Brenden W. Rensink

Historian of the North American West, Borderlands, Indigenous Peoples, and Environment

Scholarship & Publications

Available Books

2022

The North American West in the Twenty-First Century

Editor. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2022.

[Purchase here]

2019

Essays on American Indian and Mormon History.

Co-edited with P. Jane Hafen. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2019.

[Purchase here]

– Winner, 2020 Metcalfe Best Anthology Book Award, John Whitmer Historical Association

2018

Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands.
Connecting the Greater West Series. College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2018.
[Purchase here]        [Follow on Facebook Here] 

– Winner, 2019 Spur Award for the Best Historical Nonfiction Book from the Western Writers of America.
– January 2019 Great Plains Book of the Month, Center for Great Plains Studies

2017

The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Vol. 6: February 1838 – August 1839.
Salt Lake City: The Church Historian’s Press, 2017. Co-editors, Mark Ashurst-McGee and David Grua.
[Purchase here]

2016

The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Vol. 4: April 1834 – October 1835.
Salt Lake City: The Church Historian’s Press, 2016.  Co-editor, Matthew Godfrey.
[Purchase here]

2015

Historical Dictionary of the American Frontier
Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015. Co-author, Jay H. Buckley.
[Purchase here] 

(Info and Reviews here)

Editorial Roles, Public History Projects, and Consulting:

  • 2024-present
    • Series Editor, “Histories of the North American West,” University of New Mexico Press
  • 2022-present
    • Scholarly Advisor Group Member, Museum of Utah
  • 2018-present
  • 2016-present
  • 2021-2022
    • Historical Consultant, Mazamas
  • 2018-2019
    • Historical Consultant, Native American Rights Fund

Book Chapters, Anthology Contributions:

  • 2025
    • “Indigenous Peoples and the Early Church: What the Joseph Smith Papers Do and Do Not Reveal,” in J. Chase Kirkham, Brent M. Rogers, and Matthew S. McBride, eds., (Re)Assessing the Narrative: The Joseph Smith Papers and Latter-day Saint History. Brigham Young University Press, 2025.
  • 2024
    • “Writing Essays on American Indian and Mormon History,” co-authored with P. Jane Hafen, in Joseph W. Geisner, ed., Writing Mormon History 2: Authors’ Stories Behind Their Works, 401-410. Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 2024.
  •  2022
    • “Introduction: Updating “Modern West” Histories for the 21st Century,” in Brenden W. Rensink, ed. The North American West in the 21st Century. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2022.
  • 2019
    • ‘A Candid Investigation’: Concluding Observations and Future Directions,” in P. Jane Hafen and Brenden W. Rensink, eds., Essays on American Indian and Mormon History, 246-254. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2019.
    • “Introduction,” co-authored with P. Jane Hafen, in P. Jane Hafen and Brenden W. Rensink, eds., Essays on American Indian and Mormon History, xi-xx.  Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2019.
  • 2011
    • “Cree Contraband or Contraband Crees: Early Montanan Experiences with Transnational Natives and the Formation of Lasting Prejudice, 1880-1885.” In Smugglers, Brothels, and Twine: Historical Perspectives on Contraband and Vice in North America’s Borderlands, Andrae Marak and Elaine Carey, eds., 24-43.  Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011.
    • “Genocide of Native Americans: Historical Facts and Historiographic Debates.” In Genocide of Indigenous Peoples, Vol. 8 in Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Series, Samuel Totten and Robert Hitchcock, eds., 15-36.  New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2011.
  • 2008
    • “Nebraska and Kansas Territories in American Legal Culture: Territorial Statutory Context.” In The Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854, John R. Wunder and Joann E. Ross, eds, 47-66. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2008.

