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Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country . By Marsha Weisiger. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010. 418 pp., $35.00, hardback, ISBN 978-0-295-98881-8.
During the Great Depression, as the Dust Bowl ravaged the Great Plains, many New Dealers blamed the denuded landscape of the Southwest on the Navajo, particularly their alleged practices of overgrazing and their perceived inability to mediate or understand the problem. In contrast, the Navajos (Diné) faulted climate and the hubris of the US government's enlightened paternalism. Since then, Navajos and scholars have often cited the subsequent government-mandated livestock reduction program as one of the most tragic memories in Indian history, challenging the notion that John Collier, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and his Indian New Deal were policy panaceas. While past accounts have either emphasized the view...