The Great Plains, stretching northward from Texas into Canada, is a region that has been understudied and overlooked. The Atlas of the Great Plains, however, brings a new focus to North America’s midcontinent. With more than three hundred original full-color maps, accompanied by extended...  more

The Great Plains, stretching northward from Texas into Canada, is a region that has been understudied and overlooked. The Atlas of the Great Plains, however, brings a new focus to North America’s midcontinent. With more than three hundred original full-color maps, accompanied by extended explanatory text, this collection chronicles the history of the Great Plains, including political and social developments. Far more than simply the geography of the region, this atlas explores a myriad of subjects from Native Americans to settlement patterns, agricultural ventures to voting records, and medical services to crime rates. These detailed and beautifully designed maps convey the significance of the region, capturing the essence of its land and life. The only current and comprehensive atlas of the Great Plains region, it is also the first atlas to include both the United States and Canada, showing the region’s full length and breadth.

Mark Twain is an American icon. We now know him as the author of classics, but in his day he was a controversial satirist and public figure who traveled the world and healed post-Civil War America with his tall tales, witty anecdotes, and humorous but insightful novels and stories. Twain's...  more

Mark Twain is an American icon. We now know him as the author of classics, but in his day he was a controversial satirist and public figure who traveled the world and healed post-Civil War America with his tall tales, witty anecdotes, and humorous but insightful novels and stories. Twain's legacy continues to flourish over 100 years after his death. MARK TWAIN'S AMERICA features spectacular examples of Twain memorabilia and period Americana from the unsurpassed collections of the Library of Congress: rare illustrations, vintage photographs, popular and fine prints, period views, caricatures, cartoons, maps, and more. Excerpts from Twain's writings are framed in a lively narrative by author Harry L. Katz. Covering the years between 1850 and 1910, the book gives readers an intimate view of Twain's many roles in life: Mississippi river boat pilot, California gold prospector, "printer's devil" at a small-town newspaper, muckraking journalist, novelist, public speaker extraordinaire, our first major celebrity author. Through letters, political cartoons, photographs and more, MARK TWAIN'S AMERICA offers an inside look into Twain's life as well as the literary. social, and political life of America during his time.

From his decision to leave school at fifteen to roam the world, to his recollections of life as a hobo on the Southern Pacific Railroad, as a cattle skinner in Texas, as a merchant seaman in Singapore and the West Indies, and as an itinerant bare-knuckled prizefighter across small-town America,...  more

From his decision to leave school at fifteen to roam the world, to his recollections of life as a hobo on the Southern Pacific Railroad, as a cattle skinner in Texas, as a merchant seaman in Singapore and the West Indies, and as an itinerant bare-knuckled prizefighter across small-town America, here is Louis L'Amour's memoir of his lifelong love affair with learning--from books, from yondering, and from some remarkable men and women--that shaped him as a storyteller and as a man. Like classic L'Amour fiction, Education of a Wandering Man mixes authentic frontier drama--such as the author's desperate efforts to survive a sudden two-day trek across the blazing Mojave desert--with true-life characters like Shanghai waterfront toughs, desert prospectors, and cowboys whom Louis L'Amour met while traveling the globe. At last, in his own words, this is a story of a one-of-a-kind life lived to the fullest . . . a life that inspired the books that will forever enable us to relive our glorious frontier heritage.

When it appeared in 1949, the first edition of Ray Allen Billington’s Westward Expansion set a new standard for scholarship in western American history, and the book’s reputation among historians, scholars, and students grew through four subsequent editions. This abridgment and...  more

When it appeared in 1949, the first edition of Ray Allen Billington’s Westward Expansion set a new standard for scholarship in western American history, and the book’s reputation among historians, scholars, and students grew through four subsequent editions. This abridgment and revision of Billington and Martin Ridge’s fifth edition, with a new introduction and additional scholarship by Ridge, as well as an updated bibliography, focuses on the Trans-Mississippi frontier. Although the text sets out the remarkable story of the American frontier, which became, almost from the beginning, an archetypal narrative of the new American nation's successful expansion, the authors do not forget the social, environmental, and human cost of national expansion. While most Americans take pride in the nation’s frontier heritage and its associated myths, they also share that history with others—especially with people of color—in whose collective memories the story of the American west is rendered both dark and painful. Westward Expansion encourages an understanding of American “westering” that is mindful of the racism and excessive nationalism that frequently marred the Western frontier experience. At the same time, the authors understand a sense of optimism, a profound faith in individuals’ own abilities, the willingness to innovate, and an abiding trust in democracy to be the transcendent values of the frontier experience, traits that continue to influence the character of America’s people long after the close of the western frontier.

In the autumn of 1878 a band of Cheyenne Indians set out from Indian Territory, where they had been sent by the U.S. government, to return to their homeland in the Yellowstone country. This saga of their heart-breaking fifteen-hundred-mile flight is by the author of "Crazy Horse: The...  more

In the autumn of 1878 a band of Cheyenne Indians set out from Indian Territory, where they had been sent by the U.S. government, to return to their homeland in the Yellowstone country. This saga of their heart-breaking fifteen-hundred-mile flight is by the author of "Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas and Old Jules".

Across the Great Plains snow fell every day but three that terrible February of 1887. Stranded cattle starved and froze to death by the thousand. Fortunes evaporated as ranch after ranch went under; the bottom dropped out of the beef market. Murderous blizzards heralded the end of the Old West,...  more

Across the Great Plains snow fell every day but three that terrible February of 1887. Stranded cattle starved and froze to death by the thousand. Fortunes evaporated as ranch after ranch went under; the bottom dropped out of the beef market. Murderous blizzards heralded the end of the Old West, an end hastened by railroads and barbed wire, by farmers and sheepmen streaming west to the prairies. But the cowboy himself survived catastrophe and change: He remains a national folk hero, larger than life in story, movie, and song. Rugged and courageous, he represents the vanished freedom and adventure of the open range. No wonder the cowboy mystique obscures the reason he exists at all. A 19th-century cattleman -- author Bart McDowell's Grandfather -- put it this way: " Most anything you want to say about cowboys is true. But the important thing is they take care of cows. " Seasoned with vivid first-hand accounts, The American Cowboy In Life and Legend traces the colorful, sometimes violent, history of the cattle industry from its beginnings in Mexico to the present. You will follow cowpunchers driving their Longhorn herds up famous trails -- Chisholm, Western, Goodnight-Loving -- and meet the men who pioneered them. You will sense the terror of stampede, flood, and prairie fire along the way. Ranchers battle rushers in showdowns climaxed by Wyoming's Johnson County War. Gunslinging cowpoles rampage through the brawling, cowtowns of Abilene and Dodge City . You will visit outfits at roundup time, when a man afoot is useless; observe life in remote line camps on the border of a  range; experience rodeo bronc riding, steer wrestling, and calf roping. More than 100 photographs by William Albert Allard -- and scores of other illustrations -- enliven this book. Written with savvy and humor, it confirms the claim of a trail hand who said he "would know an old cowboy in hell with his hide burnt off. It's the way they stand and walk and talk."

From the seventeenth century when colonial traders drove hundreds of barnyard cattle to Boston over the Bay State Cow Path until the late 1880's when the era of trail driving came to an end, the great frontier highways wound their way through American history. Even their names-- Wilderness Road,...  more

From the seventeenth century when colonial traders drove hundreds of barnyard cattle to Boston over the Bay State Cow Path until the late 1880's when the era of trail driving came to an end, the great frontier highways wound their way through American history. Even their names-- Wilderness Road, The Osage Trace, Chisholm Trail, Shawnee, Western, Cut-Off, Dodge and Goodnight-Loving, among many others-are a proud heritage. Here, stripped of myths and folklore, is a definitive account of the cattle trails, of the purpose they served, and of the men who followed them. The muddled history of the famous Chisholm Trail is at last untangled. Included also are the stories of Maxwell and Morris blazing the route of the Western Trail over which several million Longhorns and mustangs would travel in the years to come; of the unsolved mystery of the bleached buffalo skulls that marked every mile of the Cut-Off Trail; of the way blazed by Goodnight and Loving despite the raids of the ferocious Comanches which finally cost Loving his life. Then there is the saga of the trail-end towns that fattened on the cattle traffic-Abilene, Ellsworth, Newton, Wichita, Caldwell, Dodge City-with the true tales of gunfighters, gamblers, marshals, dance-hall girls, feuding railroad men, and an ever-changing army of cowboys. Here, too, are many other documented case histories. The killer enigma that was Texas fever is solved. A stirring chapter describes the bloody battles with the Indians on the Texas Road during the Civil War. The background of the indomitable, half-wild mustangs and Longhorns is given. And above all there are the factual stories of the trail crews who took part in the greatest mass movement of cattle the world has ever known-the brave, reckless men who faced the hazards of blizzards, hostile Indians, rivers transformed into raging torrents, stampedes, and sudden death when "they pointed them north!"

