A review of these two books may, at first glance, seem an unlikely pairing. One, the volume by Karen Merrill, a historian, examines the long relationship between the U.S. federal government and its representatives and western cattle ranchers up to and following the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act in 1934. The second, authored by anthropologist Nathan Sayre, chronicles the transformation of a grassland area in southern Arizona to a working ranch and, in the 1980s, to a wildlife refuge. The apparent disconnect between the two books is, however, only apparent, for a close reading indicates the areas of intersection and complementarity between the two.

Merrill’s study focuses on property—the ways in which people conceive of it, the areas of contention in those conceptualizations, and the negotiations in which government and ranchers have engaged in search of workable definitions. She initially reminds readers that property is not a thing but, rather, a set of relationships between humans and that, if one is to grasp the sometimes bitter and contentious issues of property ownership and use in the west, one must begin with this understanding. In this she is surely correct, and with this as a starting point one can begin to appreciate the various cultural meanings that have attached to property relationships throughout this history. The area of great contention and negotiation during most of this history concerns public lands, a vast acreage that includes significant portions of most western states. That the government came to hold and manage these lands is not at issue here, but manage them it has, and their availability for use by ranchers and other interests who do not hold title to them is at the heart of Merrill’s discussion. In the earlier period of the range, appropriate ownership and stewardship were matters of differing interpretations. Should the federal government continue to manage these lands, or should they revert to state ownership and management, thus, better reflecting local interests and control? These and other conflicts persisted through the early decades of the 20th century. In the meantime, the range was deteriorating, overstocked, and often managed only for short-term gain. Clearly, remedial action was required.

In 1934, at the height of the New Deal and the devastating effects of “dust-bowl” drought, the U.S. Congress passed the Taylor Act, named for the Colorado congressman who sponsored it. With its passage, the act firmly established the responsibility of the federal government as conservator and manager of the public-lands range. For ranchers, it extended a regime of access and fee schedules that had been instituted decades earlier with the establishment of the national forest system and creation of the U.S. Forest Service. Public lands in the west were now under the jurisdiction of federal managers, and the negotiations between them and ranchers were conducted under a new set of guidelines that were to be governed by two principles: “highest use” and sustainability.

In a discussion of the contending interpretations and cultural meanings of property, Merrill identifies what became and still resonates as an issue dividing policy makers and ranchers. This is the contention over “rights” and “privileges” as use of public lands pertains to grazing. The Taylor Act states that the granting of a grazing preference (a fee-based permit to a rancher) “shall not create any right, title, interest, or estate in or to the lands”. This would seem to be quite clear, but in practice it often becomes murky. Consider, for example, when a rancher decides to sell deeded land. The allotment held for the adjoining public land valorizes the rancher’s own property significantly. The case might well be that ranching would be an impossible venture were one not to have access to the public parcel. This gray area remains up to the present day, and the belief persists that an allottee in some way “owns” the leased public land. Here readers are brought to a difficulty in Merrill’s insistence on a definition of property that would exclude its “thingness.” For property is land in the mind of the rancher; it has dimensions; it can be valorized; it can be conserved or degraded. It may be a cultural construction that the rancher imbues with notions of tradition and a way of life, but it still is the basis for making a living. Because of this, the abstraction of property as relationship may become a conceptual distinction of little immediate concern for the rancher.

Somewhat puzzling is Merrill’s discussion of the conflict that arose in the 1940s, a few years after the Taylor Act was passed. She details the reemergence of a position by stockmen arguing for the cession of public lands to private interests. She asserts this to have been a serious goal by ranchers—or, at least, by some—as articulated by the Joint Livestock Committee on Public Lands, an entity that embodied interests of both cattle and sheep ranchers. She notes that “while the Taylor Grazing Act was a ‘stockmen’s bill’ if there ever was one … it also produced the expectation among some ranchers that it would generate real property rights in the public range, and when it did not, the livestock organizations leaned further toward a political agenda of privatization” (p. 194). A few pages later, however, she relates how quickly the movement toward privatization dissipated, suggesting that this was a result of “internal opposition” among stockmen (p. 198). I am suspicious of this argument; the renewed call for cession came in 1946 as the Grazing Division was about to be morphed into the new Bureau of Land Management, initially a downsized agency. If stockmen wanted to establish new ground rules for their use and for government management of the range, floating the issue of cession of public lands would seem a good way to open opportunities for influencing policy within the new entity.

