Distinguished historian Richard W. Etulain brings together a generous selection of essays from his sixty-year career as a specialist on the US West in this essential volume. Each essay provides an invaluable overview of the rise of western literary history and historiography--including insightful evaluations of individual historians--revealing summaries of regional literature and discussions of western stories yet to be told. Together these writings furnish readers with useful considerations of important subjects about the American West. All those interested in the American West and its interpreters will find these illuminative moments of literary history and historiography especially appealing.

Distinguished historian Richard W. Etulain brings together a generous selection of essays from his sixty-year career as a specialist on the US West in this essential volume. Each essay provides an invaluable overview of the rise of western literary history and historiography—including insightful evaluations of individual historians—revealing summaries of regional literature and discussions of western stories yet to be told. Together these writings furnish readers with useful considerations of important subjects about the American West. All those interested in the American West and its interpreters will find these illuminative moments of literary history and historiography especially appealing.

This new historical overview tells the dramatic story of the American West from its prehistory to the present. A narrative history, it covers the region from the North Dakota-to-Texas states to the Pacific Coast and includes experiences and contributions of American Indians, Hispanics, and African Americans.

Literary histories, of course, do not have a reason for being unless there exists the literature itself. This volume, perhaps more than others of its kind, is an expression of appreciation for the talented and dedicated literary artists who ignored the odds, avoided temptations to write for popularity or prestige, and chose to write honestly about the American West, believing that experiences long knowns to be of historical importance are also experiences that need and deserve a literature of importance.

ns explore our environmental history, uncover the role of nature and the land in the western past, and examine the West as the world's first multicultural society.

The early history of photography in America coincided with the Euro-American settlement of the West. This thoughtful book argues that the rich history of western photography cannot be understood by focusing solely on the handful of well-known photographers whose work has come to define the era. Art historian Rachel Sailor points out that most photographers in the West were engaged in producing images for their local communities. These pictures didn’t just entertain the settlers but gave them a way to understand their new home. Photographs could help the settlers adjust to their new circumstances by recording the development of a place—revealing domestication, alteration, and improvement. The book explores the cultural complexity of regional landscape photography, western places, and local sociopolitical concerns. Photographic imagery, like western paintings from the same era, enabled Euro-Americans to see the new landscape through their own cultural lenses, shaping the idea of the frontier for the people who lived there.

A Companion to the American West is a rigorous, illuminating introduction to the history of the American West. Twenty-five essays by expert scholars synthesize the best and most provocative work in the field and provide a comprehensive overview of themes and historiography. Covers the culture, politics, and environment of the American West through periods of migration, settlement, and modernization Discusses Native Americans and their conflicts and integration with American settlers