Texas Women on the Cattle Trails tells the stories of sixteen women who drove cattle up the trail from Texas during the last half of the nineteenth century. Some were young; some were old (over thirty). Some took to the trails by choice; others, out of necessity. Some went along to look at the...  more

Texas Women on the Cattle Trails tells the stories of sixteen women who drove cattle up the trail from Texas during the last half of the nineteenth century. Some were young; some were old (over thirty). Some took to the trails by choice; others, out of necessity. Some went along to look at the stars; others, to work the cattle. Some made money and built ranching empires, but others went broke and lived hard, even desperate lives. The courage of Margaret Borland and the spunk of Willie Matthews, the pure delight of Cornelia Adair viewing the buffalo, and the joy of Mary Bunton gazing at night constellations on the open range offer new insights into women's experiences of the West. For the most part, these were ordinary women doing the best they could in difficult frontier conditions. They did not see themselves as living in unusual times or participating in "romantic" lifestyles, although the women who actually took to the trail were few in number. Like the cowboys on cattle drives, they faced dust and heat, thirst and exhaustion, rustlers and Indians, stampedes and prairie fires. Drawing heavily on the accounts of the women themselves, the authors of these chapters vividly illustrate the complexity and diversity of women's experiences on the cattle trails. Their stories of cattle drives and moving cattle to distant pastures add an important chapter to the story of life in the real Old West.

Long Journeys tells about the travels of a very old book. When Myrna Taylor discovered the handwritten ledger on a shelf in her mother’s basement sewing room, she had no idea of its content or that it was destined to play an important role in her life. The cardboard-covered book was filled...  more

Long Journeys tells about the travels of a very old book. When Myrna Taylor discovered the handwritten ledger on a shelf in her mother’s basement sewing room, she had no idea of its content or that it was destined to play an important role in her life. The cardboard-covered book was filled with Revolutionary War records and New York court cases written by her ancestor John Comins, Junior between 1778 and 1812. Beginning in Danbury, Connecticut and moving ever westward, the small book has indeed been on a long journey. Its history is told through the lives of the people who have preserved and protected it for 240 years. It is amazing that it survived the harsh travel conditions of the early 1800s, mob attacks, rough crossings of the Mississippi River and a lengthy trek by wagon train. As it follows the Mormon trail from New York to Utah, and then on to Idaho, Long Journeys shows how one couple’s decision to join the newly-formed Latter-day Saint church in 1832 affected the lives of generations of their family – those who stayed with the church and those who did not. Weaving LDS church history with family history, the author’s own trek through research and writing is another facet of Long Journeys.

An urgent-care physician with a passion for the Lewis and Clark Expedition describes the medical challenges the captains encountered and treated using the primitive medicine and theories of 1803. Dr. Peck details how they dealt with illnesses and accidents including frostbite, severe cuts, and...  more

An urgent-care physician with a passion for the Lewis and Clark Expedition describes the medical challenges the captains encountered and treated using the primitive medicine and theories of 1803. Dr. Peck details how they dealt with illnesses and accidents including frostbite, severe cuts, and appendicitis, parasites, snakebite, a gunshot wound and much more.

Edited, with commentary and notes by Minnie M. Brashear and Robert M. Rodney, with introduction by Edward Wagenknecht. Excerpts from Twain's works are organized under "Mark Twain, Master Storyteller and Descriptive Artist" (Missouri boyhood, The River, The West, The Magic Land, The World...  more

Edited, with commentary and notes by Minnie M. Brashear and Robert M. Rodney, with introduction by Edward Wagenknecht. Excerpts from Twain's works are organized under "Mark Twain, Master Storyteller and Descriptive Artist" (Missouri boyhood, The River, The West, The Magic Land, The World Outside), "Mark Twain, Missouri Humorist" (Early Humor in Missouri, Mark Twain's Development as a Humorist, The American Prometheus) and finally "Mark Twain, Epigrammitist." Also includes a chonology of Mark Twain's life and literary career, selected bibliography and index.

American Bison combines the latest scientific information and one man's personal experience in an homage to one of the most magnificent animals to have roamed America's vast, vanished grasslands. Dale F. Lott, a distinguished behavioral ecologist who was born on the National Bison Range and has...  more

American Bison combines the latest scientific information and one man's personal experience in an homage to one of the most magnificent animals to have roamed America's vast, vanished grasslands. Dale F. Lott, a distinguished behavioral ecologist who was born on the National Bison Range and has studied the buffalo for many years, relates what is known about this iconic animal's life in the wild and its troubled history with humans. Written with unusual grace and verve, American Bison takes us on a journey into the bison's past and shares a compelling vision for its future, offering along the way a valuable introduction to North American prairie ecology. We become Lott's companions in the field as he acquaints us with the social life and physiology of the bison, sharing stories about its impressive physical prowess and fascinating relationships. Describing the entire grassland community in which the bison live, he writes about the wolves, pronghorn, prairie dogs, grizzly bears, and other animals and plants, detailing the interdependent relationships among these inhabitants of a lost landscape. Lott also traces the long and dramatic relationship between the bison and Native Americans, and gives a surprising look at the history of the hide hunts that delivered the coup de grâce to the already dwindling bison population in a few short years. This book gives us a peek at the rich and unique ways of life that evolved in the heart of America. Lott also dismantles many of the myths we have created about these ways of life, and about the bison in particular, to reveal the animal itself: ruminating, reproducing, and rutting in its full glory. His portrait of the bison ultimately becomes a plea to conserve its wildness and an eloquent meditation on the importance of the wild in our lives. 40 b/w photographs, 2 maps

The Wild West goes farther back in time and space than you might imagine.

This entirely new edition of a famous classic has glorious new photographs?many never before seen?as well as a revised and expanded text that deepens our understanding of the vital role played by African American men and women on our early frontiers.Inspired by a conversation that William Loren...  more

This entirely new edition of a famous classic has glorious new photographs?many never before seen?as well as a revised and expanded text that deepens our understanding of the vital role played by African American men and women on our early frontiers.Inspired by a conversation that William Loren Katz had with Langston Hughes, The Black West presents long-neglected stories of daring pioneers such as Nat Love, a.k.a. Deadwood Dick, Mary Fields, a.k.a. Stagecoach Mary, Cranford Goldsby, a.k.a. Cherokee Bill?and a host of other intrepid men and women who marched into the wilderness alongside Chief Osceola, Billy the Kid, and Geronimo.Featuring captivating narratives and photographs (many from the author?s world-famous collection), The Black West enriches and deepens our stirring frontier saga. From slave runaways during the colonial era, to the journeys of Lewis and Clark, to the charge at San Juan Hill, Katz vividly recounts the crucial contributions African Americans made during scores of frontier encounters. With its stirring pictures and vivid eyewitness accounts, The Black West is an exhilarating treasure trove.

Classically trained pianist and singer Natalie Curtis isolated herself for five years after a breakdown just before she was to debut with the New York Philharmonic. Guilt-ridden and songless, Natalie can't seem to recapture the joy music once brought her. In 1902, her brother invites her to...  more

Classically trained pianist and singer Natalie Curtis isolated herself for five years after a breakdown just before she was to debut with the New York Philharmonic. Guilt-ridden and songless, Natalie can't seem to recapture the joy music once brought her. In 1902, her brother invites her to join him in the West to search for healing. What she finds are songs she'd never before encountered -- the haunting melodies, rhythms, and stories of Native Americans. But their music is under attack. The US government's Code of Offenses prohibits American's indigenous people from singing, dancing, or speaking their own languages as the powers that be insist on assimilation. Natalie makes it her mission not only to document these songs before they disappear but to appeal to President Teddy Roosevelt himself, who is the only man with the power to repeal the unjust law. Will she succeed and step into a new song . . . and a new future? Award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick weaves yet another lyrical tale based on a true story that will keep readers captivated to the very end.

In 1966 Edward Hoagland made a three-month excursion into the wild country of northern British Columbia. His account of this trip, Notes from the Century Before, is one of the great travel books of our time. It depicts a way of life that was disappearing even as he chronicled it and it...  more

In 1966 Edward Hoagland made a three-month excursion into the wild country of northern British Columbia. His account of this trip, Notes from the Century Before, is one of the great travel books of our time. It depicts a way of life that was disappearing even as he chronicled it and it highlights Edward Hoagland's extraordinary gifts for portraiture, from salty prospector to trader, explorer, missionary, and Indian guide. Here is a breathtaking mix of anecdote, derring-do, and the long sigh of the wilderness loner.

