own man in charge. The next month an alternative union, the Western Miners Union, was formed and called a strike in April 1934. Some miners remained loyal to the UMWA,causing sometimes violent battles between neighbors including egg throwing and other harassment by strikers and their families of those they saw as scabs.Eventually there was murder, a trial, and a split in the community that persists. It is not uncommon to want to simplify history, to choose one issue when there are several interacting. This struggle was one of multiple causes and circumstances. Bullock allows them to interact in a book that is accessible to general readers while being a welcome addition to Northwest labor history scholarship. Sandy Polishuk Portland, Oregon IN THE PATH OF DESTRUCTION: EYEWITNESS CHRONICLES OF MOUNT ST. HELENS by Richard Waitt Washington State University Press, Pullman, 2014. Illustrations, photographs, maps, tables, notes, index. 423 pages. $22.95, paper. On May 18, 1980, an earthquake triggered the planet’s largest recorded landslide, removing the top quarter mile and much of the bulging north face of Mount St. Helens. Volcanic pressure released an explosion that remains the “where were you when” marker for a generation of Pacific Northwest residents . Pyroclastic flows, lahars from melted glaciers, and an ash cloud that would soon descend on campers and scientists alike transformed the blast zone and the surrounding hills and valleys. In the Path of Destruction focuses on the intersection of that geologic moment and the many human stories from the days and weeks before and after the event. Richard Waitt, a former U.S. Geological Survey scientist, is intimately familiar with the mountain’sgeologyandgeographyaswellasthe politics of the multiple jurisdictions involved. Working from hundreds of interviews, he applies a scientist’s attention to detail and an insider’s perspective. He melds multiple storylines into something more like an immense collage than a smooth narrative. From the very beginning,itisclearthatWaittmakeslittleeffort toreconcilecontradictoryaccountsoreliminate repetition,butinsteadleavesindividualversions to stand as-is. Reducing the number of stories or editing for consistency may have made for a more readable account but would eliminate the most intriguing aspect of the book. Tales include survivors recounting their harrowing experiences, airlift rescues, arrival at hospitals, and difficult recoveries.Waitt also reconstructs the fifty-seven deaths in the blast zone. Of course, Harry Truman is included; the crotchety caretaker of a lodge on Spirit Lake became a media sensation for his refusal to evacuate and leave the mountain. Trapped by the image he had created, he met his end under the immense landslide. Truman’s story, however, is only a small portion of the mix. The collision of politics and geology extends this collection well beyond eyewitness accounts of a volcanic disaster. President Jimmy Carter’s famously premature OHQ vol. 116, no. 4 astonishment at the devastation, followed by the revelation that he had just had his first glimpse of clear-cut logging practices, provides one of the few moments approaching levity. Other politicians come in for more serious criticism. Washington governor Dixy Lee Ray’s assertions that the dead defied exclusion zones, crossed roadblocks, and put themselves in harm’s way are at odds with reality. Most of those who died were outside the zone approved by Ray, but within the areas recommended for closure by scientists. Local businesses and loggers had urged Ray to minimize the closed zone after months of shifting roadblocks with little impact from the early phases of the eruption. Ray’s confrontational style and nearly complete exclusion of the state’s Department of Fish and Game and Department of Natural Resources from communications exacerbated the contradictory policies around the mountain. Conflicts over the cost, location, and maintenance of roadblocks also put the surrounding counties at odds. The image that arises is one of chaotic decision-making, shaky understanding of risks, poor enforcement, and conflicting authority...