 Journal Articles:

  • 2023
    • “Intermountain Histories and the Promises and Perils of Collaborative Projects: A Public History Report from the Field.” Utah Historical Quarterly 91, no. 3, (Summer 2023): 239-243. https://doi.org/10.5406/26428652.91.3.06
  •  2021
  • 2020
    • “Indigenous Peoples and North American Immigration History: A Historiographical Essay.” The Immigration and Ethnic History Newsletter LII, no. 1 (Summer 2020): 1, 6-7. 2,000 words.
  • 2010
    • “‘If a Passage Could be Found’:  The Power of Myth (and Money) in North American Exploration.”  We Proceeded On (May 2010): 8-17.
  • 2009
    • “Pursuing Wicozani (the Good Way of Life): Functional Adaptations through Dakota Lifeways,” coauthors Matthew Garrett, Joseph M. White, Sr., Adam Galovan and Kathryn Akipa.  AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 5 (Fall 2009): 108-125.
    • “The Transnational Immigrant-Refugee Experience of Mexican Yaquis and Canadian Chippewa-Crees in Arizona and Montana.” Journal of the West 48 (Summer 2009): 12-19.
    • “The Sand Creek Phenomenon: The Complexity and Difficulty of Undertaking a Comparative Study of Genocide vis-à-vis the North American West.”  Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal 4:1 (Spring 2009): 9-27.
    • 2004
      • “The Myth of an Easy Passage to the Far East.” The Thetean 32 (2004): 111-130.

  Book Reviews:

