Across
the Wide Missouri
by Bernard Augustine De Voto
Like many U.S. historians, cultural critic Bernard DeVoto believed
that the American character was rooted in the experience of westward expansion.
Unlike those who championed the civilizing graces of the agrarian frontier,
however, DeVoto drew inspiration from the mercenary, imperial designs of
the fur trade. Originally published in 1947, Across the Wide Missouriis
arguably the best known of his studies in American history, examining the
rise and fall of the U.S. fur dynasties in the 1830s. The book chronicles
the competition between John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company and the
Rocky Mountain Fur Company, an "opposition" group of trappers (including
Jim Bridger and Kit Carson) descended from the earlier entrepreneurial
activities of General William H. Ashley. Devoto specifically narrates the
major expeditions and the daily experiences of the Western divisions of
these companies, which scoured the northernmost regions of the Rocky Mountains
for beaver. He contends that, by exploring the recently charted Northern
plateau, fighting off interlopers, and setting up trade networks, the loose
confederation of trappers, traders, and Native Americans shaped the materialism
that typifies modern American society. In his densely detailed description
of the company "rendezvous," DeVoto shows how the activities of trading,
partying, and resource pooling created a shared experience for competing
cultural and economic parties on the frontier. While the centrality of
the fur trade in the development of the American character may strike some
readers as overemphasized, DeVoto's thesis still carries much relevance
for modern American studies. --John M. Anderson - Amazon.com
Paperback - 480 pages Reissue edition (September 1, 1998)
Houghton Mifflin Co (Pap); ISBN: 0395924979
Adventures
in the Apache Country: A Tour Through Arizona and Sonora, With Notes on
the Silver Regions of Nevada (The Far Western Frontier)
by J. Ross Browne
(Hardcover - June 1973)
The Alamo Reader
by Todd Hansen
Listed under The Alamo
American
Frontiers : Cultural Encounters and Continental Conquest
by Gregory H. Nobles
Nobles's narrative begins and ends with the tragic story of the Pequots,
from Captain John Mason's cowardly raid on a Pequot camp in 1637 that left
more than 300 sleeping Pequots dead to Donald Trump's 1990s lawsuit attempting
to deprive the tribe of their gambling license. In the pages of American
Frontiers readers will also find details of the French and Indian War,
Iroquois involvement in the American Revolution, the California gold rush,
Texas independence, the tragedy of Wounded Knee, the resistance of Sitting
Bull, and the Ghost Dance movement. Amazon.com
Paperback - 304 pages (February 1998)
Hill & Wang Pub; ISBN: 0809016028
Apache
Days and Tombstone Nights: John Clum's Autobiography, 1877-1887
by John Philip Clum, Neil B. Carmony (Editor)
Book Description: It has been said that two sagas of the Southwest stand
out above all others: the Apache Wars and the turbulent years of Tombstone,
Arizona, in the early 1880s. No one was more intimately involved in these
events than John Clum. As an Indian agent, Clum was decades ahead of his
time. He respected the Apache and, years before Buffalo Bill Cody, took
a number of them to the Eastern states as part of a Wild West road show.
He was also an Indian fighter who out-foxed Geronimo and took him prisoner
at...
Paperback: 185 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.50 x
9.25 x 6.25
Publisher: High Lonesome Books; (September 1, 1997)
ISBN: 0944383416
The Arikara Narrative of Custer's Campaign and the Battle of the
Little Bighorn
by Orin Grant Libby
Listed under The Indian Wars
Between Midnight and Morning : Historic Hauntings and Ghost Tales
from the Frontier, Hispanic and Native American Traditions
by Patrick M. Mendoza
Listed under Ghost Stories
Beulah:
A Biography of the Mineral King Valley of California (Great West and Indian
Series, Vol 50)
by Louise A. Jackson
(Hardcover - April 1988)
Bloody
Border: Riots, Battles, and Adventures Along the Turbulent U.S.-Mexican
Borderlands (Great West and Indian Series ; 58)
by Douglas V. Meed
(Hardcover - December 1992)
Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America
by Sue Armitage, Linda Lawrence Hunt
Listed under Pioneer Women
Bound
for Santa Fe: The Road to New Mexico and the American Conquest, 1806-1848
by Stephen G. Hyslop
(Hardcover - May 2002)
The Buffalo Soldiers : A Narrative of the Negro Cavalry in the West
by William H. Leckie
Listed under Buffalo Soldiers
The
Buffalo Hunters : The Story of the Hide Men
by Mari Sandoz
(Paperback - December 1978)
The
Black Cowboys (African-American Achievers)
by Gina De Angelis
(Paperback - July 1997)
Black, Buckskin, and Blue : African-American Scouts and Soldiers
on the Western Frontier
by Art. T. Burton, Arthur T. Burton
(Hardcover - August 1999)
Out of Print - Try Used
Books
Blood
Meridian, Or, the Evening Redness in the West
by Cormac McCarthy
Fiction. A perverse, picaresque Western about bounty hunters for Indian
scalps near the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s--a ragged caravan of indiscriminate
killers led by an unforgettable human monster called "The Judge."
