The Backbone of the World: A Portrait of a Vanishing Way of Life Along the Continental Divide

by Frank Clifford

Release Date: 14 May, 2002

Edition: Hardcover

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Reporter gets embedded in the Rockies

Clifford is a journalist and it shines through in this book. His observations are clear and unbiased. In fact, there are few stories where he's not riding a horse, sitting in a pick-up truck or walking with an outfitter or cowboy. The stories jump all over the map along the Continental Divide of the United States. One moment you're taken for a morning coyote hunt outside of Jeffrey City, WY and the next plunged into a gathering on the Blackfeet Reservation.

The geography he travels is seen through the eyes of the long time residents who are rooted in the land. Their fortune at the mercy of the natural forces that get bigger, stronger, and more unpredictable the deeper you go into the terrain. The natural forces of weather and wildlife are but one part of the picture that Clifford paints. What makes this book unique is the author's ability to put each story in a larger context.

For the Western United States that larger context is... change. Sensing this change, Clifford takes us to meet people that are fighting to hold-on to a uniquely Western life-style. A life-style as honest and straightforward as the writing in this book.

I was pleasantly enlightened

I was given this book by a friend. It was a surprise from the beginning to the end. I can't recommend this book enough. I live in the Rocky Mountains and see what is happening all around me in the "Last Best Place." I expected the environmental writer from the LA Times to write this book with a prejudiced point of view and?probably my own point of view. Instead it was so insightful, to so many different walks of life and belief systems that I was amazed in every chapter. I work for the park service and read the chapter on "Action Jackson" with great interest and know about the conflicts of that situation and still Mr. Clifford amazed me with his sensitivity to the people involved. This book, for the first time made me see the way people of many different backgrounds from mine view the wilderness, not necessarily all bad, not necessarily all destructive, just different. The author is a teacher of tolerance and we all need more of that in this time and in this world. I cannot recommend this book any more highly. I will buy it and give it to many people. I was inspired to not give up the fight to save the American west. Thankyou Frank Clifford.