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The American West

The American West

By: MeatEater
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In this new podcast, writer Dan Flores presents a big picture history of an American West you've never encountered. With the West's deep time, its grand natural world, and its wild animals as their focus, these episodes tell a fresh story of America's most fascinating region.

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Episodes
  • Ep. 25: Thinking About Big History in One Western Place

    Ep. 25: Thinking About Big History in One Western Place
    Apr 7 2026

    A road trip with Steven Rinella across the High Plains to the Blackwater Draw Unesco Site on the border of Texas and New Mexico leads to an assessment of 13,000 years of change in one western environment, where people have practiced every kind of life way from hunting elephants to turning the plains into cotton fields and oil country.

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    Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men"

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    52 mins
  • Ep. 24: Getting Over the Color Green and Learning to Love Badlands

    Ep. 24: Getting Over the Color Green and Learning to Love Badlands
    Mar 24 2026

    In the 20th century peculiar landforms dismissed earlier in western history with the denigrating term “badlands” became compelling locations for scientists and artists in the West. First passed over as economically worthless, these barren, colorful landscapes were translated by painters like Georgia O’Keeffe into iconic imagery. Now many are national parks and wilderness areas.

    Thank you to our sponsor Velvet Buck.

    Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon.

    MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips

    Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men"

    Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube

    Shop MeatEater Merch

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
    Show More Show Less
    42 mins
  • Ep. 23: Golden-Eyed Lightning Rod

    Ep. 23: Golden-Eyed Lightning Rod
    Mar 10 2026

    For the first 50 years of the 20th century a new federal agency did everything in its power to disappear all wolves from the West and America. What saved the wolf was its own intelligence in the face of eradication, and the emergence of the new science of ecology, whose practitioners revealed the real animal within the legend.

    Thank you to our sponsor Velvet Buck.

    Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon.

    MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips

    Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men"

    Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube

    Shop MeatEater Merch

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
    Show More Show Less
    53 mins
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