After a nomadic childhood, Charles Siringo signed on as a teenage cowboy for the noted Texas cattle king, Shanghai Pierce, and began a life that embraced all the hard work, excitement, and adventure readers today associate with the cowboy era. He "rid the Chisholm trail," driving 2,500 heads of cattle from Austin to Kansas; knew Tascosa--now a historic monument--when it was home to raucous saloons, red light districts, and a fair share of violence; and led a posse of cowboys in pursuit of Billy the Kid and his gang.
First published in 1885, Siringo's chronicle of his life as a...
After a nomadic childhood, Charles Siringo signed on as a teenage cowboy for the noted Texas cattle king, Shanghai Pierce, and began a life that embra...
Straightforwardly told, rich in detail, and laced with appealing campfire humor, Andy Adams's realistic The Log of a Cowboy is a classic portrayal of the western cattle country. Drawing on his own experiences as a cowboy working in cattle and horse drives, Adams presents a vivid portrait of the challenges of trail life on a cattle drive from Texas to Montana--the daily drudgery of cattle trailing, as well as the dramatic stampedes and other treacherous disruptions. Populated by a wide variety of well-drawn, lively characters, The Log of a Cowboy remains the landmark novel of the...
Straightforwardly told, rich in detail, and laced with appealing campfire humor, Andy Adams's realistic The Log of a Cowboy is a classic portra...
The history of the American West is full of intriguing life stories, and the fifteen essays in this collection weave a selection of those lives together to focus on the main currents in the region's history. The first five essays cover the period from contact to the mid-nineteenth century and feature Indian leaders and Spanish colonizers, characters from the Mexican period, explorers, mountain men, and missionaries. Familiar names in this portion are Juan Bautista de Anza, Stephen F. Austin, Dona Tules, Lewis and Clark, Jedediah Smith, and Narcissa Whitman.
The second group of essays...
The history of the American West is full of intriguing life stories, and the fifteen essays in this collection weave a selection of those lives tog...
Set in Oregon in the early years of the twentieth century, H. L. Davis s "Honey in the Horn" chronicles the struggles faced by homesteaders as they attempted to settle down and eke out subsistence from a still-wild land. With sly humor and keenly observed detail, Davis pays homage to the indomitable character of Oregon s restless people and dramatic landscapes without romanticizing or burnishing the myths. Clay Calvert, an orphan, works as a hand on a sheep ranch until he stumbles into trouble and is forced to flee. Journeying throughout the state, from the lush coastal forests, to the...
Set in Oregon in the early years of the twentieth century, H. L. Davis s "Honey in the Horn" chronicles the struggles faced by homesteaders as they at...
Robert W. Larson Robert W. Larson Richard W. Etulain
Perhaps no Indian leader of the mid-nineteenth century was as well known in his time as the great Lakota Sioux Red Cloud. Although his fame later was eclipsed by that of the legendary heroes who crushed Custer's Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn-Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse-Red Cloud's active leadership of his people, and his representation of the Sioux in vital negotiations with the U.S. government, survived the demise of the other leaders by many years.
Red Cloud was not born to leadership. He earned it. In his early years he gained a reputation for fierceness as...
Perhaps no Indian leader of the mid-nineteenth century was as well known in his time as the great Lakota Sioux Red Cloud. Although his fame later w...
Rumors of a campaign against Sitting Bull cut through the ranks like a cold wind. Who would lead the charge? In "Bugles in the Afternoon," legendary Western writer Ernest Haycox relates a compelling tale of Custer's famed Seventh Cavalry and its fate at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in a balanced mix of action, exposition, and history.
Originally published in 1943, this classic work is now back in print in a new paperback edition. Historian Richard W. Etulain examines the novel's history and Haycox's impact on a timeless genre in an original foreword. Ernest Haycox Jr. provides unique...
Rumors of a campaign against Sitting Bull cut through the ranks like a cold wind. Who would lead the charge? In "Bugles in the Afternoon," legendar...
Where others saw only sage, a salt lake, and a great desert, the Mormons saw their lovely Deseret, a land of lilacs, honeycombs, poplars, and fruit trees. Unwelcome in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, they migrated to the dry lands between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada to establish Mormon country, a wasteland made green. Like the land the Mormons settled, their habits stood in stark contrast to the frenzied recklessness of the American West. Opposed to the often prodigal individualism of the West, Mormons lived in closely knit some say ironclad communities. The story of Mormon country is one...
Where others saw only sage, a salt lake, and a great desert, the Mormons saw their lovely Deseret, a land of lilacs, honeycombs, poplars, and fruit tr...
First published in 1926, this entertaining and dramatic biography forever installed outlaw Billy the Kid in the pantheon of mythic heroes from the Old West and is still considered the single most influential portrait of Billy in this century. Saga focuses on the Kid's life and experiences in the bloody war between the Murphy-Dolan and Tunstall-McSween gangs in and around Lincoln, New Mexico, between 1878 and 1881. Burns paints the Kid as a boyish Robin Hood or romantic knight galvanized into a life of crime and killing by the war's violence and bloodshed. Billy represented the...
First published in 1926, this entertaining and dramatic biography forever installed outlaw Billy the Kid in the pantheon of mythic heroes from the ...
The American West is the only book-length historical overview of the post-1900 American West. This balanced, comprehensive account of the modern West skillfully delineates the changes and resulting complexities that characterize the twentieth-century West. The authors consider the ways in which urban, service, and computer-related industries have replaced rural, extractive, and agricultural economies. They also trace the steps by which western politics shifted from New Deal principles to more conservative, Republican policies.The book examines the roles of racial and ethnic groups in...
The American West is the only book-length historical overview of the post-1900 American West. This balanced, comprehensive account of the moder...
Everyone knows the name Calamity Jane. Scores of dime novels and movie and TV Westerns have portrayed this original Wild West woman as an adventuresome, gun-toting hellion. Although Calamity Jane has probably been written about more than any other woman of the nineteenth-century American West, fiction and legend have largely obscured the facts of her life. This lively, concise, and exhaustively researched biography traces the real person from the Missouri farm where she was born in 1856 through the development of her notorious persona as a Wild West heroine.
Before Calamity...
Everyone knows the name Calamity Jane. Scores of dime novels and movie and TV Westerns have portrayed this original Wild West woman as an advent...
