American Western History

A collection of stories capturing what it means to be a cowboy.

This thoughtful examination of a century of travel writing about the American West overturns a variety of popular and academic stereotypes. Looking at both European and American travelers' accounts of the West, from de Tocqueville's Democracy in America to William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways, David Wrobel offers a counternarrative to the nation's romantic entanglement with its Western past and suggests the importance of some long-overlooked authors, lively and perceptive witnesses to our history who deserve new attention.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The enthralling true story of the rise and reign of O-Six, the celebrated Yellowstone wolf, and the people who loved or feared her. Before men ruled the earth, there were wolves. Once abundant in North America, these majestic creatures were hunted to near...

From our country's most important war historian, a vital history of the legacy of the Great War and the reverberating impact it has had on Canada since. The Western Front has dominated the culture and memory of the Great War. The lethal power of modern weapons in the form of rapid-firing rifles...

Guns, Furs, and Gold offers a new and riveting narrative of the American West by exploring the interactions of the Arikaras, Crows, Cheyennes, and Arapahos with each other and with traders, explorers, settlers, and the United States Army...

By his longtime friend and a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, the definitive biography of Larry McMurtry, the legendary author and screenwriter of Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, and Brokeback Mountain, who transformed our vision of the West. Before Larry McMurtry became one of the...

Published in 2000 to critical acclaim, The American West: A New Interpretive History quickly became the standard in college history courses. Now Robert V. Hine and John Mack Faragher offer a concise edition of their classic, freshly updated. Lauded for their lively and elegant writing, the authors provide a grand survey of the colorful history of the American West, from the first contacts between Native Americans and Europeans to the beginning of the 21st century.

TEXAS EMPIRE MATT BRAUN Jack Jordan, an Indian fighter turned trailblazer and cattleman, is willing to risk it all for a spread of Texas land in the uncharted Llano Estacado—and for the adventure of a lifetime. Already a legend before turning thirty years old, Jordan's greatest quest still...

Granbury's Texas Brigade explores the motivations behind the unit's decision to continue to fight, even as it faced demoralizing defeats and Confederate collapse. Using a vast array of letters, diaries, and regimental documents, Lundberg offers provocative insight into the minds of the unit's men and commanders. The caliber of that leadership, he concludes, led to the group's overall high morale.

Deployed to posts from the Missouri River to the Pacific in 1848, the United States Army undertook an old mission on frontiers new to the United States: occupying the Western territories; suppressing American Indian resistance; keeping the peace among feuding Indians, Hispanics, and Anglos; and consolidating United States sovereignty in the region.

David Forsyth recounts the life of Eben Smith, an integral but little-known figure in Colorado mining history. From Smith’s early years and his labor in the mines, to his rise to prominence as an investor and developer, Forsyth shows how Smith used the mining and milling knowledge he acquired in California to become a leader in technological innovation in Colorado’s mining industry.

The "stirring," definitive history of America's decisive role in winning World War I (Wall Street Journal). The American contribution to World War I is one of the great stories of the twentieth century, and yet it has all but vanished from view. Historians have dismissed the American war effort...

Considering the suspicions, jealousies, bigotry, and crass opportunism inherent whenever one power occupies another, Golden Ghetto: How the Americans and French Fell in and out of Love During the Cold War pieces together an improbable tale of how fear and skepticism were crushed by trust and friendship.

In 1816, Mordecai Lewis, a veteran of Andrew Jackson's Indian campaigns and battles against the British, moves his family into the western Tennessee canebrakes. But Mordecai, a born wanderer, is not satisfied with farming, and with his sons Michael and Andrew and some other backwoodsmen, he...

Many of the first artists in the West were assigned to exploration and geological parties, working as archivists and obedient to demands of cold accuracy. However, a few were driven by an imaginative mix of real events and fantastical visions to whet the appetite of Eastern consumers and preserve their own nostalgia on canvas. Among the most prominent artists depicting the "old" West was Charles Marion Russell, a prolific painter, sculptor, writer, and storyteller based in the heart of the Montana country.