No historian writes with such command of language or feeling for human nature. The difference is his luminous imagination, as Henry Steele Commager observes in the introduction to the newest Horgan volume, Of America East & West, a sumptuous selection from fifteen of the earlier works, many of which have been long out of print. I began reading Paul Horgan more than twenty years ago and he has given me no end of pleasure ever since. Whether in fiction, history or biography, he is a writer of large vision and manysidedness. He can be serene, funny, elegant, earthy and lyrical. He can range...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History (1954)
Winner of the Bancroft Prize in History (1954)

Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize for History, Great River was hailed as a literary masterpiece and enduring classic when it first appeared in 1954. It is an epic history of four civilizations--Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo-American--that people the Southwest through ten centuries. With the skill of a novelist, the veracity of a scholar, and the love of a long-time resident, Paul Horgan describes the Rio Grande, its role in human history, and...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History (1976)

Originally published in 1975, this Pulitzer Prize for History-winning biography chronicles the life of Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy (1814-1888), New Mexico's first resident bishop and the most influential, reform-minded Catholic official in the region during the late 1800s. Lamy's accomplishments, including the endowing of hospitals, orphanages, and English-language schools and colleges, formed the foundation of modern-day Santa Fe and often brought him into conflict with corrupt local priests. His life story, also the subject of...

In July, 1921, Peter Hurd was a West Point plebe with dreams of a military destiny. But by the spring of 1924, the young man from Roswell, New Mexico, had abandoned the army as a career and was studying painting in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, under N. C. Wyeth. The experiences that led Hurd to art, and ultimately to fame as a painter of the Southwest, are candidly revealed in this comprehensive autobiographical collection of Hurd's letters and journals.
Introduced by Paul Horgan, award-winning novelist, historian, and biographer and lifelong friend of Hurd, the book spans fifty years of...