Robert Aquinas McNally - Press Kit & News

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Journeys of Discovery: "Cast out of Eden"

NPR award-winning podcast host Tom Wilmer declares the book's revelations "game changing." Likely, Muir would agree.

In this podcast release I talk with host Mark Oxoby about how Cast out of Eden grew out of The Modoc War and what it means to take a journalistic approch to reporting and writing history.

On Judging a Book by Its Cover

Keep in mind that commonplace saying, "You can't tell a book by its cover." Like a lot of things we've been told, that's just plain wrong

A Book & Its Author: "The Modoc War"

In this March 2023 issue of the podcast, I talk with host Marc Oxoby about the war and the California genocide and read a sample of what is always a gripping narrative of a most disturbing tale.

Five Questions with Robert Aquinas McNally

In this feature from California Sun, I make the leap from Lava Beds National Monument as center of the created universe over the best burger in my hometown to dinner with John Steinbeck and friends. Scroll down.

Little Indian War Goes Big

The few ups and many downs of the Modoc War of 1872–73: gunfights, battles, hangings, decapitations in the name of science, all played out against the backdrop of California's state-sponsored genocide of Native peoples. A hard and necessary story.

Answers to Writing Questions You May Never Have Thought of

Carpentry is a good metaphor for explaining the difference between being a writer and being an author, for example. You'll also learn why backpacking with sons Darren McNally and Brian McNally is way cool, and how it is that partner Gayle Eleanor and I prefer wild places to cities.

A Dark History Hits Home (240 KB)

California's governor apologizes for the state's Native genocide before a gathering of tribal leaders and takes a first step toward healing a complex and bloody legacy. This article appears in the winter 2019 issue of California History.

California's Genocide Steps into the Light

In only the two years since The Modoc War was published, this state's extermination of Native peoples has lost its news value. More and more people, including non-Natives, have heard of it. There's a reason, and it's likely other than what you think.

Harte for the Wiyots

A young journalist working along the northern coast of California, Bret Harte found out how dangerous it could be to confront the genocidal reality behind a massacre of local Wiyot Indians.

California Governor Opens the Door on Native Genocide in the State's Closet and Apologizes

In an unprecedented move in front of a gathering of tribal leaders, Gov. Gavin Newsom took responsibility for California's state-sponsored attempt to wipe out its Native peoples in the second half of the 19th-century. He went on to apologize for this atrocity and to establish a Truth and Healing Council to address the genocide's unresolved justice issues.

Telling the Truth About the Modocs

Sometimes the book you set out to write differs from the book you finish. The truth may be other than what you imagined. Here's the backstory.

Selected Works

Nonfiction

Cast out of Eden: The Untold Story of John Muir, Indigenous Peoples, and the American Wilderness

Telling the long-neglected part of Muir's story, Cast out of Eden lays out his take on the tribal nations he encountered and his embrace of an ethos that forced those tribes from their homelands. Although Muir questioned and worked against Euro-America's distrust of wild spaces and its deep-seated desire to tame and exploit them, his view excluded Native Americans as fallen peoples who stained the wilderness's pristine sanctity. Fortunately, in a transformation that a resurrected and updated Muir might approve, this long-standing injustice is beginning to be undone, as Indigenous nations and the federal government work together to ensure that quintessentially American lands from Bears Ears to Yosemite serve all Americans equally.

The Modoc War: A Story of Genocide at the Dawn of America's Gilded Age

Robert Aquinas McNally tells the wrenching story of the Modoc War of 1872–73, one of the nation’s most dramatic conflicts against North American Indigenous peoples. The book won a 2018 gold medal from the Commonwealth Club as the year's best nonfiction focused on California.

Poetry

Songs of the Two Names

"… sheer elegance, impeccable craft, and… authority"

Simply to Know Its Name

"… a guide into how specifics of Nature reveal a constant presence of the Other…"

Press Kit & News

Press Kit

These downloadable files provide materials useful for press coverage and event announcements. If you need something additional, please use this website's Contact page to let me know.

CAST OUT OF EDEN cover (77.7 KB)

CAST OUT OF EDEN long & short summaries (4.37 MB)

Robert Aquinas McNally author photo (4.85 MB)

Robert Aquinas McNally bio (34.9 KB)

News & Reviews

Stuart Rosebrook of True West magazine puts Cast out of Eden at the top of his list of recommended summer reading: "Award-winning historian McNally once again tackles a difficult topic, and readers will be discussing his conclusions on Muir for many years."

An off-screen journalist asks questions about Cast out of Eden and records my answers for this video podcast on Faculti (12:25).

For his "Cochise Co. Travels" podcast on Wild West History, Mike Mayberry talks with me about Cast out of Eden. Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts (58:43).

Frances Dinkelspiel in Bay City Books calls attention to "Muir's push to preserve wild areas for white Americans, but not those who had lived there for millennia."

In the New York Review of Books, James H. McDonald calls Cast out of Eden "a well-written exploration of John Muir's life and legacy. For anyone not familiar with the fraught and complicated history of American conservation, it will serve as a solid introduction."

"A revealing biography, Cast Out of Eden details the hypocrisy, cruelty, and astonishing achievements of John Muir" is the verdict of Erike Harlitz Kern in Foreword Reviews.

According to Peter Fish in the San Francisco Chronicle's Datebook section, Cast out of Eden "unpacks [the] racism of John Muir and the movement he inspired."

On the "California Sun Podcast," host Jeff Schechtman interviews me about Cast out of Eden's revelation of John Muir's hidden legacy (28:56).

Andrew Graybill writes that Cast out of Eden "prompts a fresh round of reconsideration by attending specifically to this side of the United States' pioneering environmental crusader" in the Los Angeles Review of Books.

In Shepherd Express (Milwaukee's Alternative News Source), David Luhrssen reports that for Muir "wilderness had value, the mountains and rivers were priceless — and the original inhabitants were blocking the view."

Marc Oxoby, host of the "A Book and Its Author" podcast, talks with me about Cast out of Eden as historical journalism with a distinct point of view (46:32).

On his "Journeys of Discovery" podcast for National Public Radio, award-winning host Tom Wilmer sees Cast out of Eden as revealing John Muir's long-ignored dark side (36:47).

California's oldest continuously running newspaper, the Placerville Mountain Democrat, declares, "Author of new, controversial John Muir biography to read at The Bookery."

My Commonwealth Club conversation about Cast out of Eden with Anthony Dudley of Earth Live independent media network is airing on C-SPAN Book TV. The recording is available for viewing on demand at C-SPAN.org.