Historians of the American West, perhaps inspired by NAFTA and Internet communication, are expanding their intellectual horizons across borders north and south. This collection of essays functions as a how-to guide to comparative frontier research in the Americas. Frontiers specialist Richard W. Slatta presents topics, techniques, and methods that will intrigue social science professionals and western history buffs alike as he explores the frontiers of North and South America from Spanish colonial days into the twentieth century. The always popular cowboy is joined by the fascinating gaucho, llanero, vaquero, and charro as Slatta compares their work techniques, roundups, songs, tack, lingo, equestrian culture, and vices. We visit saloons and pulperias as well as plains and pampas, and Slatta expertly compares clothing, weather, terrain, diets, alcoholic beverages, card games, and military tactics. From primary records we learn how Europeans, Native Americans, and African Americans became the ranch hands, cowmen, and buckaroos of the Americas, and why their dependence on the ranch cattle industry kept them bachelors and landless peons.

The American cowboy has long been a popular figure in fiction, motion pictures, and studies of the West, but over the years inaccuracies have crept in, distorting the image of the real cowboy. Philip Ashton Rollins, in The Cowboy, sets out to provide a complete, accurate handbook on the everyday life of the cowboy - trailing, herding, branding, round-up, and horsebreaking. He also discusses tools of the trade, including types of saddles, bits, riatas, boots, and spurs. Most vivid is his presentation of the cowboy's personality, code, mores, and amusements. This new paperback edition, a reprint of the enlarged (1936) edition, contains revisions to the text of the first edition, a new chapter on riding "buckers, " thirty-one illustrations, and an index. In a new foreword, Richard W. Slatta discusses Rollin's life and compares modern histories of the cowboy with Rollins's classic volume.

Suggesting that better understanding of conflicts between Anglo and Latin America can come from the study of their contrasting popular fictions, the author compares the traditional attachment in Latin America to government by a strong man--a caudillo--to the diametrically opposed expansionist frontier ideology of the United States--the cowboy--who makes space safe for Anglo colonization.

Lavishly illustrated with photographs, paintings, and movie stills, this Western Heritage Award-winning book explores what life was actually like for the working cowboy in North America. "If you read only one book on cowboys, read this one".--Journal of the Southwest.

Here’s a book as big and beautiful as the West itself, dedicated to the larger-than-life figure who symbolizes the American spirit. Whether the straight-shooting hero from a John Wayne movie or the lawless gunslinger spreading mayhem, the cowboy lassos the imagination and just won’t let go. On these magnificently illustrated pages unfold cowboy life and legend, cowboys around the world, the cowboy’s ranching roots, modern-day cowboys, cowboy food and fun, and the cowboy in film and popular culture. Quotations from Western poems, songs, and novels offer contemporary perspectives, as do the old-time posters and nostalgic advertisements. An astounding variety of photos show it all. There’s also absorbing background on black cowboys, vaqueros, women who rode the range, and rodeos. Known as the "Cowboy Professor,” Richard W. Slatta, Ph.D, has earned numerous honors and awards. The International Who’s Who of Intellectuals lists him as one of the Outstanding Writers of the 20th Century as well as one of the Outstanding Intellectuals of the Twentieth Century. The American Library Association gave an "Outstanding Reference" award to his book, The Cowboy Encyclopedia. Slatta’s Cowboys of the Americas received the Western Heritage Award for Nonfiction Literature, National Cowboy Hall of Fame. His many books include Sim�n Bol�var's Quest for Glory, co-authored with Jane Lucas De Grummond; The Mythical West: An Encyclopedia of Legend, Lore and Popular Culture; and Comparing Cowboys and Frontiers.

This cultural journey down memory lane showcases how major Western figures, events, and places have been portrayed in folk legends, art, literature, and popular culture. Ever since the days of the 49ers and George Armstrong Custer, the Old West has been America's most potent source of legend. But it is sometimes hard to separate fact from fiction. Did you know, for example, that Annie Oakley was a talented marksman who shot an estimated 40,000 rounds per year while practicing and performing for Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show in the late l800s? Or that many interpreters believe that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is not just a fairy tale, but also a Populist allegory? These are just two of the folk legends dissected and examined in this veritable cultural geography. The volume covers everything from billionaire Howard Hughes and composer Aaron Copeland to Aztlan (the legendary first city of the Aztecs) and Area 51, the top-secret U.S. Air Force base at Groom Lake, Nevada, that has fascinated UFO and conspiracy buffs.

A brief introduction to the day-to-day life of cowboys in the American West.