An iconic national park becomes the stage for a complex game of 19th-century politics. The Yellowstone country was not well explored until the 1870s, writes historian Nelson, "hemmed in by four mountain ranges" and sprinkled with the bones of unlucky adventurers. It did not help that numerous Native peoples, including the Hunkpapa (which Nelson correctly renders as Húŋkpapȟa) Lakota under Sitting Bull, considered the Yellowstone territory to be theirs and took pains to keep interlopers out. Arrayed against these Indigenous peoples were several concerns. Montana's territorial governor, Nathaniel Langford, was interested in the country on its own terms, but there was also business behind it; he was just one of many who wanted to push a northerly transcontinental railroad through the region. The author displays her strong commitment to including the Native presence in any account of Western history, but there's another twist in this tale: Nelson links the policy of domination of Native peoples with the unfinished business of Reconstruction in the South, extending federal control over recalcitrant states and individuals. "Republicans in the early 1870s," she writes, "saw both projects as part of a national ideal: to create productive and patriotic American citizens." As Ulysses S. Grant and other leading Republicans knew, the South was no place they could look for votes, but the West certainly was. All that remained was to settle the West with likely Republicans by removing obstacles, geographical or human. By Nelson's account, it's no accident that Henry Dawes, a Massachusetts senator who was a strong advocate for the creation of Yellowstone National Park, was also the author of legislation that settled Native peoples not on shared domains but instead allotted each individual Native American a small plot of land, destroying cultural norms. Reconstruction may have failed, but in their effort to weaken the Native population, the Republicans were successful for decades. A readable and unfailingly interesting look at a slice of Western history from a novel point of view. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Historian Nelson, whose book The Three-Cornered War was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, continues her narration of the competing forces defining the shape of the American West in Reconstruction years. This time, she documents the exploration and mapping of Yellowstone National Park in 1871 by geologist Ferdinand Hayden and a team of scientists, which led to the passage of the Yellowstone Act the following year, creating the first national park in the United States--and the world. The principals in the story are three: Hayden sought scientific prominence; financier Jay Cooke looked to the establishment of a national park to entice foreign investors into bankrolling the building of his Northern Pacific Railroad; and Lakota chief Sitting Bull sought and failed to halt the inexorable westward movement of settlers who steadily destroyed his people's hold over their homelands. Nelson also recounts how the creation of national parks displaced Indigenous peoples. As the author tells, it was also a crucial moment in the southern Reconstruction: the diversion of government attention toward the West eventually hampered federal efforts to rein in the Klan. VERDICT Scrupulously researched and written in appealing journalistic style, this book should attract enthusiasts of Western and U.S. history.--David Keymer

Historian Nelson (The Three-Cornered War) delivers an intriguing if disjointed chronicle of the 1871 expedition that led to the creation of Yellowstone National Park and its links to the era's racial politics. The narrative revolves between geologist Ferdinand Hayden, leader of the 1871 Yellowstone Expedition; Jay Cooke, an investment banker committed to building the Northern Pacific Railroad; and Lakota chieftain Sitting Bull, who refused to negotiate with U.S. government and military officials in the region. Nelson makes excellent use of the diaries and letters of expedition members to convey Yellowstone's natural wonders, noting that painter Thomas Moran described the colors of Yellowstone Canyon as "beyond the reach of human art," and that Hayden called Yellowstone Lake "one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever beheld." However, though Sitting Bull opposed the encroachment on Lakota lands by settlers and surveyors for the Northern Pacific Railroad, other Indigenous peoples were more closely associated with the Yellowstone Basin, and a credit crunch caused Cooke's investment bank to close before the railroad could be completed. Elsewhere, Nelson takes long detours into the politics and racial tensions of the Reconstruction-era South, including the federal government's actions against the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina. Despite its fascinating elements and eloquent evocations of the Western landscape, this kaleidoscopic history doesn't quite coalesce. (Mar.)

Historian Nelson (The Three-Cornered War (2020) presents a fresh, provocative study of the origins of Yellowstone National Park. Departing from well-trodden narratives about conservation and public recreation, she views the park's formation as an opportunistic land grab, desired or opposed by various private interests but ultimately pursued by a federal government eager to assuage Reconstruction-era political tensions by seizing territory from Indigenous people. Nelson focuses on three men. Scientist Ferdinand Vanderveer Hayden wrangled federal funds to produce a detailed survey of the geologically unique region. Railroad financier Jay Cooke saw potential profit in attracting new settlement in the Great Northwest. Lakota leader Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (Sitting Bull), aware of what was at stake for his people, maintained a strategic if increasingly futile resistance. But not all the action was in the West. Nelson emphasizes the relevance of contemporaneous conflict in South Carolina, where the Grant administration struggled to quell racial violence and protect Black voting rights. Faced with the possibility of a second civil war, the Republican-led Forty-second Congress pivoted; the empire would progress westward. Serialized in Scribner's Monthly and celebrated in watercolor by painter Thomas Moran, the conquest and consecration of Yellowstone offered a new vision for the nation, albeit one scrubbed of its Native inhabitants.