Utah residents lead lives rich with family, industry, politics, and community. The 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City focused the eyes of the world on this unique place, highlighting our strong contributions to the fine arts, professional sports, literature, and music, along with our unparalleled access to recreation and more. Thomas G. Alexander tells the whole story of the Beehive State in Utah, The Right Place, a Utah Statehood Centennial Project of the Utah State Historical Society. Originally published in 1995, this newly updated and revised edition is the comprehensive historical Utah experience. With current information on recent political and economic changes, including the changes brought on by the 2002 Olympic games, Dr. Alexander teaches and entertains through his historical writings. Weaving together the stories of the Anasazi; the Spaniards; the Mormons, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Greek Orthodox; the athletes, artists, and entertainers--all the famous and not-so-famous people from Utah's past--Thomas Alexander tells a story of determination, creativity, and originality. With humor and insight, Alexander traces the personalities and events that have shaped Utah, bringing to light little-known facts and raising for discussion often-buried issues. His narrative is rich in detail, providing context and perspective to familiar but sometimes misunderstood events, along with fascinating anecdotes to illuminate the times and people. Among other things, Alexander offers a candid look at the displacement of Native Americans by Mormon settlements and the state's early efforts to tame prostitution in the cities. He provides a new perspective on environmental activism in Utah, including movements as early as the 1890s to improve air quality and limit pollution from smoke. He describes the state's longstanding promotion of the arts and the decades-old leadership efforts by Utah's women in education and politics. And he delves into the turn-of-the-century struggles with growth in the state's urban areas--even describing one Salt Lake City plan to pay children a bounty on rats of ten cents per head (and ten cents per hundred for flies). Weaving together the stories of the Anasazi; the Spaniards; the Mormons, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Greek Orthodox; the athletes, artists, and entertainers--all the famous and not-so-famous people from Utah's past--Thomas Alexander tells a story of determination, creativity, and originality. With humor and insight, Alexander traces the personalities and events that have shaped Utah, bringing to light little-known facts and raising for discussion often-buried issues. His narrative is rich in detail, providing context and perspective to familiar but sometimes misunderstood events, along with fascinating anecdotes to illuminate the times and people. Among other things, Alexander offers a candid look at the displacement of Native Americans by Mormon settlements and the state's early efforts to tame prostitution in the cities. He provides a new perspective on environmental activism in Utah, including movements as early as the 1890s to improve air quality and limit pollution from smoke. He describes the state's longstanding promotion of the arts and the decades-old leadership efforts by Utah's women in education and politics. And he delves into the turn-of-the-century struggles with growth in the state's urban areas--even describing one Salt Lake City plan to pay children a bounty on rats of ten cents per head (and ten cents per hundred for flies). Thomas G. Alexander holds the Lemuel Hardison Redd Jr. Chair as Professor of Western American History at Brigham Young University. Born and raised in Utah, this award-winning author has written articles for many journals and has published a number of books, including Grace and Grandeur: A History of Salt Lake City (2002) . Preface, In November 2002, I accompanied a number of board and staff members of the Utah Humanities Council to the annual conference of the Federation of State Humanities Councils. At the conference''s final session, Betty Sue Flowers, director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, reflected on the conference as she offered some thoughts on interpreting and writing history. In what sounds on the surface like a flippant remark, but which on reflection tells us a great deal about understanding our history, she said, "I became a futurist because the past was too unpredictable." Her comments built upon a lecture given the previous day. The day before, we had heard a presentation by Edward T. Linenthal, a professor of religious studies at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. Ed talked about contested history and memory. He showed that in displays designed to commemorate events such as the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, the Little Big Horn Battlefield in Montana, the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington D. C., and the Enola Gay exhibit at the National Air and S