Her latest book, TRUE WEST: MYTH AND MENDING ON THE FAR SIDE OF AMERICA, was published this Fall by Torrey House Press. She received a doctorate in Environmental History from Montana State University in 2017, her dissertation focused on Mormon settlement and public land conflicts. She has studied various religious traditions over the years, with particular attention to how cultures view landscape and wildlife. The rural American west, pastoral communities of northern Mongolia, and the grasslands of East Africa have been her main areas of interest. She is the president of the Board of Directors of Wild Earth Guardians.
Although TRUE WEST focuses primarily on the intermountain west, what goes on in this region is having tremendous effect on our national politics and well-being. Just two days ago, the Colorado Supreme Court decided in favor of a suit brought by CO Republican and unaffiliated voters, working with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, CREW, against CO Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Donald J. Trump, taking advantage of a CO law that allows voters to challenge a candidate’s eligibility. In this case the eligibility was challenged under Section 3 of the 14th amendment, claiming that the former president had engaged insurrection , based on his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack by his supporters at his urging. As you will hear in this interview with Betsy Gaines Quammen, recorded in the Beyond the Deep End Studio on the Winter Solstice of 2023, extremist organizing in this region over more than a decade contributed to that insurrection. We share it with you now.
Stuart A. Reid is an executive editor at Foreign Affairs magazine, and his book, THE LUMUMBA PLOT: THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE CIA AND A COLD WAR ASSASSINATION, is published by Knopf. You might wonder why we would focus on events in The Congo back in 1960, when there is so much happening right now.
Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, writes: “This is the book we’ve needed for years: a thorough, judicious, eloquent account of one of the twentieth century’s pivotal moments. Patrice Lumumba’s murder was a tragedy not just for his young and troubled country, but also for the way it stimulated Washington’s illusion that America could rearrange the world to its liking. Stuart Reid captures this ominous turning point with the clear-eyed wisdom it deserves.”
Beyond any of these considerations, the story of Patrice Lumumba is the tragic, heroic tale of a man born into dismal, colonial circumstances, with the indomitable thirst for knowledge and the chutzpah and savvy to rise to become the first prime minister of his country, the former Belgian Congo, and who, within within mere months is assassinated under the direction of the CIA.
Our guest, Stuart Reid, spent 6 years researching and writing this very engaging narrative. In addition to my appreciation of that, I am doubly grateful to him, because after engaging in an hour long interview, which I was then horrified to discover had not been recorded for unknown reasons, he graciously agreed to do a second interview, which I offer to you now.
Articles, etc., pertinent to this interview:
Stuart A. Reid is an executive editor at Foreign Affairs magazine, and his book, THE LUMUMBA PLOT: THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE CIA AND A COLD WAR ASSASSINATION, is published by Knopf. You might wonder why we would focus on events in The Congo back in 1960, when there is so much happening right now. Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, writes: “This is the book we’ve needed for years: a thorough, judicious, eloquent account of one of the twentieth century’s pivotal moments. Patrice Lumumba’s murder was a tragedy not just for his young and troubled country but also for the way it stimulated Washington’s illusion that America could rearrange the world to its liking. Stuart Reid captures this ominous turning point with the clear-eyed wisdom it deserves.” Furthermore, Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens, said this in a recent interview with Ari Melber about why it’s important to study history.
Beyond any of these considerations, the story of Patrice Lumumba is the tragic, heroic tale of a man born into dismal, colonial circumstances, with the indomitable thirst for knowledge and the chutzpah and savvy to rise to become the first prime minister of his country, the former Belgian Congo, and who, within within mere months is assassinated under the direction of the CIA. Our guest, Stuart Reid, spent 6 years researching and writing this very engaging narrative. In addition to my appreciation of that, I am doubly grateful to him, because after engaging in an hour long interview, which I was then horrified to discover had not been recorded for unknown reasons, he graciously agreed to do a second interview, which I offer to you now.
LUMUMBA (2001) From the director of I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO. Made in the tradition of such true-life political thrillers as Malcolm X and JFK, Raoul Peck’s award-winning LUMUMBA is a gripping epic that dramatizes for the first time the rise and fall of legendary African leader Patrice Lumumba. When the Congo declared its independence from Belgium in 1960, Lumumba became the first Prime Minister of the newly independent state. Called “the politico of the bush” by journalists of the day, he became a lightning rod of Cold War politics as his vision of a united Africa gained him powerful enemies in Belgium and the U.S. “Peck, who assayed Lumumba’s life in a 1991 documentary, now paces the doomed man’s story like the genuine thriller that it is.” – Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly Available for free on Kanopy.
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