American dance legend Willam Christensen founded Ballet West with the help of Utah's "First Lady of the Arts," Glenn Walker Wallis. Born out of the University of Utah's ballet department, it was, at its founding, the only professional ballet company between Chicago and the West Coast. It quickly became one of the leading companies in the nation ......
Hohokam Rock Art, Ritual Practice, and Social Transformation
The petroglyphs and pictographs of the American Southwest are intriguing, but we commonly ask what they "mean". Religion on the Rocks redirects our attention to the equally important matter of what compelled ancient peoples to craft rock art in the first place. To examine this question, Aaron Wright presents a case study from Arizona's South ......
Around 1700 AD the Lacandon Maya took refuge in the forest lowlands of Chiapas, Mexico, and in western Peten, Guatemala. They were never conquered by the Spanish and thus maintained many of their cultural practices well into the twentieth century. Their language belongs to the Yucatecan branch of the Maya language, a branch that is believed to ......
Why do quaking aspens grow in prominent clumps rather than randomly scattered across the landscape? Why and how does a rufous hummingbird drop its metabolism to one-hundredth of its normal rate? Why do bull elk grow those enormous antlers? Using his experience as a biologist and ecologist, George Constantz illuminates these and other remarkable ......
In Outlawing Genocide Denial, historian and political scientist Guenter Lewy scrutinizes the controversial practice of criminalizing genocide denial. Holocaust denial can be viewed as another form of hatred against Jews and restricting it can be understood as a way of preventing hate speech. Germany has made it a crime punishable by law. Other ......
The Battle of the Little Bighorn is one of the best-known events in the history of the American West. Questions surrounding Custer's fate have been discussed and researched at length, but details about the transportation and logistics of military supplies have not been thoroughly investigated. Archaeologist Gerald Clark stumbled upon the remnants ......
A Hiking and Natural History Guide to the Central Wasatch
Utah's Wasatch Mountains, with three wilderness areas and hundreds of miles of trails, offer treasures of outdoor opportunities within easy reach of nearly a million people. Yet the steep rugged terrain can seem intimidating to new hikers, and many parts of the Wasatch are relatively unknown and seldom visited. John Veranth has hiked all over ......
Zion National Park is one of North America's most-visited and best-loved national parks. For the first time, lovers of the park have in one volume the best that has been written about the canyon. A Zion Canyon Reader is a collection of historical and literary accounts that presents diverse perspectives on Zion Canyon - and the surrounding southern ......
Lily Nakai and her family lived in Southern California, where sometimes she and a friend dreamt of climbing the Hollywood sign that lit the night. At age ten, after believing that her family was simply going on a camping trip, she found herself living in a tar-papered barrack, gazing out instead at the nightly searchlight. She wondered if anything ......
