Native Lands and the Northwestern Boom: John Dougherty's Book Heads to Print
The Dalles Dam on the Columbia River in 1973. (David Falconer, National Archive via Flickr Commons)
We are very pleased to announce that John J. Dougherty's book Flooded by Progress has been acquired by the University of Washington and is headed for publication as part of the Emil and Kathleen Sick Book Series in Western History and Biography. According to the publisher, the series "features scholarly books on the peoples and issues that have defined and shaped the American West." and "seeks to deepen and expand our understanding of the American West as a region and its role in the making of the United States and the modern world." Previous titles in this prestigious series include works written and/or edited by Richard White, Katrine Barber, Andrew H. Fisher, Lissa Wadewitz (a former Center scholar), John Findlay, Alexandra Harmon, Jen Corrine Brown and others.
John is in his second year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center, and is working on completing his manuscript, which began as his doctoral dissertation at the University of California, Berkeley. Here, he describes his forthcoming book:
Flooded by Progress: Law, Natural Resources, and Native Rights in the Postwar Pacific Northwest examines the politics of federal Indian law and the changing environmental landscape in the post-World War II Pacific Northwest. It argues that the changing legal status of Native lands and resources was instrumental in both the industrial expansion of the region and environmental changes brought by increased development of natural resources. It highlights how the region’s environmental and economic transformations inequitably burdened Native communities in the Pacific Northwest, from their loss of treaty rights and tribal status to the destruction of tribal lands and natural resources. However, the book also illuminates how Native communities actively navigated critical directions in Indian policy and became powerful stakeholders in regional environmental politics.
Please join us in congratulating John and in looking forward to his book's debut.
