Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

When we think of the American West, we tend to conjure up images that are known the world over: bearded forty-niners leading pack mules up a mountain trail, the Oklahoma land stampede, Custer's Last Stand, and especially the range-riding, quick-shooting cowboy. But these familiar images are only a small part of western history. From the arrival of the Navajos in the Southwest more than seven hundred years ago, to the first Spanish settlements in New Mexico in the late sixteenth century, to the large Mormon migration to the Great Salt Lake, to the tourists flocking to the neon landscape of modern Las Vegas, the complex story of the West stretches across centuries, embracing many voices and contrasting cultures. The West is in fact as varied as America itself. Indeed, to enlarge on Wallace Stegner's singular phrase, the West is America, only more so.
Lavishly illustrated and based on the finest scholarship, The Oxford History of the American West is the first comprehensive study to do full justice to the rich complexity of this region. It brings together the work of twenty-eight leading western historians who explore this area from a dazzling number of perspectives. They provide insightful portraits of the West as a distinctive place of varied peoples--native and non-native, European and Asian, African and Latino--and of varied terrain--from the timbered Pacific Northwest to the Dakota Badlands, and from the fires of Kilauea to the ice cliffs of Glacier Bay, Alaska. They describe the great wealth generated by a series of spectacular bonanzas, such as gold at Sutter's Mill, copper in Butte, Montana, and oil on Alaska's north shore; illuminate the role of the West in the national and global economy; and consider the environmental challenges created by replacing buffalo with cattle or by designating national parks and military test sites. The book also examines the social forces behind the violence of the West, the great political movements that affected the region (most notably, the Populist Party), and the importance of families in settling the West (for instance, tracing one family's westward migration over 150 years). The authors provide important insights about many longstanding controversies, and they offer not only the fruits of the latest thinking about the West, but also a vivid sense of how people actually lived. For instance, we read of pioneers who grated green corn to make pudding they flavored with berries and grasshoppers, and who ate the culms (the soft inner linings of the stalks) like asparagus. Finally, each chapter concludes with an extensive annotated bibliography, offering a full review of related material, and there is a comprehensive index to guide readers to topcis of special interest.
Ranging from a thoughtful analysis of John Ford's classic My Darling Clementine, and a survey of Western art and literature (including figures as diverse as Francis Parkman, Frederic Remington, Willa Cather, Georgia O'Keeffe, and N. Scott Momaday) to a careful consideration of recent events, such as the Los Angeles riots of 1992 and a revisionist look at cattle grandee Granville Stuart (once Montana's most revered pioneer), this lively, authoritative volume continually challenges the familiar as it broadens the reader's understanding of a vast and varied region.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Defining the American West as that part of the country lying west of the 98th meridian, this book surveys the area's history and development from the time of the early natives up to the current day. The first three sections chronicle political, social, and economic history in roughly chronological order, examining such topics as Native American culture, agriculture, families, labor, and cities. The final section examines how the West has been interpreted in art, literature, and popular entertainment. All the authors of the various chapters focus on the major events with just the right amount of interpretation and case-study illustration to give the reader a good sense of how the West developed. Each chapter concludes with an annotated bibliography that leads the reader on to more detail and additional study. For a work of this type, the quality and level of writing is remarkably uniform. Because it surveys the most recent research on the West, this work is essential for academic and public libraries; school libraries serving advanced U.S. history courses should also consider it.-- Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

School Library Journal Review

YA-This fascinating title, composed of 23 essays by college professors, offers much to scholars/researchers. Beginning with prehistory and moving along the time line to today, the book deals with not only the expected topics of exploration, settlement, Indian displacement, cowboys and badmen, but also with harder-to-find topics such as the role of religion and early agricultural practices. The editors then bridge frontier history and post-1890 history with discussions of resource extraction, railroads, growth of cities, political movements, and the role of the federal government. The last section treats various contemporary outgrowths of the western myth (Hollywood, western art and literature, recent ethnic and racial unrest). As might be expected in a book that is almost as big as the land it's about, the quality of the essays varies. A few seem to have been run up by a committee and are fragmentary and confusing; others condense too much, but most are organized, lucid, and lively. While the book will be most useful as a research tool, some readers will be drawn by the generally good writing into wanting to know more about a given aspect of the West. A fine single source for research on the historical and contemporary West as myth, as an attitude, as a place, and as a culture. The essays are enhanced by many reproductions and some full-color art plates.-Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William County, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Gathered under the Oxford brand name are 28 essays from seasoned academics on that kaleidoscopic region of the U.S. known as the West. Such circumlocution is necessary because the West, especially as its land was organized in the 19th century by the U.S., undergoes continual historical redefinition. The most tenacious and influential idea--one of several that these able authors explicitly engage or disparage--was the famous "frontier thesis"

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Clyde A. Milner II is Editor of the Western Historical Quarterly and Professor of History at Utah State University.

Carol A. O'Connor is Professor of History at Utah State University.

Martha A. Sandweiss is Director of the Mead Art Museum and Associate Professor of American Studies at Amherst College.