The classic story of a Norwegian pioneer family's struggles with the land and the elements of the Dakota Territory as they try to make a new life in America.

A sequel to Giants in the Earth, this work tells the tale of Norwegian settlers in the Dakotas. Beret and their children, Syvert Tonseten and Kjersti, and Sorine struggle to adapt, and to become Americans. This is a novel of youth and youth's self-discovery. It is a story of Beret's pain...  more

A sequel to Giants in the Earth, this work tells the tale of Norwegian settlers in the Dakotas. Beret and their children, Syvert Tonseten and Kjersti, and Sorine struggle to adapt, and to become Americans. This is a novel of youth and youth's self-discovery. It is a story of Beret's pain and dismay at the Americanization of her children.

A gripping account of the legendary battle, told from the Lakota perspective The 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn has become known as the quintessential clash of cultures between the Lakota and white settlers. The men who led the battle—Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Colonel George A....  more

A gripping account of the legendary battle, told from the Lakota perspective The 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn has become known as the quintessential clash of cultures between the Lakota and white settlers. The men who led the battle—Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Colonel George A. Custer—have become legends. Here award-winning Lakota historian Joseph Marshall reveals the nuanced complexities that led up to and followed the battle. Until now, this account has been available only within the Lakota oral tradition. The Day the World Ended at Little Bighorn is required reading for anyone enthralled by the tale of the tragic fight that changed the scope of both America and the American landscape.

The rags-to-riches American frontier tale of an Irish immigrant who outwits, outworks, and outmaneuvers thousands of rivals to take control of Nevada?s Comstock Lode?the rich body of gold and silver so immensely valuable that it changed the destiny of the United States. Born in 1831, John W....  more

The rags-to-riches American frontier tale of an Irish immigrant who outwits, outworks, and outmaneuvers thousands of rivals to take control of Nevada?s Comstock Lode?the rich body of gold and silver so immensely valuable that it changed the destiny of the United States. Born in 1831, John W. Mackay was a penniless Irish immigrant who came of age in New York City, went to California during the Gold Rush, and mined without much luck for eight years. When he heard of riches found on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1859, Mackay abandoned his claim and walked a hundred miles to the Comstock Lode in Nevada. Over the course of the next dozen years, Mackay worked his way up from nothing, thwarting the pernicious ?Bank Ring? monopoly to seize control of the most concentrated cache of precious metals ever found on earth, the legendary ?Big Bonanza,? a stupendously rich body of gold and silver ore discovered 1,500 feet beneath the streets of Virginia City, the ultimate Old West boomtown. But for the ore to be worth anything it had to be found, claimed, and successfully extracted, each step requiring enormous risk and the creation of an entirely new industry. Now Gregory Crouch tells Mackay?s amazing story?how he extracted the ore from deep underground and used his vast mining fortune to crush the transatlantic telegraph monopoly of the notorious Jay Gould. When Mackay died in 1902, front-page obituaries in Europe and the United States hailed him as one of the most admired Americans of the age. Featuring great period photographs and maps, The Bonanza King is a dazzling tour de force, a riveting history of Virginia City, Nevada, the Comstock Lode, and America itself.

In her pulchritudinous prime Baby Doe was called the Silver Queen of Colorado by journalists and "that shameless hussy" by the proper wives of the men who eyed her. Flirtatious, adventurous, ambitious, Elizabeth McCourt Doe gave everyone a lot to talk about when she met Horace Tabor,...  more

In her pulchritudinous prime Baby Doe was called the Silver Queen of Colorado by journalists and "that shameless hussy" by the proper wives of the men who eyed her. Flirtatious, adventurous, ambitious, Elizabeth McCourt Doe gave everyone a lot to talk about when she met Horace Tabor, the Silver King of Leadville, in 1880. Three years later they were free to legalize their passion. Although thirty years separated them, they were well matched in romantic recklessness. If The Legend of Baby Doe is the lowdown on the high jinks of two public lives, it is also the story of a love that survived spectacularly good times and bad. Before bad times came, Baby and Horace went on a spending spree. They built an opulent opera house in Denver and bought an Italian-ate villa. Baby Doe went out bejeweled and ermined, and sat at home alone, snubbed by the social dragons. John Burke has written about the giddy rise of a bonanza king who dreamed of entering the White House with Baby Doe on his arm and about the disastrous fall they took together. Wiped out by unwise investments and the Panic of 1893, Tabor soon died, leaving Baby Doe and their two daughters penniless. Reportedly, his deathbed order was to "hang on to the Matchless," a played-out mine filled with water. She managed to do that for almost four decades, struggling heroically against loneliness, poverty, and heartbreak, and becoming one of the great legends of the American West.

Critical acclaim for The Last Comanche Chief "Truly distinguished. Neeley re-creates the character and achievements of this most significant of all Comanche leaders." — Robert M. Utley author of The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull "A vivid, eyewitness...  more

Critical acclaim for The Last Comanche Chief "Truly distinguished. Neeley re-creates the character and achievements of this most significant of all Comanche leaders." — Robert M. Utley author of The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull "A vivid, eyewitness account of life for settlers and Native Americans in those violent and difficult times." — Christian Science Monitor "The special merits of Neeley's work include its reliance on primary sources and illuminating descriptions of interactions among Southern Plains people, Native and white." — Library Journal "He has given us a fuller and clearer portrait of this extraordinary Lord of the South Plains than we've ever had before." — The Dallas Morning News

Murder Morality and Madness: Women Criminals in Early Oregon takes a peek at an often overlooked part of Western history. The Victorians were quite adept at keeping immoral or bad behavior a secret. Goeres-Gardner does a wonderful job in uncovering the secret past of abuse, neglect and double...  more

Murder Morality and Madness: Women Criminals in Early Oregon takes a peek at an often overlooked part of Western history. The Victorians were quite adept at keeping immoral or bad behavior a secret. Goeres-Gardner does a wonderful job in uncovering the secret past of abuse, neglect and double standards for women criminals. Turning these pages will allow you to discover what drove normally proper Victorian women to murder. You'll learn about women's trials, their all-male juries and the horrid conditions they faced in all-male prisons. sect. 1. Wives fight back. Charity Lamb ; Mary Prout ; Minnie Crockett -- sect. 2. In defense of honor. Caroline Briggs ; Mattie Allison ; Sarah Amanda McDaniel ; Rose Bryan -- sect. 3. Self defense. Mary McCormick ; Annie Lynch ; Emma Frishkorn ; Margaret Taylor ; Josephine Ross -- sect. 4. Prosititution and violence. Carrie Bradley ; Annie Murray -- sect. 5. Insanity is the enemy. Emma Hannah ; Maria Winfield -- sect. 6. Murder and suicide. Jennie Aunspaugh ; Mrs. T.R. Elliott

Before Rachel Carson, there was George Bird Grinnell?the man whose prophetic vision did nothing less than launch American conservation. George Bird Grinnell, the son of a New York merchant, saw a different future for a nation in the thrall of the Industrial Age. With railroads scarring virgin...  more

Before Rachel Carson, there was George Bird Grinnell?the man whose prophetic vision did nothing less than launch American conservation. George Bird Grinnell, the son of a New York merchant, saw a different future for a nation in the thrall of the Industrial Age. With railroads scarring virgin lands and the formerly vast buffalo herds decimated, the country faced a crossroads: Could it pursue Manifest Destiny without destroying its natural bounty and beauty? The alarm that Grinnell sounded would spark America?s conservation movement. Yet today his name has been forgotten?an omission that John Taliaferro?s commanding biography now sets right with historical care and narrative flair. Grinnell was born in Brooklyn in 1849 and grew up on the estate of ornithologist John James Audubon. Upon graduation from Yale, he dug for dinosaurs on the Great Plains with eminent paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh?an expedition that fanned his romantic notion of wilderness and taught him a graphic lesson in evolution and extinction. Soon he joined George A. Custer in the Black Hills, helped to map Yellowstone, and scaled the peaks and glaciers that, through his labors, would become Glacier National Park. Along the way, he became one of America?s most respected ethnologists; seasons spent among the Plains Indians produced numerous articles and books, including his tour de force, The Cheyenne Indians: Their History and Ways of Life. More than a chronicler of natural history and indigenous culture, Grinnell became their tenacious advocate. He turned the sportsmen?s journal Forest and Stream into a bully pulpit for wildlife protection, forest reserves, and national parks. In 1886, his distress over the loss of bird species prompted him to found the first Audubon Society. Next, he and Theodore Roosevelt founded the Boone and Crockett Club to promote ?fair chase? of big game. His influence among the rich and the patrician provided leverage for the first federal legislation to protect migratory birds?a precedent that ultimately paved the way for the Endangered Species Act. And in an era when too many white Americans regarded Native Americans as backwards, Grinnell?s cries for reform carried from the reservation, through the halls of Congress, all the way to the White House. Drawing on forty thousand pages of Grinnell?s correspondence and dozens of his diaries, Taliaferro reveals a man whose deeds and high-mindedness earned him a lustrous peerage, from presidents to chiefs, Audubon to Aldo Leopold, John Muir to Gifford Pinchot, Edward S. Curtis to Edward H. Harriman. Throughout his long life, Grinnell was bound by family and sustained by intimate friendships, toggling between the East and the West. As Taliaferro?s enthralling portrait demonstrates, it was this tension that wound Grinnell?s nearly inexhaustible spring and honed his vision?a vision that still guides the imperiled future of our national treasures. 16 pages of black and white illustrations

