Fire on the Plateau is both a personal memoir and a sweeping historical narrative, chronicling Charles Wilkinson’s decades-long exploration of the Colorado Plateau—a vast, rugged, and breathtaking landscape that stretches across Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. Over thirty years, Wilkinson has traversed this region as a lawyer, scholar, and traveler, engaging deeply with the land itself and with the Indigenous peoples—including the Navajo and Hopi—whose histories, cultures, and struggles are inseparable from its canyons, mesas, and deserts.
The book weaves together personal reflection, legal advocacy, and historical scholarship. Beginning with Wilkinson’s work in the early 1970s as staff attorney for the newly formed Native American Rights Fund, he recounts how his legal and professional experiences brought him into close contact with Native communities and their enduring struggles for justice, land, and sovereignty. Alongside this, he reflects on his personal connection to the Plateau—a land of stark beauty, resilience, and conflict that has profoundly shaped his understanding of history, culture, and environmental stewardship.
Wilkinson examines the complicated history of the Colorado Plateau, from centuries of Indigenous habitation to Mormon settlement, from the post-World War II economic “Big Build-Up” to modern environmental and cultural preservation efforts. He highlights the sometimes violent conflicts between Native peoples and settlers, the political maneuvering by industry and government, and the ongoing disputes over resources, land use, and sovereignty. Throughout, the narrative emphasizes endurance and resilience—of the land, of Native cultures, and of those who fight to protect both.
By combining personal insight with scholarly rigor, Fire on the Plateau offers readers a deeply human perspective on the American Southwest. It is a work of environmental and cultural history, a memoir of legal advocacy, and a tribute to a landscape that continues to inspire, challenge, and teach. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in the history, law, and future of the Colorado Plateau, Indigenous rights, and the complex relationship between people and place in the American West.