Rocky Mountain Constitution Making 1850-1912.

Bakken addresses important issues of constitutional history in the context of a seminal period in the history of the American West. He describes the challenges which faced the participants in eight Western constitutional conventions. His analysis answers questions of how consensus was reached and how that consensus reflected the compromise between the particular needs of the states and fundamental principles.

Bakken outlines the issues of public policy which the constitution makers faced: issues ranging from resource allocation and taxation to the role of corporations in the community. He also explains how the delegates attempted to express the values of their constituencies while striving to define the concept of the public good.

Review: ? Aptly timed to appear in the bicentennial year of the US Constitution, Bakken's book on the conventions of eight mountain states (Nevada, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Idaho), between 1850 and 1910, is an excellent addition to any library, especially in the West.

The book examines the territorial experiences, environmental influences, and dynamic personalities that shaped these state constitutions. The emphasis is on broad regional policy concerns (e.g., taxation on mining, women's suffrage, labor and corporate rights, and water).... Bakken concludes, in opposition to some legal theorists, including Morton Horwitz, that these state constitutions illustrate a recurrence to fundamental principles of the founding period.' Bakken (history, California State University, Fullerton), worked closely with noted legal scholar William Hurst (Wisconsin), and is well versed in this field, having written Development of Law on the Rocky Mountain Frontier (1983).

The work is short and limited in scope, but full of details on this narrow subject; it contains 50 pages of notes and bibliography.... Upper-division undergraduates in American history and government will find Bakken's book useful in understanding both the roots of the republic and the fibre of the frontier. '?-Choice