American Indians remain familiar as icons, yet poorly understood as historical agents. In this ambitious book that ranges across Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and eastern California (a region known as the Great Basin), Ned Blackhawk places Native peoples squarely at the center of a dynamic...  more

American Indians remain familiar as icons, yet poorly understood as historical agents. In this ambitious book that ranges across Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and eastern California (a region known as the Great Basin), Ned Blackhawk places Native peoples squarely at the center of a dynamic and complex story as he chronicles two centuries of Indian and imperial history that profoundly shaped the American West. On the distant margins of empire, Great Basin Indians increasingly found themselves engulfed in the chaotic storms of European expansion and responded in ways that refashioned themselves and those around them. Focusing on Ute, Paiute, and Shoshone Indians, Blackhawk illuminates this history through a lens of violence, excavating the myriad impacts of colonial expansion. Brutal networks of trade and slavery forged the Spanish borderlands, and the use of violence became for many Indians a necessary survival strategy, particularly after Mexican Independence when many became raiders and slave traffickers. Throughout such violent processes, these Native communities struggled to adapt to their changing environments, sometimes scoring remarkable political ends while suffering immense reprisals. Violence over the Land is a passionate reminder of the high costs that the making of American history occasioned for many indigenous peoples, written from the vantage point of an Indian scholar whose own family history is intimately bound up in its enduring legacies. (20060915)

Bird Woman is historian James Schultz?s biography of Sacajawea culled from the first-hand accounts of various elderly Native Americans who personally knew her. Schultz weaves together the key events in Sacajawea?s story, from her traumatic childhood and adolescence, being captured and taken away...  more

Bird Woman is historian James Schultz?s biography of Sacajawea culled from the first-hand accounts of various elderly Native Americans who personally knew her. Schultz weaves together the key events in Sacajawea?s story, from her traumatic childhood and adolescence, being captured and taken away from her home by a raiding party of Minnetaree, to her unhappy marriage to the interpreter Toussaint Charbonneau, through to her life assisting in Lewis and Clark?s exploration of the Pacific Northwest.?A dazzling glimpse into a vanished past.? ? The New York Times.

James Willard Schultz (1859?1947) was an author, explorer, and historian known for his historical writings of the Blackfoot Indians in the late 1800s when he lived among them as a fur trader. His work includes first-hand accounts from Native Americans which he recorded and wove exciting...  more

James Willard Schultz (1859?1947) was an author, explorer, and historian known for his historical writings of the Blackfoot Indians in the late 1800s when he lived among them as a fur trader. His work includes first-hand accounts from Native Americans which he recorded and wove exciting biographical narratives around. The James Willard Schultz Collection includes the four books Schultz is best known for - Bird Woman (Sacajawea) the Guide of Lewis and Clark: Her Own Story Now First Given to the World, Lone Bull's Mistake: A Lodge Pole Chief Story, Rising Wolf, the White Blackfoot: Hugh Monroe's Story of His First Year on the Plains and Apauk, Caller of Buffalo. James Willard Schultz CollectionBird Woman (Sacajawea) the Guide of Lewis and Clark: Her Own Story Now First Given to the World by James Willard Schultz. Lone Bull's Mistake: A Lodge Pole Chief Story by James Willard Schultz. Rising Wolf, the White Blackfoot: Hugh Monroe's Story of His First Year on the Plains by James Willard Schultz. Apauk, Caller of Buffalo by James Willard Schultz.

In 1846, eighty-seven people -- men, women and children -- set out overland for California. At the insistence of a foolish guide, the ill-fated Donner Party braved a new route across the desert. As they struggled across the barren waste, they lost many oxen and wagons and nearly died of thirst...  more

In 1846, eighty-seven people -- men, women and children -- set out overland for California. At the insistence of a foolish guide, the ill-fated Donner Party braved a new route across the desert. As they struggled across the barren waste, they lost many oxen and wagons and nearly died of thirst themselves. Finally they reached the Sierra, only to be trapped there by snow and storms. What followed is a tale of incredible hardship in which many perished and only a few survived -- through the desperate extremes of cannibalism. From the diaries of the survivors and other contemporary documents, George Stewart has recreated the story of this tragic band of pioneers. It is an astonishing account of what human beings are capable of perpetrating, enduring and achieving in the final press of circumstance.

An immediate bestseller upon its publication in 1880, the anonymously penned Democracy prompted widespread speculation and guessing games as to its author’s identity. It is the story of Mrs. Lightfoot Lee, a society widow, and Silas Ratcliffe, the most influential member of the Senate,...  more

An immediate bestseller upon its publication in 1880, the anonymously penned Democracy prompted widespread speculation and guessing games as to its author’s identity. It is the story of Mrs. Lightfoot Lee, a society widow, and Silas Ratcliffe, the most influential member of the Senate, who, throughout the novel, pursues Mrs. Lee while at the same time battling her for power. Set in Washington in the 1870s, Democracy presents a scathing and incisive look at the intricate inner workings of politics and corruption that remains relevant today.This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the 1880 first edition and includes a contemporary review from The Atlantic Monthly.

Much information (some of it factual, a lot of it fictional) is available about the famous gunfighters of the Old West―the Jameses, Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, John Wesley Hardin, and that latter-day folk idol, Butch Cassidy. Dozens of less-well-known but sometimes...  more

Much information (some of it factual, a lot of it fictional) is available about the famous gunfighters of the Old West―the Jameses, Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, John Wesley Hardin, and that latter-day folk idol, Butch Cassidy. Dozens of less-well-known but sometimes even more murderous gunslingers €•such men as Cullen Baker, Harvey Logan, Longhaired Jim Courtright, and Mysterious Dave Mather -- €•have received only scant mention in scattered accounts. This encyclopedia―a who’s who of the gunfighting West - provides a compilation of facts, sifted myths, folklore, and outright lies, about the lives and deaths of 255 men, both the famous and the all but forgotten. Also included are detailed accounts of the almost six hundred gunfights the men took part in, mostly between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the century. Each entry follows a concise and useful format: an alphabetical listing of the gunman; nicknames or aliases; dates and places of birth and death, is known; the occupations the man pursued; a brief biography; and, in chronological order, accounts of the verified gunfights in which he participated. In the Introduction, from the information he amassed in this volume, Bill O’Neal provides a fascinating summary of the data and offers new insights into the nature of the western gunmen and of the feuds and fights that bloodied the West. For example, he relates how a large number of the gunfighters used guns as tools of their trades, legitimate and otherwise―lawmen and detectives, buffalo hunters, army scouts, thieves, hired killers, and the like. Of the gunfighters included here 108 served as law officers at some time in their careers. The average lifespan, including those who died of natural causes, was forty-seven years, and more than 50 percent of the gunmen died from gunshot wounds. Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters offers a unique compilation of information about these men†-- a comprehensive and reliable source.

From Reliable Sources is a lively introduction to historical methodology, an overview of the techniques historians must master in order to reconstruct the past. Its focus on the basics of source criticism, rather than on how to find references or on the process of writing, makes it an invaluable...  more

From Reliable Sources is a lively introduction to historical methodology, an overview of the techniques historians must master in order to reconstruct the past. Its focus on the basics of source criticism, rather than on how to find references or on the process of writing, makes it an invaluable guide for all students of history and for anyone who must extract meaning from written and unwritten sources. Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier explore the methods employed by historians to establish the reliability of materials; how they choose, authenticate, decode, compare, and, finally, interpret those sources. Illustrating their discussion with examples from the distant past as well as more contemporary events, they pay particular attention to recent information media, such as television, film, and videotape. The authors do not subscribe to the positivist belief that the historian can attain objective and total knowledge of the past. Instead, they argue that each generation of historians develops its own perspective, and that our understanding of the past is constantly reshaped by the historian and the world he or she inhabits. A substantially revised and updated edition of Prevenier's Uit goede bron, originally published in Belgium and now in its seventh edition, From Reliable Sources also provides a survey of western historiography and an extensive research bibliography.

