Review: The Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam: Infrastructures of Dispossession on the Colorado Plateau, by Erika Marie Bsumek

Abstract

Book Review| November 01 2023 Review: The Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam: Infrastructures of Dispossession on the Colorado Plateau, by Erika Marie Bsumek The Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam: Infrastructures of Dispossession on the Colorado Plateau. By Erika Marie Bsumek. (Austin, University of Texas Press, 2023. 336 pp.) Bob H. Reinhardt Bob H. Reinhardt Boise State University Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Pacific Historical Review (2023) 92 (4): 680–681. https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2023.92.4.680 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Bob H. Reinhardt; Review: The Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam: Infrastructures of Dispossession on the Colorado Plateau, by Erika Marie Bsumek. Pacific Historical Review 1 November 2023; 92 (4): 680–681. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2023.92.4.680 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentPacific Historical Review Search In this inspiring and challenging book, Erika Marie Bsumek shows that much more than rock, cement, and steel buttress Glen Canyon Dam. Bsumek argues that Glen Canyon—and most of the physical infrastructure of the West—rests on a complex and intertwined foundation of “social infrastructures” that dispossessed Native peoples, ignored Native knowledge, and excluded Native voices from decision making. Bsumek’s analysis provides not only a compelling new understanding of the history of Glen Canyon Dam and the American West, but also a hopeful path toward a more equitable future for the region. Bsumek excavates the accreting layers of social infrastructures of dispossession through a story that stretches from 1840 to the present. That chronology marks one of the book’s contributions: demonstrating that understanding Glen Canyon Dam requires looking back decades before the dam was first imagined. When Latter-day Saints expanded into the lands of the Ute, Paiute, Hopi, and Navajo peoples... You do not currently have access to this content.