Hold on to your cowboy hats and prepare for a wild read! In this book, you'll learn all about the bucking horses, lively livestock, and daring riders of the rodeo world. You'll read about roping, riding, racing, wrestling, and more! You'll also discover the breeds of rodeo horses, how riders handle and care for their animals, and how cattle herding became a rough-and-tumble sport.

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"What would rodeo look like if we took it as a record, not of human triumph and resilience, but of human imperfection and stubbornness?” asks animal historian Susan Nance. Against the backdrop of the larger histories of ranching, cattle, horses, and the environment in the West, this book explores how the evolution of rodeo has reflected rural western beliefs and assumptions about the natural world that have led to environmental crises and served the beef empire. By unearthing behind-the-scenes stories of rodeo animals as diverse individuals, this book lays bare contradictions within rodeo and the rural West. For almost 150 years, westerners have used rodeo to symbolically reenact their struggles with animals and the land as uniformly progressive and triumphant. Nance upends that view with accounts of individual animals that reveal how diligently rodeo people have worked to make livestock into surrogates for the trials of rural life in the West and the violence in its history. Western horses and cattle were more than just props. Rodeo reclaims their lived history through compelling stories of anonymous roping steers and calves who inspired reform of the sport, such as the famed but abused bucker Steamboat, and the many broncs and bulls, famous or not, who unknowingly built an industry. Rodeo is a dangerous sport that reveals many westerners as people proudly tolerant of risk and violence, and ready to impose these values on livestock. In Rodeo: An Animal History, Nance pushes past standard histories and the sport’s publicity to show how rodeo was shot through with stubbornness and human failing as much as fortitude and community spirit.

Rodeo people call their sport "more a way of life than a way to make a living." Rodeo is, in fact, a rite that not only expresses a way of life but perpetuates it, reaffirming in a ritual contest between man and animal the values of American ranching society. Elizabeth Atwood Lawrence uses an interpretive approach to analyze rodeo as a symbolic pageant that reenacts the "winning of the West" and as a stylized expression of frontier attitudes toward man and nature. Rodeo constestants are the modern counterparts of the rugged and individualistic cowboys, and the ethos they inherited is marked by ambivalence: they admire the wild and the free yet desire to tame and conquer. Based on extensive field work and drawing on comparative materials from other stock-tending societies, Rodeo is a major contribution to an understanding of the role of performance in society, the culturally constructed view of man's place in nature, and the structure and meaning of social relationships and their representations.

JETT CHASE? No way will that discombobulated deduction of his amnesia-filled wife's brain ever settle in Sir Dru Simon's mind! But before tackling her amnesia, she must survive an extremely difficult back surgery stemming from injuries she received during the explosion at Jettalio. And if she does, Dru feels certain that his Lady Simon, the one and only Jett, will remember their undying love. Jett does survive, but only recalls bit and pieces of her marriage to Dru. And after totally focusing her concentration on her children, she finally recognizes them. However, that's about as far as her memory goes even after Michael Langitto visits her and mentions Brodie, who she absolutely has no recollection of, whatsoever. And what of the grandchildren? There's not even a little glimmer of hope in Jett realizing their existence! Dru has Michael's guarantee that Vincenzo Ballicari, who was responsible for the Jettlio explosion as well as Jett and Michael's injuries, will pay dearly. True, Dru would've handled the matter himself, but Jett's health is first and foremost on his mind. Besides, Michael and his righthand man, Nicholai, you might say pride themselves on the type of ruthless repercussions that Ballicari must suffer. Join Jett on her journey to wellness as she discovers that starting her life over may be more than she can handle. But then she hasn't taken her former mother-in-law, Tess Landon-Webb, into consideration. Hell, the way things are going, Jett might even for really learn to cook! Jett receives a multitude of support from her family and loved ones. Enough so that she gets talked into making a Hollywood movie, and with Deke DeGeorge, no less! Yes, she'll be working alongside her former beau, Deke, and her favorite actor, Cameron McGinley. DANG! Once again, life is good!

Kendra doesn’t need rescued. Kendra Maddox isn’t thrilled when Stetson Wright steps in to help fend off her overanxious date at a wedding. A new Christian, she’s struggling with a promiscuous past, and Stetson’s firm belief that true love waits only makes his gallant attempt to defend her honor even more unwanted. Then her friends continually push her and Stetson together. . .but can’t they see she’ll never be good enough for him? Stetson doesn’t need any distractions. And Kendra Maddox is definitely a distraction. From his job as the new youth director at church to moonlighting as a rodeo clown, Stetson has other things to think about. Finding the perfect wife will have to wait. When Stetson saves a prominent bull rider, he makes headline news, and Kendra’s ad agency is hired to promote the rodeo hero. Attraction simmers, but will they be able to accept each other for who God sees?