He was short, foul-mouthed, and so constitutionally pugnacious that he once thrashed a Southern train conductor who treated him rudely. He rose from the undistinguished rank of quartermaster to command the Union cavalry at the battles of Yellow Tavern (where he defeated his flamboyant rebel...  more

He was short, foul-mouthed, and so constitutionally pugnacious that he once thrashed a Southern train conductor who treated him rudely. He rose from the undistinguished rank of quartermaster to command the Union cavalry at the battles of Yellow Tavern (where he defeated his flamboyant rebel counterpart, J.E.B. Stuart) and Winchester. And when the Civil War was over, General Phil Sheridan continued to fight, whether that meant plunging into the bloody and byzantine politics of Reconstruction Louisiana or managing the inglorious war against the Plains Indians. This outstanding biography restores Sheridan to his place in American military history; examines his relationships with contemporaries like Grant, Sherman, and his ill-fated subordinate George Armstrong Custer, and makes the momentous age he lived in come back to life.

Lewis & Clark Probably no one knows more about Meriwether Lewis and William Clark than bestselling author and historian Stephen Ambrose, and Lewis & Clark: Voyage of Discovery reflects his superb command of -- and deep affection for -- this epic American journey. Highlighted by Sam Abell's...  more

Lewis & Clark Probably no one knows more about Meriwether Lewis and William Clark than bestselling author and historian Stephen Ambrose, and Lewis & Clark: Voyage of Discovery reflects his superb command of -- and deep affection for -- this epic American journey. Highlighted by Sam Abell's stunning photographs, this engrossing historical narrative interweaves choice entries from the explorers' journals with the author's own latter-day chronicle of how he and his family continue to discover the Trail today. Here is the whole extraordinary saga, from its visionary spark in Thomas Jefferson's mind to the expedition itself, with its hardships and adventures. Ambrose's own observations offer a modern look at the land and those who live in it, including the Native American descendants of the tribes who stood between Lewis and Clark and the Pacific Ocean. Superlative history, breathtaking photography, and an epic tale of exploration, endurance, and enterprise -- the classic ingredients that readers everywhere have come to expect from National Geographic.

'American Indian Stories' is a collection of childhood stories, allegorical fictions and essays written by Sioux writer and activist Zitkala-Sa. First published in 1921, 'American Indian Stories' details the hardships encountered by Zitkala-Sa and other Native Americans in the missionary and...  more

'American Indian Stories' is a collection of childhood stories, allegorical fictions and essays written by Sioux writer and activist Zitkala-Sa. First published in 1921, 'American Indian Stories' details the hardships encountered by Zitkala-Sa and other Native Americans in the missionary and manual labour schools designed to "civilize" them. The autobiographical details contrast her early life on the Yankton Indian Reservation and her time as a student at White's Manual Labour Institute and Earlham College. The collection includes legends and stories from Sioux oral tradition, along with an essay titled 'America's Indian Problem', which advocates rights for Native Americans and calls for a greater understanding of Native American cultures.

Yellow Wolf was one of the last surviving participants of the Nez Perce War. This is his story of the hitherto unrevealed Indian strategy and policy in that conflict as told to L.V. McWhorter, his friend for decades. McWhorter has documented the Indian's autobiography with a mass of evidence and...  more

Yellow Wolf was one of the last surviving participants of the Nez Perce War. This is his story of the hitherto unrevealed Indian strategy and policy in that conflict as told to L.V. McWhorter, his friend for decades. McWhorter has documented the Indian's autobiography with a mass of evidence and testimony that is a monumental contribution to the history of the Far Northwest. History.

In the literature of the Gold Rush, women have been generally neglected. Freelance writer Levy here corrects that oversight with a colorful account of intrepid female argonauts--with and without men. She draws on letters, journals and reminiscences for a fresh view of western history. The women...  more

In the literature of the Gold Rush, women have been generally neglected. Freelance writer Levy here corrects that oversight with a colorful account of intrepid female argonauts--with and without men. She draws on letters, journals and reminiscences for a fresh view of western history. The women traveled overland, by ship round the Horn (one family survived three burning ships); they crossed the Isthmus of Panama by mule, and Nicaragua by steamship and mule. In California they ran boardinghouses, provided meals and laundry service for miners, and organized schools and churches. The cast of characters includes actresses and prostitutes, a stagecoach driver and ordinary women seeking to make a new home.

An inclusive picture of the American Cowboy and how he arrived and departed the western landscape. While cowboys are still in existence, the trail drivers of the old west are a long-gone breed.

The Earp Brothers of Tombstone and the famous fight at the O. K. Corral are well known to American history and even better known to American legend. This composite biography of Wyatt, Morgan, Virgil, James and Warner Earp is based on the recollections of Mrs. Virgil Earp, dictated to the...  more

The Earp Brothers of Tombstone and the famous fight at the O. K. Corral are well known to American history and even better known to American legend. This composite biography of Wyatt, Morgan, Virgil, James and Warner Earp is based on the recollections of Mrs. Virgil Earp, dictated to the author in the 1930s, and amplified by documents he unearthed in 1959. In his review of the book for Library Journal, W. S. Wallace stated that he considered The Earp Brothers of Tombstone "the most authoritative account ever to be published on the subject."

As the peerless warrior who brought the U.S. Army to its knees at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse remains one of the most perennially fascinating figures of the American West. Now Joseph Marshall—a masterful storyteller, historian, and descendant of the same Lakota community...  more

As the peerless warrior who brought the U.S. Army to its knees at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse remains one of the most perennially fascinating figures of the American West. Now Joseph Marshall—a masterful storyteller, historian, and descendant of the same Lakota community that raised Crazy Horse—goes beyond that image in this one-of-a-kind portrait of the legendary leader. Drawing on extensive research and a rich oral tradition that is rarely shared outside the Native American community, Marshall gives us a uniquely complete portrait of Crazy Horse, from the powerful vision that spurred him into battle to the woman he loved but lost to circumstance. The Journey of Crazy Horse celebrates a long-standing community’s enduring culture and gives vibrant life to its most trusted and revered hero.

This book describes and illustrates all the rolling stock commonly used by any American railroad, including the 150 different types of locomotive. The renowned Peterson Identification System pinpoints the key field marks that distinguish one railroad car from another. The guide also lists the...  more

This book describes and illustrates all the rolling stock commonly used by any American railroad, including the 150 different types of locomotive. The renowned Peterson Identification System pinpoints the key field marks that distinguish one railroad car from another. The guide also lists the 840 different American railroads.

For three thousand years, the horse soldier has played a key role in both war fighting and in peace keeping all over the world, not only as a highly mobile strike force in battle but also as an instrument of reconnaissance and occupation, exploration, and irregular warfare. The American...  more

For three thousand years, the horse soldier has played a key role in both war fighting and in peace keeping all over the world, not only as a highly mobile strike force in battle but also as an instrument of reconnaissance and occupation, exploration, and irregular warfare. The American tradition of the mounted warrior is a proud one. But in the first days of our revolution, it looked as if George Washington was prepared to dispense with the use of mounted troops altogether. Eventually he saw their value, and over the next hundred years the cavalry adapted itself to the needs and imperatives of the growing nation. This is the story of the US Cavalry. In Bugles, Boots, and Saddles you’ll be able to ride along with heroes from years past, including: “Light-Horse Harry” Lee and his legion in the Revolutionary War Custer at Gettysburg, at the Battle of the Wabash, and at Little Big Horn Crook in pursuit of the Apache chieftain Geronimo in 1880s Arizona Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders at San Juan (Kettle) Hill And many more Bugles, Boots, and Saddles tells not only the history of our military, but also how we gained so much success due to the horse soldier. With an appendix on the daily life of US Cavalrymen, Brennan gives all the detail that any military historian would want to see.

Wild West Women features the true stories of the pioneering wives, mothers, daughters, teachers, writers, entrepreneurs, and artists who shaped the frontier and helped change the face of American history. These fifty stories cover the Western experience from Kansas City to Sacramento and the...  more

Wild West Women features the true stories of the pioneering wives, mothers, daughters, teachers, writers, entrepreneurs, and artists who shaped the frontier and helped change the face of American history. These fifty stories cover the Western experience from Kansas City to Sacramento and the Yukon to the Texas Gulf.

