Jessie L. Embry, Brian Q. Cannon (eds.), Immigrants in the Far West: Historical Identities and Experiences

In this timely collection of essays Jessie L. Embry and Brian Q. Cannon, history professors at Brigham Young University, prove how “the transnational turn” has powerfully regenerated interest in the history of the American West, almost three decades after “New Western History” and its detractors had allegedly exhausted the debate. The editors employ a transnational framework to address two paramount questions which, inexplicably, often fail to attract the scholarly attention they deserve: what impact did the lives of immigrants have on the social geography of western communities and how did the local context, the relations with Natives and earlier incomers, condition their individual identities? Particularly laudable is also the choice to include in this work a broad and eclectic selection of subjects. The experiences of religious groups, ethnic minorities and underrepresented nationalities find ample space in this survey, providing a well-rounded picture of the complex interplay between power, race and gender relations in the American West, between the nineteenth and the twenty-first centuries.