Author and American Historian

Official website of

WALTER R. BORNEMAN

Coming in Spring 2027

RECKONING: THE AMERICAN WEST ON EDGE

Borneman returns to his roots in the West and takes on its challenges since World War II.

RECKONING: THE AMERICAN WEST ON EDGE

The University of Utah Press, 2027, 394 pages

Paperback and E-book, formats

Reckoning: The American West on Edge is a retrospective of the Mountain West from the end of World War II through the first decades of the twenty-first century. Walt shares a personal narrative of the forces that hastened—sometimes with blinding speed—a reckoning of sustainability that continues to challenge the carrying capacity of the land and the lifestyles of its inhabitants.

When World War II ended in 1945, millions of young men and women with pent-up optimism looked for a fresh start. The Mountain West beckoned and was to change dramatically with new people, new vitality, and new industries. The issues defining this region over the prior century—transportation challenges, natural resource extraction, perennial fights over land use, and the vital importance of water—continued to be paramount after 1945, but with an increased urgency driven by new technologies, growing population, and impending environmental crises.

By the early twenty-first century, no area of the country fought for equilibrium more than the Mountain West. The accounts of the people and places Borneman shares are representative of the pressures and core issues that carried the Mountain West through seventy-five tumultuous years to a reckoning. From Montana wheat farmers to Navajo coal miners to ski town billionaires, the twenty-first-century West reflects its past and foreshadows an uncertain future. Whatever happens will be determined—just as in the past—by both the bounty and the constraints of the land.