Paperback - 337 pages Reissue edition (May 1992)
Vintage Books; ISBN: 0679728759
The
Black West : A Documentary and Pictorial History of the African American
Role in the Westward Expansion of the United States
by William Loren Katz
(Paperback - February 1996)
Bones,
Boats, and Bison : Archeology and the First Colonization of Western North
America
by E. James Dixon
(Paperback - January 2000)
Cheyenne
Autumn
by Mari Sandoz
Five stars.
Cowboys & the Trappings of the Old West
by William Manns, Elizabeth Clair Flood, Charlotte Berney (Editor)
Listed under Cowboy Gear
The
Contested Plains : Indians, Goldseekers, & the Rush to Colorado
by Elliott West
(Paperback - February 2000)
Coronado's Children: Tales of Lost Mines and Buried Treasures of
the Southwest
by James Frank Dobie
Listed under Treasure Hunting
Crow
Killer : The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson
by Raymond W. Thorp, Robert Manson Bunker
Basis for the movie Jeremiah Johnson,
the tale of a legendary mountain man.
Paperback Reprint edition (September 1988)
Indiana University Press; ISBN: 0253203120
The Donner Party Chronicles: A Day-by-Day Account of a Doomed Wagon
Train, 1846-47
by Frank Mullen
Listed under The Donner Party
An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West
by Phil Kovinick, et al
Listed under American Western
Art
Exploration
and Empire : The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American
West
(Fred H. and Ella Mae Moore Texas History Reprint, No 12)
by William H. Goetzmann
(Hardcover - January 1994)
The
Fort in Fort Worth
by Clay Perkins
The the trials and tribulations of Fort Worth, Texas, and the people
who lived and died there during its brief history.
Hardcover: 288 pages
D & F Scott Pub Inc; ISBN: 1930566093; (October 19,
2001)
Facing
West : The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building
by Richard Drinnon
(Paperback - March 1997)
Fort
Reno and the Indian Territory Frontier
by Stan Hoig
(Hardcover - October 2000)
Glass
Plates & Wagon Ruts : Images of the Southwest by Lisle Updike and William
Pennington
H. Jackson Clark, et al
Hardcover / Published 1998
Gold
Dust and Gunsmoke : Tales of Gold Rush Outlaws, Gunfighters, Lawmen, and
Vigilantes
by John Boessenecker
(Paperback - October 2000)
How to Make Cowboy Horse Gear
by Bruce Grant, Lee Rice
Listed under Leatherwork
The
Guns That Won the West : Firearms on the American Frontier, 1848-1898
by John Walter
Hardcover: 256 pages
Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal; ISBN: 185367351X; (June
1999)
A Good Year to Die : The Story of the Great Sioux War
by Charles M., III Robinson
Listed under The Indian Wars
Gatewood & Geronimo
by Louis Kraft
Listed under Indian Wars
Gunfighter: An Autobiography
by John Wesley Hardin
Listed under John Wesley Hardin
The
Heartsong of Charging Elk
by James Welch
A novel based on the true story of an Oglala Sioux removed from a reservation
to perform in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Dropbears.com
(Hardcover - August 2000)
I See by Your Outfit : Historic Cowboy Gear of the Northern Plains
by Tom Lindmier, Steven R. Mount
Listed under Cowboy Gear
'It's
Your Misfortune and None of My Own' : A New History of the American West
by Richard White
(Paperback - September 1993)
Jackson's Way : Andrew Jackson and the People of the Western Waters
by John Buchanan
Listed under Andrew Jackson
Jeff
Davis's Own : Cavalry, Comanches and the Battle for the Texas Frontier
by James R. Arnold
(Hardcover - October 2000)
Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War
by T. J. Stiles
Listed under Jesse James
The
Kachina and the Cross : Indians and Spaniards in the Early Southwest
by Carroll L. Riley
(Hardcover - December 1999)
A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
by Isabella Lucy Bird
Letters of a Woman Homesteader
by Elinore Pruitt Stewart, et al
Listed under Pioneer Women
The Life and Legend of Jay Gould
by Maury Klein
A history of American Railroads
Listed under American Railroads
A
Life Wild and Perilous : Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific
by Robert M. Utley
(Paperback - October 1998)
The
Legacy of Conquest : The Unbroken Past of the American West
by Patricia Nelson Limerick
(Paperback - April 1988)
The
Long, Bitter Trail : Andrew Jackson and the Indians (Critical Issue)
by Anthony F. C. Wallace, Eric Foner (Editor)
The Long, Bitter Trail considers the dramatic, little-understood factors
that led to the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
Paperback - 143 pages (August 1993)
Hill & Wang Pub; ISBN: 0809015528
The Montana Cowboy : Legends of the Big Sky Country
by David R. Stoecklein et al.