Captain Cook is the greatest explorer-seaman of all time, yet the world has had to wait almost two centuries for the first full-scale biography to do justice to the man and his achievements. Professor J.C. Beaglehole, the leading authority on Pacific exploration, devoted himself for many years...  more

Captain Cook is the greatest explorer-seaman of all time, yet the world has had to wait almost two centuries for the first full-scale biography to do justice to the man and his achievements. Professor J.C. Beaglehole, the leading authority on Pacific exploration, devoted himself for many years to the editing of Cook's copious Journals, a monument of scholarship in four massive volumes, and the Journal of Josepph Banks who accompanied Cook in the Endeavor. The Journals completed, Beaglehole turn to writing as the crown of his life's work this biography of Cook, which was completed but for a final checking when he died. This is not merely a chronological account of events in Cook's life but a deeply revealing study of the growth of a complex character, stubborn and passionate yet patient and judicious, seen in his actions as an unrivalled navigator and explorer and as a commander of men. Those who influenced Cook from childhood up, and those who sailed with him on his voyages, are as clearly and surely drawn as the man himself. The author's first-hand knowledge of the Pacific Islands and the coasts of New Zealand and Australia give a warmth and actuality to the narrative, while his impeccable scholarship and skill in handling the mass of documentary material, his wit, and his elegant literary style, confirm the expectration that this is one of the great historical biographies.

In the spring of 1884 Ulysses S. Grant heeded the advice of Mark Twain and finally agreed to write his memoirs. Little did Grant or Twain realize that this seemingly straightforward decision would profoundly alter not only both their lives but the course of American literature. Over the next...  more

In the spring of 1884 Ulysses S. Grant heeded the advice of Mark Twain and finally agreed to write his memoirs. Little did Grant or Twain realize that this seemingly straightforward decision would profoundly alter not only both their lives but the course of American literature. Over the next fifteen months, as the two men became close friends and intimate collaborators, Grant raced against the spread of cancer to compose a triumphant account of his life and times -- while Twain struggled to complete and publish his greatest novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.In this deeply moving and meticulously researched book, veteran writer Mark Perry reconstructs the heady months when Grant and Twain inspired and cajoled each other to create two quintessentially American masterpieces. In a bold and colorful narrative, Perry recounts the early careers of these two giants, traces their quest for fame and elusive fortunes, and then follows the series of events that brought them together as friends. The reason Grant let Twain talk him into writing his memoirs was simple: He was bankrupt and needed the money. Twain promised Grant princely returns in exchange for the right to edit and publish the book -- and though the writer’s own finances were tottering, he kept his word to the general and his family.

(Book). The banjo is emblematic of American country music, and it is at the core of other important musical movements, including jazz and ragtime. The instrument has been adopted by many cultures and has been ingrained into many musical traditions, from Mento music in the Caribbean and dance...  more

(Book). The banjo is emblematic of American country music, and it is at the core of other important musical movements, including jazz and ragtime. The instrument has been adopted by many cultures and has been ingrained into many musical traditions, from Mento music in the Caribbean and dance music in Ireland. Virtuosos such as Bela Fleck have played Bach, African music, and Christmas tunes on the five-string banjo, and the instrument has had a resurgence in pop music with such acts a Mumford and Sons and the Avett Brothers. This book offers the first comprehensive, illustrated history of the banjo in its many forms. It traces the story of the instrument from its roots in West Africa to its birth in the Americas, through its coming of age in the Industrial Revolution and beyond. The book profiles the most important players and spotlights key luthiers and manufacturers. It features 100 "milestone instruments" with in-depth coverage, including model details and beautiful photos. It offers historical context surrounding the banjo through the ages, from its place in Victorian parlors and speakeasies through its role in the folk boom of the 1950s and 1960s to its place in the hands of songwriter John Hartford and comedian Steve Martin. Folk, jazz, bluegrass, country, and rock the banjo has played an important part in all of these genres. Lavishly illustrated, and thoughtfully written by author, broadcaster, and acclaimed banjoist Bob Carlin, this is a must-have for lovers of fretted instruments, aficionados of roots music, and music history buffs.

The organized gangs of robbers and killers who roamed the Midwest and Southwest from the 1860s to the 1930s went to the same school and were succored by each other's notoriety. So Paul I. Wellman makes a case for "the contagious nature of crime." William Quantrill and his...  more

The organized gangs of robbers and killers who roamed the Midwest and Southwest from the 1860s to the 1930s went to the same school and were succored by each other's notoriety. So Paul I. Wellman makes a case for "the contagious nature of crime." William Quantrill and his guerrillas established a criminal tradition that was to link the James, Dalton, Doolin, Jennings, and Cook gangs; Belle and Henry Starr; Pretty Boy Floyd; and others in "a long and crooked train of unbroken personal connections."

Derek Bailey's Improvisation, originally published in 1980, and here updated and extended with new interviews and photographs, is the first book to deal with the nature of improvisation in all its forms--Indian music, flamenco, baroque, organ music, rock, jazz, contemporary, and...  more

Derek Bailey's Improvisation, originally published in 1980, and here updated and extended with new interviews and photographs, is the first book to deal with the nature of improvisation in all its forms--Indian music, flamenco, baroque, organ music, rock, jazz, contemporary, and "free" music. By drawing on conversations with some of today's seminal improvisers--including John Zorn, Jerry Garcia, Steve Howe, Steve Lacy, Lionel Salter, Earle Brown, Paco Peña, Max Roach, Evan Parker, and Ronnie Scott--Bailey offers a clear-eyed view of the breathtaking spectrum of possibilities inherent in improvisational practice, while underpinning its importance as the basis for all music-making.

Marilyn Dell Brady introduces readers to the lives, languages, religions, and cultures of Chinese, Japanese, East Indian, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino, Laotian, and Cambodian Texans.

Beautifully written and illustrated, this book follows Lewis and Clark from the inception of their expedition to their celebrated homecoming. In an effort to seek out -- and stake out -- the fabled Northwest Passage, Captains Lewis and Clark led the expedition from Missouri through uncharted...  more

Beautifully written and illustrated, this book follows Lewis and Clark from the inception of their expedition to their celebrated homecoming. In an effort to seek out -- and stake out -- the fabled Northwest Passage, Captains Lewis and Clark led the expedition from Missouri through uncharted territory to Oregon. They fought rivers, suffered sunstroke, encountered and befriended Indians, and survived hunger, fatigue, and sickness. The journals brought back by various members, excerpted here, present the first written account of the area west of the Mississippi, including the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. Illustrations focus on running maps that serve as time lines, current photographs of still-virgin wilderness, annotated sketches selected from the hundreds of plants and animals (which the expedition documented for the first time), and artifacts created or first archived by Lewis and Clark themselves.

Whether it's the Oglala Lakota, Sioux, or Arapaho, Native cultures across the continent hold a special place in their hearts and culture for horses. This tradition of horses in Native American culture is depicted in A Song for the Horse Nation through images, essays, and quotation-including...  more

Whether it's the Oglala Lakota, Sioux, or Arapaho, Native cultures across the continent hold a special place in their hearts and culture for horses. This tradition of horses in Native American culture is depicted in A Song for the Horse Nation through images, essays, and quotation-including stories and songs collected nearly a century ago by Frances Densmore, and poems by the brilliant contemporary writers Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur d'Al�ne), Luci Tapahonso (Navajo), and Linda Hogan (Chickasaw). A Song for the Horse Nation gives powerful and passionate voice to the emotional dimension of the relationship between the horse and mankind.

 Save for a very few, the true West Texas cowboy has ridden his last round - up. Gone are the dusty trail drive, the remote line camps, the fence riders, the open pasture brandings, and the chuck wagons. But stories of those bygone days remain, albeit far too few. Fortunately, a handful of...  more

