Synopses & Reviews
The nationally bestselling companion volume to the landmark PBS television series from Stephen Ives and Ken Burns.
This vivid narrative history magnificently illustrated with more than 400 illustrations, many of them never before published takes us on a gripping journey through the turbulent history of the region that has come to symbolize America around the world. Drawing on hundreds of letters, diaries, memoirs, and journals as well as the latest scholarship, The West presents a cast as rich and diverse as the western landscape itself: explorers and soldiers and Indian warriors, settlers and railroad builders and gaudy showmen. The book is filled with stories of heroism and hope, enterprise and adventure, as well as tragedy and disappointment. It explores the tensions between whites and the native peoples they sought to displace, but it also encompasses the Hispanic experience in the West. Gracefully written, handsomely designed, meticulously researched, The West is an unrivaled work of history that brilliantly captures all the drama and excitement, the sober realities and bright myths of the American West.
Review
"[A]s an introduction, this work is an enjoyable and interesting place to start." Library Journal
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 435) and index.
About the Author
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Michael Wallis is the author of many books on the West, including Billy the Kid and The Real Wild West. He has written 16 books and won numerous honors and awards.
Robert G. McCubbin is one of the founders of the Wild West History Association and the country\\\\\\\'s premier collector of American West photographs and books.\\\'\''
Table of Contents
Preface / by Stephen Ives and Ken Burns -- The northern mystery : Other wests / by Richard White -- The most avid nation : The mission at Waiilatpu : a meeting place for western women / by Julie Roy Jeffrey -- Seeing the elephant : Myth and myopia : Hispanic peoples and western history / by David G. Gutiâierrez -- A hell of a storm : Believing in the American West / by Patricia Nelson Limerick -- The grandest enterprise under God : Great migrations : the pioneer in the American West / by John Mack Faragher -- Rivers run backward : Wilderness and the West / by T.H. Watkins -- The great die-up / The American West and the burden of belief / by N. Scott Momaday -- The outcome of our earnest endeavors : Monument Valley / by Dayton Duncan.