This Contested Land: The Storied Past and Uncertain Future of America's National Monuments by McKenzie Long (review)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:

• This Contested Land: The Storied Past and Uncertain Future of America's National Monuments by McKenzie Long
• Talley V. Kayser

McKenzie Long, This Contested Land: The Storied Past and Uncertain Future of America's National Monuments. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2022. 280 pp. Hardcover, $24.95.

This Contested Land opens with the words "look behind you"; the epilogue is titled "Looking Forward." In the space between McKenzie Long does both, using her own outdoor adventures to frame meditations on the histories, presents, and futures of national monuments in the United States. The resulting essays examine topics from nuclear storage to land art, from Indigenous activism to mining policy—but no matter the subject, This Contested Land resists quick judgment, instead portraying American dissent over protected land as complex, dynamic, and vital.

"Monuments," as Long sees them, "are quintessentially American. After all, what is more American than disagreement over the scope of governmental power?" (xxvii). Readers aware of the controversies around Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante will find in This Contested Land a clear overview of the "national monument" designation, including cogent explanation of why the 1906 Antiquities Act leaves national monuments so vulnerable to political vicissitudes. This Contested Land is more notable, however, for its attention to fascinating, less nationally known places protected under the Antiquities Act. For example, Long examines publicly accessible land turned abruptly private (Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument); land that legally belongs to the descendants of nineteenth-century Mexican citizens whose property "absorbed" into the United States as borders changed (Rio Grande del Norte National Monument); and the largest contiguous conservation area in the United States, which is actually made of ocean (Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument). Long describes her project as an "exploration in storytelling" consisting of "sketches of people and places" (xxvi)—this text doesn't aspire to be a comprehensive history or push the boundaries of environmental philosophy. Still, the thirteen featured monuments invite reflection on ethics, and Long leans into those opportunities with accessible, grounded-in-place musings on topics like anthropocentrism, the nature–culture dualism, hyperobjects, and settlers' accountability (or lack thereof) to genocidal violence. [End Page 388]

Concurrently, each chapter seeks out and records diverse perspectives on national monument use. Whether speaking with ranchers or rock climbers, Long often aims to find common ground. "It's easy to demonize people with different opinions," she notes in one characteristic passage, "But after these conversations I became convinced that people who are intimately tied to this place all want the same thing: to maintain that intimacy" (23). "Each stakeholder still believes [the national monument] is their land," she writes in another, "and this is what I find beautiful: they don't have to agree. It can mean something different to everyone, be there for everyone" (191). Readers personally impacted by land-use conflicts might find such statements unsatisfying, but their contexts—the range of compromises Long surveys as she describes the histories of often-unfamiliar monuments—give her conclusions weight and dimension. Ultimately This Contested Land works toward an inclusive consideration of national monuments, one that addresses "genocides perpetrated so that sacred land could be stolen, the torture and dehumanization of slavery, the continued injustice of racial inequality" while also seeking out stories of successful collaboration and consensus (282).

Though it contains plenty of information about ecosystems and environmental dynamics, the frame of This Contested Land foregrounds human use-value, especially through recreation. In pursuit of contact with national monuments, Long hikes, rock climbs, skis, snorkels, whitewater rafts, tags nine peaks over a marathon distance in under twenty-four hours, goes wine tasting . . . always with explicit consideration of how these activities both enrich and limit her understanding of place. It's worth noting, however, that This Contested Land eschews the rugged individualist trope; even when solitary, Long emphasizes the relationships (from romantic affairs to family ties) that shape and sustain her journeys. And her prose sings with appreciation for landscapes: the "heartbreak-red desert" of Indian Creek (5), the "rhythmic topography" of basin-and-range (241), even the "paste of heat" in California foothills (45).

National monuments traditionally preserve specific, bounded features—so there's pleasant...