Colony & Empire October 24 Class Colony & Empire, by William G. Robbins, is a collection of essays on the capitalist transformation of the American West. In his view, ". . . capitalism provides structure, coherent organization, and a unifying theme for discussing change in the American West during the last two centuries." (p. xii) Robbins argues that the story of the development of the West is about how it became integrated into a global economic system during a time of world-wide expansion of corporate capitalism. Hampered by the lack of indigenous capital but blessed with an abundance of natural resources, the West provided an ideal environment for the exploitive capitalist system.

Robbins breaks sharply from the lingering theory of western triumphal exceptionalism that finds high principle and a grand design in the westward movement. At the same time he takes issue with authors of "the innovative social and environmental histories of recent years," who he finds have overlooked the centrality of the issues of power and political relationships in the world of capitalism. He proceeds to analyze the application of capitalist practices to the West and their revolutionary effects on western society.

Robbins is definitely not an apologist for capitalism. He describes its corrosive and destructive impacts on western society as market forces concentrated wealth and power in the hands of a few individuals and corporate organizations while impoverishing small landowners and laborers and damaging the environment. He traces the role of the railroads in opening up the territory and promoting the extractive industries. Mining and lumbering are prime examples of the damaging exploitation of capitalism, which destroys even as it creates in a repetitive cycle of expansion, accumulation, and depression. Eastern and European capitalists controlled the process leaving westerners dependent on outsiders and vulnerable to external forces and events in remote places.

This books fills some gaps in our reading by expanding analysis of the economic forces driving the western experience. The story of the capitalist impact on the environment fits well with Patricia Limerick's theme of "conquest." While she did not use the term "capitalism," she described the story of the west as a "contest for propperty and profit." Robbins' accounts of the mining industry experience presents a sharp contrast between the mining barons of industry and the miners of Roaring Camp. Robbins emphasizes the prominent individual capitalists who made their mark on the west, while Susan Johnson writes history from the bottom up, focussing on the ordinary people in mining camp society. Those miners, of course, were driven by the profit motive and thus were capitalists themselves.  ¶ 1:05 PM