Among American conservatives, the right to own property free from the meddling hand of the state is one of the most sacred rights of all. But the in the American West, the federal government owns and oversees vast patches of land, complicating the narrative of western individualism and private property rights. Hence anti-federal government sentiment, often in the name of private property rights, has animated conservative politics in the West for decades upon decades.
In This Land Is My Land, James R. Skillen tells the story of conservative rebellion against federal land management in the America West over the last forty years, which has ranged from legal action to armed confrontations. He traces the most recent waves of conservative rebellion against federal land authority-the Sagebrush Rebellion (1979-1982), the War for the West (1991-2000), and the Patriot Rebellion (2009-2016)-and shows how they evolved from a regional rebellion waged by westerners with material interests in federal lands to a national rebellion against the federal administrative state. Cumulatively, Skillen's account explains how the civil religion and constitutional nationalism in which ranchers, miners, and other traditional federal land users became powerful symbols of conservative American and how federal land issues became inseparably linked to property rights, gun rights, and religious express.
Not just a book about property rights battles over western lands, This Land is My Land reveals how evolving rebellions in the west provide insight for understanding the conservative coalition that elected President Donald J. Trump in 2016.