 Save for a very few, the true West Texas cowboy has ridden his last round - up. Gone are the dusty trail drive, the remote line camps, the fence riders, the open pasture brandings, and the chuck wagons. But stories of those bygone days remain, albeit far too few. Fortunately, a handful of those cowboys were also of the literary type. “Scotch Bill” Elliot was one of those. He had the foresight to record those stories for posterity. Without Elliot and those like him, much of the history of the settling of West Texas would have been lost.Elliot’s subjects were varied—from the killing of the last buffalo to the end of the open range, from searing droughts to winter blizzards, from lush pastures to barren prairies, from good cow horses and good companions to bad deeds done by bad men. Perhaps the greatest contribution of Elliot’s book is the numerous insightful profiles of cowboys and cattlemen. The American cowboy is always remembered as an unrivaled folk hero who possessed all of the qualities that people most admire. Elliot holds the cowboy and his lifestyle in the highest esteem, but he strips away the myth and writes forthrightly about that way of life.This is not a scholarly treatise, being thoroughly researched and meticulously documented. This is an eyewitness account by a man who lived the history and simply recorded the events as they unfolded during his lifetime. If you want a recitation of cold facts frequently punctuated by dates, this is not your book. This volume is earthy, sometimes even crude, but it tells of life the way it really was on the West Texas range. For all who want to know about the life of the cowboy and the cattlemen, the day-to-day drudgery of ranch work, ranch cooking, cowboy customs, relations with “nesters,” cowboy pranksters and recreation, and the satisfaction and exhilaration of sittin’ on good horse flesh driving a herd of well - bred cattle to lush pastures—this is your book.—Eric SwensonSave for a very few, the true West Texas cowboy has ridden his last round-up. Gone are the dusty trail drive, the remote line camps, the fence riders, the open pasture brandings, and the chuck wagons. But stories of those bygone days remain, albeit far too few. Fortunately, a handful of those cowboys were also of the literary type. “Scotch Bill” Elliot was one of those. He had the foresight to record those stories for posterity. Without Elliot and those like him, much of the history of the settling of West Texas would have been lost.Elliot’s subjects were varied—from the killing of the last buffalo to the end of the open range, from searing droughts to winter blizzards, from lush pastures to barren prairies, from good cow horses and good companions to bad deeds done by bad men. Perhaps the greatest contribution of Elliot’s book is the numerous insightful profiles of cowboys and cattlemen. The American cowboy is always remembered as an unrivaled folk hero who possessed all of the qualities that people most admire. Elliot holds the cowboy and his lifestyle in the highest esteem, but he strips away the myth and writes forthrightly about that way of life.This is not a scholarly treatise, being thoroughly researched and meticulously documented. This is an eyewitness account by a man who lived the history and simply recorded the events as they unfolded during his lifetime. If you want a recitation of cold facts frequently punctuated by dates, this is not your book. This volume is earthy, sometimes even crude, but it tells of life the way it really was on the West Texas range. For all who want to know about the life of the cowboy and the cattlemen, the day-to-day drudgery of ranch work, ranch cooking, cowboy customs, relations with “nesters,” cowboy pranksters and recreation, and the satisfaction and exhilaration of sittin’ on good horse flesh driving a herd of well-bred cattle to lush pastures—this is your book.--Eric Swenson  

"How They Lived" is a collection of significant passages from writers who were describing 'at first hand' what they knew from their own experience. The passages selected are chosen to reveal details of many aspects of life. It resembles "They Saw It Happen", but the arrangement is by topic not...  more

"How They Lived" is a collection of significant passages from writers who were describing 'at first hand' what they knew from their own experience. The passages selected are chosen to reveal details of many aspects of life. It resembles "They Saw It Happen", but the arrangement is by topic not by date.

"My father once told me, 'Son, mining is a wonderful, honest way to make a living, but in the end, you'll either get silicosis or you'll get maimed or you'll get killed.'" Throughout the stories that Caroline Arlen collected for this fascinating book, you will hear the same type of...  more

"My father once told me, 'Son, mining is a wonderful, honest way to make a living, but in the end, you'll either get silicosis or you'll get maimed or you'll get killed.'" Throughout the stories that Caroline Arlen collected for this fascinating book, you will hear the same type of contradictions. Most of the men and the few women who worked the mines talk about how much they love mining and in their next breath they tell about the horrific accidents that happened almost daily at the workplace. Every time they entered the mine for their shift, they faced the very real possibility that they might not return home. These miners put their lives on the line, hoping they would not be the next one to die or be maimed as a result of a cave-in: PRemature explosion or a falling slab. But mining was their way of life, and one that paid well and created a close community where folks found it necessary and important to look after each other. These wonderful stories give a good depiction of the hardships, the heroics, and the special brand of humor that is unique to hardrock mining.

Michael Downing is obsessed with Daylight Saving, the loopy idea that became the most persistent political controversy in American history. Almost one hundred years after Congressmen and lawmakers in every state first debated, ridiculed, and then passionately embraced the possibility of saving...  more

Michael Downing is obsessed with Daylight Saving, the loopy idea that became the most persistent political controversy in American history. Almost one hundred years after Congressmen and lawmakers in every state first debated, ridiculed, and then passionately embraced the possibility of saving an hour of daylight, no one can say for sure why we are required by law to change our clocks twice a year. Who first proposed the scheme? The most authoritative sources agree it was a Pittsburgh industrialist, Woodrow Wilson, a man on a horse in London, a Manhattan socialite, Benjamin Franklin, one of the Caesars, or the anonymous makers of ancient Chinese and Japanese water clocks. Spring Forward is a portrait of public policy in the 20th century, a perennially boiling cauldron of unsubstantiated science, profiteering masked as piety, and mysteriously shifting time-zone boundaries. It is a true-to-life social comedy with Congress in the leading role, surrounded by a supporting cast of opportunistic ministers, movie moguls, stockbrokers, labor leaders, sports fanatics, and railroad execs.

This collection of short, action-filled stories of the Old West’s most egregiously bad family-based gangs caught in the act of mayhem, distraction, murder, and highway robbery, includes famous names like the James brothers and lesser known families just as the Deautremonts, the Newtons,...  more

This collection of short, action-filled stories of the Old West’s most egregiously bad family-based gangs caught in the act of mayhem, distraction, murder, and highway robbery, includes famous names like the James brothers and lesser known families just as the Deautremonts, the Newtons, and many more. The book will include archival illustrations and photographs of the shady characters and the scenes of their crimes. 

"Quite impressive. I doubt if there has been or will be a more deeply researched and convincing account." —Evan Connell, author Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn "The book to end all Earp books—the most complete, and most meticulously researched." —Jack...  more

"Quite impressive. I doubt if there has been or will be a more deeply researched and convincing account." —Evan Connell, author Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn "The book to end all Earp books—the most complete, and most meticulously researched." —Jack Burrows, author John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was "The most thoughtful, well-researched, and comprehensive account that has been written about the development and career of an Old-West lawman." —The Tombstone Tumbleweed "A great adventure story, and solid history." —Kirkus Reviews "A major contribution to the history of the American West. It provides the first complete and accurate look at Wyatt Earp's colorful career, and places into context the important role that he and his brothers played in crime and politics in the Arizona territory. This important book rises above the realm of Western biography and shows the development of the Earp story in history and myth, and its effect on American culture." —John Boessenecker, author Gold Dust and Gunsmoke "The ultimate Wyatt Earp book." —Professor Richard Brown University of Oregon

In American Indian Prophecies, Kurt Kaltreider, Ph.D., has written a uniquely fascinating work that brings together indigenous American culture, values, and spirituality as seen through Indian prophecies, visions, and dreams. This work includes a series of fact-based conversations between...  more

In American Indian Prophecies, Kurt Kaltreider, Ph.D., has written a uniquely fascinating work that brings together indigenous American culture, values, and spirituality as seen through Indian prophecies, visions, and dreams. This work includes a series of fact-based conversations between two fictional characters: John Pearson of the New England gentry and Chasing Deer, a Cheyenne/Lakota elder and keeper of the true history of the Americas.

In this book Wallace Stegner recounts the successes and frustrations of John Wesley Powell, the distinguished ethnologist and geologist who explored the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon, and the homeland of Indian tribes of the American Southwest. A prophet without honor who had a profound...  more

In this book Wallace Stegner recounts the successes and frustrations of John Wesley Powell, the distinguished ethnologist and geologist who explored the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon, and the homeland of Indian tribes of the American Southwest. A prophet without honor who had a profound understanding of the American West, Powell warned long ago of the dangers economic exploitation would pose to the West and spent a good deal of his life overcoming Washington politics in getting his message across. Only now, we may recognize just how accurate a prophet he was.

The author of This House of Sky provides a magnificent evocation of the Pacific Northwest through the diaries of James Gilchrist Swan, a settler of the region. Doig fuses parts of the Swan diaries with his own journal.

The story of America's most extraordinary insect, brilliantly recounted by the scientist who solved the mystery of its extinction. Throughout the nineteenth century, swarms of locusts regularly swept across the continent, turning noon into dusk, demolishing farm communities, and bringing trains...  more

The story of America's most extraordinary insect, brilliantly recounted by the scientist who solved the mystery of its extinction. Throughout the nineteenth century, swarms of locusts regularly swept across the continent, turning noon into dusk, demolishing farm communities, and bringing trains to a halt as the crushed bodies of insects greased the rails. In 1876, the U.S. Congress declared the locust "the single greatest impediment to the settlement of the country." From the Dakotas to Texas, from California to Iowa, the swarms pushed thousands of settlers to the brink of starvation, prompting the federal government to enlist some of the greatest scientific minds of the day and thereby jumpstarting the fledgling science of entomology. Over the next few decades, the Rocky Mountain locust suddenly--and mysteriously--vanished. A century later, Jeffrey Lockwood set out to discover why. Unconvinced by the reigning theories, he searched for new evidence in musty books, crumbling maps, and crevassed glaciers, eventually piecing together the elusive answer: A group of early settlers unwittingly destroyed the locust's sanctuaries just as the insect was experiencing a natural population crash. Drawing on historical accounts and modern science, Locust brings to life the cultural, economic, and political forces at work in America in the late-nineteenth century, even as it solves one of the greatest ecological mysteries of our time.

