"This thundering book by the author of Old Jules is the story of the vast cattle industry of the American West; stupendous in length, concept, and achievement, it is the result of a lifetime of knowledge and research. . . . The whole story is here, long but never dull, written with humor and understatement."—Kirkus Service "Here, tough as whang leather, nourishing as pemmican, turbulent as Dodge City on a Saturday night in the late 1870s, is what time may well decide is the definitive history of the founding and flourishing of the cattle industry on this continent. . . . This splendid book says more (and says it better) about the most romantic figures of the old West than dozens of other books that have ranged over this familiar ground. Mari Sandoz has given herself room to move with tremendous drive and scholarship."—Victor P. Hass, Chicago Sunday Tribune "Drawing the fullest flavor from her expert descriptive technique, Mari Sandoz has written a regional history to stand among the best of its kind."—Library Journal

?...an engrossing tale that encompasses a variety of hostilities across the entire West.?Fred Egloff, BooklistFrom the 1870s until the 1920s cattlemen and sheepmen clashed bitterly for rangeland in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. During five decades of irregular but vicious warfare, scores of attacks were launched by cattlemen, at least twenty-eight sheepmen and sixteen cowboys were killed, and more than 53,000 sheep were shot, clubbed, knifed, poisoned, dynamited and rimrocked. There were 120 raids and skirmishes across the West, including famous events such as the Pleasant Valley War, the murder of Willie Nickell, the Diamondfield Jack trial and the brutal Ten Sleep tragedy, and involving gunfighters Tom Horn and Commodore Perry Owens, cattle baron Charles Goodnight, and other frontier notables. The fifty-year conflict was waged in a magnificent arena of mountains and plains, a classic story of murderous aggression and retribution that forms one of the great dramas of Western history. Bill O?Neal has traveled throughout the West to collect information and background material, and his fast-paced Cattlemen vs. Sheepherders is the first book-length account of this long and bloody war.