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WORK TITLE: Chosen Country
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 12-Dec
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE: NM
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born December 12.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author.
WRITINGS
Contributing editor for Vice.
Also contributor to City by City. Also contributor to periodicals, including New Republic, New Yorker, Granta, and New York Times Magazine.
SIDELIGHTS
James Pogue is most well known for his work as a writer. He can be found in anthologies, such as City by City, as well as periodicals like New Republic, The New Yorker, Granta, and New York Times Magazine. He also works with Vice, serving as the magazine’s contributing editor.
Pogue is also the author of Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West, which serves as his literary debut. Chosen Country centers on the events surrounding Ammon Bundy’s decision to take possession of a wildlife refuge in the state of Oregon—along with numerous supporters and armed weapons. Pogue happened to be covering the incident as a journalist and was able to witness much of what happened firsthand. As a result, Chosen Country also illustrates Pogue’s own experiences as he covers the standoff.
Ammon Bundy came from a ranching family that had long resided within the state of Oregon. For decades, ranchers all across the state had to contend with the land ownership laws put forth by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management as far as how much of the land they could use for their ranching efforts. Some ranchers were forced to pay in order to use the land they needed. As time wore on, resentment began to build. Bundy’s father, Cliven, decided to fight back against the government over the land he felt he should have had free access to. In the end, he was forced to surrender his cattle to the government after failing to pay the money he owed to allow them to graze. This event was a defining moment for Ammon Bundy’s viewpoint on the government and American land and, in addition to several other strikes against ranchers launched by the government, pushed Ammon to form a group meant to stop the government once and for all: Malheur occupation.
Throughout his attempts to learn more about the incident, Pogue was able to talk directly to Ammon Bundy, as well as several other participants. Many of their direct quotes feature within the book. Based on his conversations with the perpetrators, Pogue is able to better illustrate why the standoff developed as it did, and his main thesis becomes that Bundy chose to take over the refuge as a means of taking back American land from a government who repossessed it through unlawful means. In addition to his coverage of the event in and of itself, Pogue also addresses the chronology of similar events throughout history regarding government ownership of specific areas of land. He also goes over the timeline of the Western region of the United States, in order to better explain the source of the conflict between the American government and Bundy. In portraying the time he spent with Bundy, Pogue hopes to shed more light on how and why the incident occurred and to expose more of Bundy’s humanity than what is typically portrayed by other sources. Pogue documents his own sense of coming to a better understanding of Bundy’s point of view as he spends time with him throughout the book’s events. One Kirkus Reviews contributor remarked that “[c]ourageous on-site reporting underlies all, outweighing some excess and irrelevance.” In an issue of Booklist, Dan Kaplan stated: “Pogue was able to portray the central characters with more dimension than found in news accounts.” A reviewer in Publishers Weekly felt that “Pogue manages to shows the humanity of his subjects.” On the NPR website, Michael Schaub wrote: “Pogue does an exceptional job of explaining how one of the most bizarre and divisive events in recent U.S. history came to pass.” He also called Chosen Country “remarkably evenhanded.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 15, 2018, Dan Kaplan, review of Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West, p. 14.
Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2018, review of Chosen Country.
Publishers Weekly, January 1, 2018, review of Chosen Country, p. 47.
ONLINE
James Pogue website, https://www.jameshensonpogue.com (June 17, 2018), author profile.
Macmillan, https://us.macmillan.com/ (June 17, 2018), author profile.
NPR, https://www.npr.org/ (May 23, 2018), Michael Schaub, “Long-Simmering Rage Leads To Rebellion In ‘Chosen Country,'” review of Chosen Country.
JAMES POGUE
James Pogue
Glenna Gordon
James Pogue has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Granta, the New Republic, and Vice, where he is a contributing editor. His work has been anthologized in n+1’s City by City. He lives in New Mexico. Chosen Country is his first book.
About
James Pogue has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Granta, the New Republic, and Vice, where he is a contributing editor. His work has been anthologized in n+1’s City by City. He lives in New Mexico. Chosen Country is his first book.
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Print Marked Items
Pogue, James: CHOSEN COUNTRY
Kirkus Reviews.
(Mar. 15, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Pogue, James CHOSEN COUNTRY Henry Holt (Adult Nonfiction) $28.00 5, 22 ISBN: 978-1-250-16912-
9
A contributing editor for Vice delivers on-the-scene, first-person accounts of the Western standoffs
involving the Bundy family and their followers.
