Shadowlands
Fear and Freedom at the Oregon Standoff
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- €21.99
Publisher Description
Los Angeles Times Bestseller
An "epic exploration" of the 2016 right-wing Oregon Occupation-"an excellent microcosm by which we might better understand our difficult national history and distressing political moment" (Maggie Nelson).
In 2016, a group of armed, divinely inspired right-wing protestors led by Ammon Bundy occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in the high desert of eastern Oregon. Encamped in the shadowlands of the republic, insisting that the Federal government had no right to own public land, the occupiers were seen by a divided country as either dangerous extremists dressed up as cowboys, or as heroes insisting on restoring the rule of the Constitution. From the Occupation's beginnings, to the trials of the occupiers in federal court in downtown Portland and their tumultuous aftermaths, Shadowlands is the resonant, multifaceted story of one of the most dramatic flashpoints in the year that gave us Donald Trump.
Sharing the expansive stage with the occupiers are a host of others-Native American tribal leaders, public-lands ranchers, militia members, environmentalists, federal defense attorneys, and Black Lives Matter activists-each contending in their different ways with the meaning of the American promise of Liberty. Gathering into its vortex the realities of social media technology, history, religion, race, and the environment-this piercing work by Anthony McCann offers us a combination of beautiful writing and high-stakes analysis of our current cultural and political moment. Shadowlands is a clarifying, exhilarating story of a nation facing an uncertain future and a murky past in a time of great collective reckoning.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Poet McCann (Thing Music) presents a riveting in-depth investigation into the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by armed right-wing protesters determined to wrest control of the land from the government. The setting, which McCann renders with a poet's precision ("sun-crisped juniper fecund muck"), is Harney County, Ore., where Ammon and Ryan Bundy, sons of rancher Cliven, assembled like-minded militia members to undertake an armed occupation of the refuge to protest the idea of federal management and conservation of public lands, rather than allowing them to be used for logging and cattle-grazing. The monthlong occupation reached a climax with the shooting death of Bundy follower LaVoy Finicum by FBI agents and the remaining protestors' subsequent surrender. McCann then documents the carnival-like atmosphere at the protestors' conspiracy trials. He portrays his characters vividly, Ammon in particular, describing his oratory style as "theo-legalistic" and casting a "spell of urgency." He provides context on the underlying motivations of the protesters "bitterly hanging on to the last threads of privilege" in an increasingly diverse America, and the broader history: Manifest Destiny and the atrocities inflicted upon Native Americans, Joseph Smith's writings (the Bundys are Mormon), and Thomas Jefferson's often contradictory ideas about government and rebellion. McCann's arresting and brilliant firsthand account is required reading for anyone interested in the ideological gap between the American Left and Right.
