A review by shelby1994
Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed by Judy Pasternak

informative slow-paced

3.0

(Note: I've seen a growing movement originating from the Navajo community to be referred to in their original tongue as the "Diné." In ligght of that, that is the identifier I will use here."
A story can be important without being engaging. 
It can be breathtaking in its audacity, shocking in its detail, and bombastic in its exposing, but if the language used to weave a narrative out of all the collected facts doesn't match that tone, then the overall effort can't help but suffer. 
Pasternak won several luminary prizes for her journalistic efforts uncovering the uranium poisoning on Diné Land by mining companies throughout the Uranium Boom of hte Cold War. Big business pushed profits over people in the name of Big Military, who pushed safety of the few aside for the idea of national defense and safety of the many. American won the Cold War, but the Diné lost generation after generation to lingering uranium posioning, with no recourse. 
The reporting is painstakingly detailed, and I learned alot of facts. But those facts never coalesced into an emotional wave for me. Journalism needs to have a certain emotional detachment, but a book relies on cathartic and intellectucal arcs to drill a hole into the reader's mind. This stayed at the topsoil level. 

Read If:
-- You want to read up on Indigenous movements prior to the WaterKeepers 
-- You're taking the next step from environmentalism to being conscious of environmental racism 
-- You're in love with your Brita filter