Synopses & Reviews
Review
"The authors, who teach history at the University of California, Riverside and Yale respectively,
take aim at a target that has long been shot full of holes. Their reexamination of this much mythologized part of the U.S.contains much fascinating information. There is material here that will surprise and delight many who may have felt that the older and more heroic versions of Western history had little of interest to them. Hine and Faragher range widely in their quest to give many hitherto neglected contributors to the great national enterprise their due. In doing so, they look at movies, photography, and dimestore novels, to name but a few of the sources they use. Indeed, it is popular culture and the images it fostered and perpetuated that come in for the lion's share of the attention. The book is profusely illustrated, a fact that should give it an appeal much broader than most academic books. Despite its being, in fact, a work that is heavily academic in its attempt to revise our views of the West, it is readable and might find its greatest audience outside the world of professional historians. It is not, however, as new as the authors (or publishers) would have the reader believe. Nor does their reinterpretation diminish the mythic quality that this region and its historical experience will have for the devoted reader of history. The insight that there was more to the West than John Wayne will surprise few. It remains a stimulating work of history." Reviewed by Andrew Witmer, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Table of Contents
Dreams and homelands --New world begins --Contest of cultures --Struggle of empires --Land and its markers --Fur trade --From Texas to Oregon --War and destiny --Mining frontiers --Power of the road --Open range --Safety valve --Search for community --Urban frontier --Plunder and preservation --Myth of the west --Frontier and west in our time.