  • 2024
    • Slavery in Zion: A Documentary and Genealogical History of Black Lives & Black Servitude in Utah Territory, 1847-1862, by Amy Tanner Thiriot. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, forthcoming.
    • Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America, by Michael John Witgen. The Journal of American History,
    • Indigenous Borderlands: Native Agency, Resilience, and Power in the Americas, by Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez. Bulletin of Latin American Research, forthcoming.
    • Paradise Blues: Travels Through American Environmental History, by Christof Mauch. Choice 61, 12 (August 2024). https://www.choiceconnect.org/review/magprint/235195
    • Converging Empires: Citizens and Subjects in the North Pacific Borderlands, 1867–1945, by Andrea Geiger. American Historical Review 129, Issue 2 (June 2024): 730-732.
    • Guardians of the Valley: John Muir and the Friendship that Saved Yosemite, by Dean King. Choice 51, Issue 7 (March 2024). https://www.choiceconnect.org/review/magprint/233324
  • 2023
  •  2022
    • Making a Modern U.S. West: The Contested Terrain of a Region and its Borders, 1898-1940,” by Sarah Deutsch. Annals of Wyoming, (Summer 2022): 45-46.
    • Violence and Indigenous Communities: Confronting the Past and Engaging the Present, by Susan Sleeper Smith, Jeffrey Ostler, and Joshua L. Reid, eds. Journal of American History 109 (September 2022): 411-412.
  • 2021
    • A Line of Blood and Dirt: Creating the Canada-United States Border across Indigenous Lands, by Benjamin Hoy. Canadian Journal of History / Annales Canadiennes d’Histoire 56 (Winter 2021): 420-422.
  • 2019
    • Empire’s Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad, by Manu Karuka. H-Diplomatic, November, 2019. https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=54313
    • Are We Not Foreigners Here? Indigenous Nationalism in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, Journal of American Ethnic History 38 (Summer 2019): 91-92.
  • 2018
    • Why You Can’t Teach U.S. History without American Indians, Susan Sleeper-Smith, et. al, eds, Native American and Indigenous Studies 5 (Spring 2018): 269-270.
  • 2017
    •  So Far and yet So Close: Frontier Cattle Ranching in Western Prairie Canada and the Northern Territory of Australia, by Warren M. Elofson. Journal of the West 54 (Fall 2017): 111-112.
    • Food Control and Resistance, by Tamara Levi, Journal of American History 104 (3): 775-776.
  • 2016
    • Territories of Empire: U.S. Writing form the Louisiana Purchase to Mexican Independence, by Andy Doolen, Journal of American History 103 (September 2016): 471-472.
    • The Memory of Stone: Meditations on the Canyons of the West, by Erv Schroeder, Bill McKibben, Marcia Bjornerud, and Simon J. Ortiz, Journal of the West 55 (Summer 2016): 85.
    •  Native Diasporas: Indigenous Identities and Settler Colonialism in the Americas, edited by Gregory D. Smithers & Brooke N. Newman, Journal of the West 55 (Summer 2016): 85.
    • From Treaty Peoples to Treaty Nation: A Road Map for All Canadians, by Greg Poelzer and Ken S. Coates, Great Plains Research 26 (Fall 2016): 141.
    • Bootleggers and Borders: The Paradox of Prohibition on a Canada-U.S. Borderlands, by Stephen T. Moore, Montana: The Magazine of Western History 66 (Spring 2016): 77-78.
    • The Mapmakers of New Zion: A Cartographic History of Mormonism, by Richard Francaviglia, Journal of Arizona History 57 (Spring 2016): 98-99.
    • Colonial Genocide in Indigenous North America, edited by Andrew Woolford, Jeff Benvenuto, and Alexander Laban Hinton, Ethnohistory, 63 (Spring 2016): 415-416.
    • Trout Culture: How Fly Fishing Forever Changed the Rocky Mountain West, by Jen Corrinne Brown, Journal of the West 55 (Winter 2016): 113-14.
    • Showdown in the Big Quiet: Land, Myth, and Government in the American West, by John P. Bieter, Jr., Journal of the West 55 (Winter 2016): 113.
  • 2015
    • Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life, by James Daschuk. Historical Geography 43 (2015): 7-9.
    • Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library, website review, Western Historical Quarterly 46 (Autumn 2015): 399-400.
    • Framing Chief Leschi: Narratives and the Politics of Historical Justice, by Lisa Blee. Journal of American History 101 (March 2015): 1228-1229.
    • The Sea is Our Country, by Joshua Reid. Pacific Northwest Quarterly 106 (3): 140.
  • 2014
    • Recognition, Sovereignty Struggles, and Indigenous Rights in the United States: A Sourcebook, edited by Amy E Den Ouden and Jean M. O’Brien.  Journal of the West 53 (Spring 2014): 84.
    • Mapping Wonderlands: Illustrated Cartography of Arizona, 1912-1962, by Dori Griffin.  Journal of the West 53 (Winter 2014): 95.
    • Warrior Nations: The United States and Indian Peoples, by Roger L. Nichols.  The Journal of Arizona History 55 (Winter 2014): 507-508.
    • Blackfoot Redemption: A Blood Indian’s Story of Murder, Confinement, and Imperfect Justice, by William Farr.  Ethnohistory 61 (Spring 2014): 370-372.
    • At the Border of Empires, by Andrae M. Marak and Laura Tuennerman.  The Catholic Historical Review 100 (Spring 2014): 383-384.
    • Comparative Indigeneities of the Américas: Toward a Hemispheric Approach, edited by M. Bianet Castellanos, Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera, and Arturo J. Aldama.  American Indian Quarterly 38 (Spring 2014): 277-280.
  • 2013
    • Kearny’s March: The Epic Creation of the American West, 1846-1847, by Winston Groom.  Military History of the West 42 (2013): 41-42.
    • Pacific Connections: The Making of the U.S.-Canadian Borderlands, by Kornel Chang.  Journal of American Ethnic History 33, no. 1 (Fall 2013): 94-95.
    • Murder State: California’s Native American Genocide, 1846-1873, by Brendan C. Lindsay.  Western Historical Quarterly 44 (Autumn 2013): 339.
    • The Invasion of Indian Country in the Twentieth Century: American Capitalism and Tribal Natural Resources, Second Edition, by Donald L. Fixico.  New Mexico Historical Review 88 (Spring 2013): 236-237.
    • Migrants and Migration in Modern North America: Cross-Border Lives, Labor Markets, and Politics, edited by Dirk Hoerder and Nora Faires.  Canadian Journal of History / Annales Canadiennes d’Histoire 47 (Spring 2013): 676-679.
  • 2012
    • Storied Landscapes: Ethno-Religious Identity and the Canadian Prairies, by Frances Swyripa.  Journal of the West 50 (Fall 2011): 83-84.
    • Troubled Trails: The Meeker Affair and the Expulsion of Utes from Colorado, by Robert Silbernagel. Montana: The Magazine of Western History (Spring 2012): 81-82.
  • 2010
    • Undermining Race: Ethnic Identities in Arizona Copper Camps, 1880-1920, by Phylis Cancilla Martinelli.  Journal of the West 49 (Fall 2010): 88.
    • A Gift of Angels: The Art of Mission San Xavier del Bac, by Bernard L. Fontana.  Journal of the West 49 (Fall 2010): 85.

 Blog Contributions:

Non-Refereed Publications:

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