Listed under Montana History
Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Legend and a Monumental
Crime
by William Wise
An extraordinary account of the murder of innocents by religious zealots.
Listed under The Mountain Meadows
Massacre
Marking
the Sparrow's Fall : Wallace Stegner's American West
by Page Stegner (Preface), Wallace Earle Stegner
(Hardcover - September 1998)
The
Medicine Line: Life and Death on a North American Borderland
by Beth LaDow
(Hardcover - October 2000)
My Life on the Plains : Or Personal Experiences With the Indians
by George Armstrong Custer
Listed under Custer's Last Stand
No Life for a Lady
by Agnes Morley, Cleaveland, et al
Listed under Pioneer Women
Nothing Like It in the World : The Men Who Built the Transcontinental
Railroad 1863-1869
by Stephen E. Ambrose
Listed under American Railroads
One
Drop of Blood : The American Misadventure of Race
by Scott L. Malcomson
(Hardcover - October 2000)
The Oregon Trail
by Francis, Jr. Parkman
Listed under The Oregon Trail
A
Newer World : Kit Carson, John C. Fremont, and the Claiming of the American
West
by David Roberts
(Paperback - January 2001)
The
Peacemakers : Arms and Adventure in the American West
by R. L. Wilson, Peter Beard (Photographer)
(Hardcover - November 1992)
Pioneer Women: The Lives of Women on the Frontier
by Linda Peavy, Ursula Smith
Listed under Pioneer Women
The
Promised Land
by Ruhama Veltfort, Ruhama Veltford
Historical novel which has received very good reviews.
(Hardcover - October 1998)
Red
Blood and Black Ink: Journalism in the Old West
by David Dary
(Paperback - April 1999)
Sam Houston
by James L. Haley
Listed under Sam Houston
Tough
Trip Through Paradise, 1878-1879
by Andrew Garcia, Bennett H. Stein
A first-hand account of the Montana frontier, including the massacre
of the Nez Perce tribe by the U.S. Army as related by his wife, herself
a Nez Perce. Db.
Paperback from Univ of Idaho Pr
Book Published: June, 2003 |
| |
Tularosa: Last of the Frontier West
by Charles L. Sonnichsen
Listed under New Mexico
The Real Virginian: The Saga of Edwin Burnham Trafton, Last of the
Stagecoach Robbers
by John Watson
Listed under Lawmen & Outlaws
Who
Built America
by Nelson Lichtenstein, et al
(Paperback - February 2000)
Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend
by Casey Tefertiller
Listed under Wyatt Earp
The
Year of Decision 1846
by Bernard Augustine De Voto, et al
Year of Decision 1846 tells many fascinating stories of the U.S. explorers
who began the western march from the Mississippi to the Pacific, from Canada
to the annexation of Texas, California, and the southwest lands from Mexico.
It is the penultimate book of a trilogy which includes Across the Wide
Missouri (for which DeVoto won both the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes) and
The Course of Empire. DeVoto's narrative covers the expanding Western frontier,
the Mormons, the Donner party, Fremont's exploration, the Army of the West,
and takes readers into Native American tribal life. Amazon.com
(Paperback - October 2000)
The
Story of the West
by Robert M. Utley, John Logan Allen, James P. Ronda
Hardcover from DK Publishing
Book Published: September, 2003 |
| |
Written With Lead: Legendary American Gunfights and Gunfighters
William Weir
Hardcover / Published 1997
Out of Print - Try Used
Books
Plains Women : Women in the American West (Women in History Series)
by Paula Bartley, et al
(Paperback - March 1991)
Out of Print - Try Used
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