[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-116626-en":3,"doc-seo-116626-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":4,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":27,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},116626,687197207057,"Sage","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_29158cc5080c5b710cf443261637dec0",8,"Research & Report","This land - how cowboys, capitalism, and corruption are ruining the American West","A West-focused investigation traces how public lands and the American West are being reshaped through cowboys’ frontier legacies, capitalism’s expansion, and political corruption. The narrative frames open spaces as both a rare social experiment and a fragile ecological commons, contrasting privatized landscapes in the East with the still-public vastness of western states. It examines land use practices, environmental degradation, and the threats to access and stewardship, centering public trust agencies and the forces that undermine them.","[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nVIKING  \nAn imprint of Penguin Random House LLC  \n[penguinrandomhouse.com](penguinrandomhouse.com)  \nCopyright © 2019 by Christopher Ketcham  \nPenguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to  \ncontinue to publish books for every reader.  \nAcknowledgments to the original publishers of portions of this book appear on this page.  \nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data  \nNames: Ketcham, Christopher, 1973– author.  \nTitle: This land : how cowboys, capitalism, and corruption are ruining the American West / Christopher Ketcham. Description: New York : Viking, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2019002212 (print) | LCCN 2019018042 (ebook) | ISBN 9780735221000 (ebook) | ISBN 9780735220980 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: West (U. S.)—Environmental conditions. | Public lands—West (U. S.) | Environmental degradation—West (U. S.) | Capitalism—Environmental aspects—United States. | Political corruption—Environmental aspects—United States. | Environmentalists—West (U. S.)—Biography. | Ketcham, Christopher,  \n1973—Travel—West (U. S.) | West (U. S.)—Description and travel.  \nClassification: LCC GE155.W47 (ebook) | LCC GE155.W47 K47 2019 (print) | DDC 333. 730978—dc23 LC record available at [https://lccn.loc.gov/2019002212](https://lccn.loc.gov/2019002212)  \nVersion_1  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nFor my daughters, Léa and Josie, and for our mother, the earth  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nCONTENTS  \nTITLE PAGE COPYRIGHT DEDICATION MAP  \nPART I  \nBATTLE  \nPART II  \nBETRAYAL  \nPART III  \nRESISTANCE  \nACKNOWLEDGMENTS NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX ABOUT THE AUTHOR  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nPART I  \nBATTLE  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nCHAPTER 1  \nIn my book a pioneer is a man who turned all the grass upside down, strung bob-wire over the dust that was left, poisoned the water, cut down the trees, killed the Indian who owned the land, and called it progress. If I had my way, the land here would be like God made it, and none of you sons of bitches would be here at all.  \n—CHARLIE RUSSELL, the Cowboy Artist  \nI’  \nve been wandering the public lands trying to figure out what’s left of the wild in the West. Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, the states with the most public land, the big wide-open, what Woody  \nGuthrie was talking about when he sang of your land. It’s a gigantic experiment in socialism out west—who could have imagined it in the most capitalistic country on earth?—where everyone can say they own hundreds of millions of acres but no single person can claim it for themselves alone. This makes for high living. You can camp pretty much anywhere in some of the world’s loveliest places, at the bottoms of canyons and on the tops of mountains. Wherever you please, come along. Just don’t wreck it for the next person.  \nMostly I car-camp, living out of a tent, a tiny thing, enough room for meand one adult male wolf or two women or twenty-six weasels. Driving my rickety old Subaru, which gets me where I need between breakdowns, as slowly as possible, and trying not to think about the return east. Back there are the reasons I go west. The problem is the species common in the East, Homo urbanus iPhonicus, say in my native habitat in New York City. A creature clinched in its too-muchness and self-regard, staring at the unreality of screens, tripping over itself on the sidewalks, at turnstiles, in the museums, supermarkets, subways, wherever there’s a surfeit of glass, steel, concrete, the human sardine can.  \nIn the countryside of the East, the public lands are few. Whole mountains are privatized. Rivers and their banks","cbCaikcFzvRZHL7Y","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaikcFzvRZHL7Y","pdf",3061424,1,406,"English","en",105,"# Contents\n## Part I - Battle\n## Part II - Betrayal\n## Part III - Resistance\n## Chapter 1 - Battle","[{\"question\":\"What question drives the author’s journey across public lands in the West?\",\"answer\":\"The author searches to understand what remains of “the wild” in the West and what is happening to public lands over time.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the book contrast public land access between the East and the West?\",\"answer\":\"It describes the East as heavily privatized and sign-locked by fences and enforcement, while the West is portrayed as still allowing greater freedom to roam across large unprivatized spaces.\"},{\"question\":\"Which public land categories and managing agencies are highlighted for the West?\",\"answer\":\"The narrative distinguishes national parks as a small portion and focuses on roughly 450 million acres managed in trust by the BLM and the United States Forest Service.\"}]","This land - how cowboys, capitalism, and corruption are ruining the American West | PDF",1785661147,1023,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":28},"this-land-how-cowboys-capitalism-and-corruption-are-ruining-the-american-west","",{"@graph":36,"@context":85},[37,54,68],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,48,51],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":47},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":49,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":50},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":52,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":53},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/this-land-how-cowboys-capitalism-and-corruption-are-ruining-the-american-west/116626/",4,{"url":52,"name":13,"@type":55,"author":56,"headline":13,"publisher":58,"fileFormat":61,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":62,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":61,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":57},"Person",{"url":41,"name":59,"@type":60},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-08-02",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":4},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"What question drives the author’s journey across public lands in the West?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"The author searches to understand what remains of “the wild” in the West and what is happening to public lands over time.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"How does the book contrast public land access between the East and the West?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"It describes the East as heavily privatized and sign-locked by fences and enforcement, while the West is portrayed as still allowing greater freedom to roam across large unprivatized spaces.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"Which public land categories and managing agencies are highlighted for the West?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"The narrative distinguishes national parks as a small portion and focuses on roughly 450 million acres managed in trust by the BLM and the United States Forest Service.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":52,"og:type":87,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":59,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":89,"canonical":52},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":92},[93,97,101,105,110,115,120,123,128,131,135],{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":47,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":53,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":112,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":121,"slug":122},30,"research-report",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":127},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":126,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":130},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":133,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":134},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":136,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":137,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":138},19,"General","general"]