Finally, Merrill says little about the other phrase in the Taylor Act, noted above, the principle of “highest use.” Although, initially, this phrase may have been intended to refer to various uses involving productive enterprise, such wording is always open to subsequent interpretations, determined by historical and sociological factors. In the case of “highest use,” it was only a matter of time before the principle of “multiple use” implying a hierarchy of “uses” not confined to production became established in a 1960 law. This principle, of course, is still extant and a source of much present contention.

Sayre has provided a meticulous and full account of the changes that have been wrought in a single valley, the Altar Valley, in southern Arizona. In this study he is not dealing with public-land ranching; rather, the valley was held for a lengthy period by successive owners and was devoted to beef production for most years during the century before its transfer to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USF&WS) in 1985 for establishment of what became the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. The proximate reason for the creation of the refuge was habitat restoration to enable the (re)introduction of an iconic bird, the masked bobwhite, a species absent from the area since about 1900.

Again, in Sayre’s study, readers are acquainted with the prevailing struggle in the west over the presumed environmental effects of cattle grazing and their impacts on the health of the range and the native flora and fauna. In the view of bureaucrats who promoted the purchase and restoration program for the valley, the issue of grazing’s devastating effects and the incompatibility of cattle and certain native species was unquestioned. Although the reintroduction efforts aimed at reestablishing a viable population of masked bobwhite have been unsuccessful, the creation of the refuge as an attraction and wildlife viewing area continues to be promoted.

Sayre’s theoretical approach to the issues under discussion begins with David Harvey’s conceptualization of the built environment under capitalism, focusing on the accumulation function of capital. In assessing the impact of an increasingly urbanizing landscape in southern Arizona, he also employs Neil Smith’s notion of a “rent gap,” in which development for residential growth has displaced ranching, even in areas more remote from populated cities. This latter consideration is taken up in chapter 5 of the book and could easily constitute a study separate from the main thrust.

Another conceptual thread, one that, I confess, I am less persuaded by, is the invoking of Pierre Bourdieu’s formulation of “species of capital” in the form of symbolic, economic, and bureaucratic capitals, all of which are be given “value” by those who recognize and express them. Although introduced in the preface to the book, this notion is not consistently applied in Sayre’s discussion of the interplay among interests that are represented in the various transformations that the valley has undergone during the century under investigation. Only late in the study in a chapter dealing with touristic aspects of the refuge does he return to the topic of wildlife as bureaucratic capital.

The strength of the book lies in its earlier chapters, wherein the story of cattle ranching in the valley is treated in a manner that illustrates the uneven and changeable approaches employed, not only toward enhanced production but also toward environmental conservation. The connection to economic forces outside the region is also carefully drawn in this account, which details the role of speculators in cattle and, later, in real estate. The groundwork for the entry of USF&WS into the picture is, thus, well presented.

A problem with the study is the chapter that variously touches on aspects of the present state of the refuge, including tourism. If the intention of establishing the refuge has been to restore “nature” and to present this fictive representation for the enjoyment of a public that increasingly seeks such attractions, it requires of this study a more careful examination of how that is being undertaken and accomplished. Instead, the account is piecemeal and fragmented, typified by an 11-page ethnography of bird-watching. If this is to be the demonstration of the utility of examining “symbolic capital,” it falls short.

Both of the studies under review are thoroughly researched and documented. The authors have presented insights that suggest further examination of the continuing problems of private use and government management in the wild, and not so wild, lands of the west. The complementarity of the two studies lies in their attention to the most vexing issues that have beset land use and management in the region for over a century—the competing interests of productive activity and public values, the latter encompassing environmental conservation, habitat maintenance, species protection, and tourism. In taking readers through the history of relations between stockmen and the federal government, in one case, and in narrowing the focus to the single instance of a remote valley, in the other case, Merrill and Sayre enrich a literature that has grown rapidly as researchers seek understandings of the west that go beyond popular myth and stereotype.