Pogue, a freelancer for the New York Times Magazine at the time, takes us with him inside the armed camp
of those who were protesting the Bureau of Land Management--and the government in general--during the
confrontations with the feds in Oregon early in 2016. He met and interviewed the Bundys, became close
with a number of those encamped at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and felt his emotions ebb and
flow, darken and lighten. A young man from Cincinnati, the author does not ignore his own youthful
passions and weaknesses, including accounts of his drinking, drug use, sexual adventures, lassitude, and
wanderlust. But he is interested principally in understanding the players in the movement led by the
charismatic Ammon Bundy. Some, says Pogue, considered Bundy a prophet (many involved were
Mormons), and the author is deeply sympathetic to the notion of increasing public access to public lands.
He describes one experience, walking around a New Mexico site, camping, drinking, and firing his gun. (He
had bought a big truck and some firearms and confesses a long fondness for both.) Pogue does allow some
of his stories to drift past the point of interest, and throughout, he criticizes liberals who, in his view, don't
get what's going on in the West but nonetheless, in ignorance, disdain it all. He also blasts--again and again-
-what he sees as the blindness of many Westerners who do not recognize the white male power that lies
quietly behind so many of these issues. If public lands are sold off and used for mining and other endeavors,
who will benefit? And who will suffer?
Courageous on-site reporting underlies all, outweighing some excess and irrelevance.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Pogue, James: CHOSEN COUNTRY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Mar. 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A530650574/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=93c32b2c.
Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A530650574
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Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West
Dan Kaplan
Booklist.
114.14 (Mar. 15, 2018): p14.
COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West.
By James Pogue.
May 2018. 304p. Holt, $28 (9781250169129). 973.
Pogue, a journalist and raconteur, provides a firsthand account of the 2016 anti-government standoff at
Oregon's Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. To help readers understand the motivations behind the
occupation, Pogue relays his encounters with Ammon Bundy, the charismatic rancher-leader of the
rebellion, and other followers who believe that government agencies acted unconstitutionally by controlling
public lands. A member of a well-known activist family, Bundy, who is very media-sawy, allowed Pogue
unfettered access during the occupation. Protesting the treatment of two local ranchers, and under a guise of
patriotism coupled with the Mormon belief that the Constitution is divinely inspired, Bundy's supporters
took over the refuge. Paranoia about the FBI storming the encampment turned serious as the bureau set up
surveillance of the park and nearby town. Pogue's personal anecdotes and brief history of western land-use
conflicts add flavor and context to his chronicle of the standoff, which ended with one dead protester and
others under arrest. Although he did not agree with their tactics, Pogue was able to portray the central
characters with more dimension than found in news accounts.--Dan Kaplan
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Kaplan, Dan. "Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West." Booklist, 15 Mar. 2018, p. 14. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A533094395/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=a27b8561.
Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A533094395
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Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West
Publishers Weekly.
265.1 (Jan. 1, 2018): p47.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West
James Pogue. Holt, $28 (304p) ISBN 978-1-25016912-9
Journalist Pogue's uneven first book uses a novellike style to expand on his embedded reporting for the New
York Times Magazine on the 2016 armed occupation of an Oregon federal wildlife refuge by rancher
Ammon Bundy and his followers. His firsthand access to the antigovernment extremists at the Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge results in a unique perspective, but Pogue adds in vignettes of memoir that too
often feel tangential and mostly focused on creating a hard-living persona ("I remember getting a text from
him, lying in bed at the Standard Downtown LA, stoned and drunk with a girl I'd met at the archery range
along the Arroyo Seco"). The book doesn't need it--Pogue has a knack for winning the trust of his subjects
and eliciting memorable and sometimes chilling quotations, as when one occupier tells him, "We're like
ISIS or something, but American." His description of some of the subjects as friends, the lack of any
perspective from the federal agents on the other side, and overdramatic assertions such as "evil was being
actively loosed on the land" do raise some questions about his impartiality. Pogue manages to shows the
humanity of his subjects, but doesn't quite get to the bottom of the motivations behind their reckless actions.
(May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West." Publishers Weekly, 1 Jan. 2018, p. 47. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A522125000/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ce3c4c4a.
Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A522125000
Long-Simmering Rage Leads To Rebellion In 'Chosen Country'
May 23, 20187:00 AM ET
MICHAEL SCHAUB
Chosen Country
Chosen Country
A Rebellion in the West
by James Pogue
Hardcover, 289 pages purchase
For 40 days in the beginning of 2016, the eyes of the world were focused on the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, in "the remotest corner of the lower forty-eight" states. The refuge had been occupied by a ragtag group of militia members and angry ranchers, outraged by what they considered heavy-handed tactics by the federal government, at the hands of the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service.
The occupiers, as James Pogue writes in his fascinating debut Chosen Country, had answered the call of Ammon Bundy, a son of notorious Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the mastermind of the standoff. The younger Bundy's "indescribably grandiose" plans had the goal of compelling the federal government to give up control of the land it owned in the West. This didn't happen. The only result was the shooting death of one occupier by law enforcement, several expensive trials and a worsening paranoia on the part of anti-government activists.
In Chosen Country, Pogue does an exceptional job of explaining how one of the most bizarre and divisive events in recent U.S. history came to pass. Pogue, a journalist and environmentalist, spent time with the occupiers during the standoff, making unlikely friends with a few of them. His book is remarkably evenhanded, but he doesn't shy away from exploring his own history and emotional response to the events in Oregon.
The Vast And The Violent Rural Northwest, In 'Come West And See'
AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
The Vast And The Violent Rural Northwest, In 'Come West And See'
Of Ranchers And Rancor: The Roots Of The Armed Occupation In Oregon
THE TWO-WAY
Of Ranchers And Rancor: The Roots Of The Armed Occupation In Oregon
The movement that spawned the occupation can seem obscure to those who haven't spent much time in the West, but Pogue ably traces its origins, making it accessible to anyone who doesn't understand the deep-seated anger some ranchers feel toward the BLM and U.S. Forest Service. The agencies didn't always have a mandate to protect the public lands that many ranchers use to graze cattle. In 1976, after passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which ended the practice of homesteading, the BLM was empowered to enforce environmental regulations, in some cases drastically limiting ranchers' access to the lands. This produced a "pure and hot kind of rage," Pogue writes, "the kind that derives from a sense of betrayal."
One affected rancher was Cliven Bundy, who had been engaged in a 20-year-long fight with the BLM. He had refused to pay the federal government grazing fees, and in 2014, his cattle were impounded by law enforcement. The result was a long standoff in Nevada that ended peacefully, but Cliven's son Ammon didn't forget. After two Oregon ranchers received harsh sentences for arson in 2015, Ammon started the Malheur occupation (never mind that the Oregon ranchers didn't ask for, or want, their "help.")
Pogue's book details how he gained the (sometimes grudging) trust of the Malheur occupiers, who weren't initially sure what to make of the chain-smoking city boy. It's not that Pogue was putting on an act — he notes that "the world the Bundys want to make is hardly different from the one I want to live in. I respect their bravery and their antiauthoritarian instincts." Indeed, Pogue seems inspired by his contrarian predecessors Edward Abbey and Hunter S. Thompson, although he lacks the former's unfortunate reactionary tendencies and the latter's bombast. (He does share with Thompson a common attitude toward illegal drug consumption, though, which is to say: pro-.)
Pogue turns out to be uniquely qualified to explain how discontent in the West led to a series of breakdowns that have broken our country, and are far from over.
And while at times he's certainly sympathetic to the attitudes of the occupiers, he doesn't treat them with kid gloves — he can't understand their willingness to tear apart families by sacrificing themselves, or their associations with militia members with cruel, Islamophobic streaks. "They have a teenage boy's conception of freedom," he writes, "an idea that responsibility to the future and to the needs of the broad community is a mean infringement on their rights, not a way to ensure that all of us have the freedom to make a life as best we can."
As a lover of the West with a rebellious nature of his own, Pogue turns out to be uniquely qualified to explain how discontent in the West led to a series of breakdowns that have broken our country, and are far from over. The country hasn't heard the last of the Bundys — Cliven's son Ryan is currently running for Nevada governor — and the issues that caused the Malheur occupation simmer to this day. "The Bundy men experience personal misfortune as evidence that something is wrong with the world around them," Pogue writes. "And rather than change themselves, they set out to change what was wrong with that world."