Patricia Nelson Limerick is the faculty director and board chair of the Center of the American West at Colorado University, where she is also a professor of history and environmental studies. She has received a MacArthur Fellowship and a number of other awards and honors. She currently serves as the vice president for the Teaching Division of the American Historical Association. Her most widely read book, The Legacy of Conquest, is in its twenty-fifth year of publication. Jason L. Hanson is a member of the research faculty at the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where his work focuses on natural resource use and the environment. He lives in Denver.