Ghosts of pirates, centuries dead, still roam New England's coast and the towns they terrorized in life. Great ships rise from the bottom of the sea eternally searching for home shores. Read the stories of Captain Kid, Blackbeard, Anne Bonney, Black Bellamy, and other burley buccaneers who...  more

Ghosts of pirates, centuries dead, still roam New England's coast and the towns they terrorized in life. Great ships rise from the bottom of the sea eternally searching for home shores. Read the stories of Captain Kid, Blackbeard, Anne Bonney, Black Bellamy, and other burley buccaneers who haunt the land and seas looking for lost treasures and fortunes plundered in lust! Learn about Goat Island, where wraiths of hanged pirates rise up, seeking vengeance for their untimely deaths. You can almost hear the oars of the phantom dory that patrols the Isles of Shoals in search of its next victim. Tales present ghostly ladies who mourn the passing of some of the most ruthless characters history can name. Here you can sail with pirates on thirty-eight eerie adventures you will never forget. Arlene Nicholson (Photographer) New Haven's Spectral Ship -- Pirate Lee's Eternal Ride -- Dungeon Rock -- Screeching Specter of Marblehead -- Nix's Mate -- Wicked Ghost of Phillip Babb -- Vengeful Phantom Dory -- Pirate's Wife -- Specter that Returned to Salem -- Ghost Pirates of Goat Island -- Teaser Light -- Many Haunts of Captain Kidd -- Legend of Don Pedro and Ocean Born Mary -- Ghostly Crew of the Charles Haskell -- Jewell Island -- Sea Bird -- Bird Island Light -- Sea Goin' Coffin -- Charles W. Morgan -- Minerva's Prophetic Foretelling -- Palatine Light -- Isadore -- Blackbeard's Ghost -- Dead Ship of Harpswell -- Harpswell's Brigand Band of Boos -- Clara Sylvia -- City of Columbus -- Black Bart and the Turnip Field -- Ghostly Woman's Warning of the Usk -- Sagunto, Conception, and Spanish Graves -- Alice Marr -- Bay of Fundy's Phantom Freebooter -- Squando -- Plymouth's Mystery Ship and Burial Hill -- Joshua Slocum's Ethereal Helmsman -- Great Eastern -- Sam Bellamy and "Goody" Hallett -- Mystery of the Carroll A. Deering -- Appendix A Types of Ships Mentioned -- Appendix B A Timeline of Notable Pirates Mentioned Arlene Nicholson (Photographer)

Meet the wild world of common Texas insects with this colorful and thorough introduction. Now you can identify that critter that just crawled under your bed or landed in your backyard. This extensive guide is packed with 384 color photos thousands of facts and figures, and dozens of illustrations.

Surveys the one hundred sixty years of America's railroads, tracing their economic and social importance and arguing the continuing need for nationwide passenger service.

The Texas Longhorn made more history than any other breed of cattle the world has known. These wiry, intractable beasts were themselves pioneers in a harsh land, moving elementally with drouth, grass, Arctic blizzards, and burning winds. Their story is the bedrock on which the history of the cow...  more

The Texas Longhorn made more history than any other breed of cattle the world has known. These wiry, intractable beasts were themselves pioneers in a harsh land, moving elementally with drouth, grass, Arctic blizzards, and burning winds. Their story is the bedrock on which the history of the cow country of America is founded. J. Frank Dobie was a tale spinner who appreciated the proper place of legend and folklore in history. In The Longhorns, he tells of the Spanish conquistadors, who brought their cattle with them; of ranching in the turbulent colonial times; of the cowboy, whose abandon, energy, insolence, and pride epitomized the booming West. He writes of terrifying stampedes, titantic bull fights on the range, ghost steers, and encounters with Indians.

In a violent half-minute, in a gunfight near the O.K. Corral, Wyatt Earp became a legend. He was thirty-three. He died forty-eight years later, in Hollywood, where he worked as an advisor on film westerns. He'd had firsthand experience in the creation of American myth, and in this remarkable...  more

In a violent half-minute, in a gunfight near the O.K. Corral, Wyatt Earp became a legend. He was thirty-three. He died forty-eight years later, in Hollywood, where he worked as an advisor on film westerns. He'd had firsthand experience in the creation of American myth, and in this remarkable volume, Allen Barra illuminates fully the man who strode into our national imagination, as well as the myths that have continually reinvented him in history, film, and fiction.

Eden and the Flood: Extracts from Adam's diary. -- Eve's diary. -- Autobiography of Eve and diaries antedating the Flood. -- Documents related to "Diaries antedating the Flood". -- Two additional pre-Deluge diarists: Passages from Methuselah's diary....  more

Eden and the Flood: Extracts from Adam's diary. -- Eve's diary. -- Autobiography of Eve and diaries antedating the Flood. -- Documents related to "Diaries antedating the Flood". -- Two additional pre-Deluge diarists: Passages from Methuselah's diary. -- Passages from Shem's diary. -- Adam's expulsion. -- Adam's soliloquy. -- Heaven. -- Captain Stormfield's visit to Heaven. -- Captain Simon Wheeler's dream visit to Heaven. -- A singular episode: The reception of Rev. Sam Jones in Heaven. -- Mental telegraphy? -- Etiquette for the afterlife: Advice to Paine. -- Letters from the Earth

Renowned environmental historian Philip L. Fradkin reveals the Wallace Stegner behind the literary legacy--a generous teacher, conservationist, and man whose early landscapes shaped his life and character. Fradkin chronicles Stegner's formative years, from the raw, desolate plains of...  more

Renowned environmental historian Philip L. Fradkin reveals the Wallace Stegner behind the literary legacy--a generous teacher, conservationist, and man whose early landscapes shaped his life and character. Fradkin chronicles Stegner's formative years, from the raw, desolate plains of Saskatchewan and the canyonlands of Utah to California's Silicon Valley. A lifelong teacher and environmentalist, Stegner inspired countless writers and defended the wilderness against human desecration. In this biography of man, place, and century, Fradkin traces Stegner's life across its many landscapes, and shows us how this child of the fading frontier became the voice, protector, and enduring icon of the West.

Experience the majesty and terror of the Gold Rush firsthand While the seminal California Gold Rush of 1849 produced numerous firsthand diaries and accounts, Joseph Goldsborough Bruff?s?widely regarded as the best and most accurate?provides the basis of this narrative reimagining of a...  more

Experience the majesty and terror of the Gold Rush firsthand While the seminal California Gold Rush of 1849 produced numerous firsthand diaries and accounts, Joseph Goldsborough Bruff?s?widely regarded as the best and most accurate?provides the basis of this narrative reimagining of a quintessential American legend. Ken Lizzio traces the pioneer?s thrilling adventure from the first rumors of gold, through his crossing of the frontier, all the way to his incredible survival and escape to a prosperous life back east. This is the first book to create a narrative of Bruff?s journey from his meticulously written and preserved diary. And with more than fifty of Bruff?s original pencil sketches and paintings, Forty-Niner�provides a new, immersive vision of one of America?s most fabled eras. The American Grit series brings you true tales of endurance, survival, and ingenuity from the annals of American history. These books focus on the trials of remarkable individuals with an emphasis on rich primary source material and artwork. 50 b&w photographs

What does it take to reinvent a language? After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened...  more

What does it take to reinvent a language? After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu argues that China’s most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: the century-long fight to make the formidable Chinese language accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology. Kingdom of Characters follows the bold innovators who reinvented the Chinese language, among them an exiled reformer who risked a death sentence to advocate for Mandarin as a national language, a Chinese-Muslim poet who laid the groundwork for Chairman Mao's phonetic writing system, and a computer engineer who devised input codes for Chinese characters on the lid of a teacup from the floor of a jail cell. Without their advances, China might never have become the dominating force we know today. With larger-than-life characters and an unexpected perspective on the major events of China’s tumultuous twentieth century, Tsu reveals how language is both a technology to be perfected and a subtle, yet potent, power to be exercised and expanded.

James Cook, sailor, surveyor, cartographer, and explorer, was born in 1728 in Yorkshire. In the course of his illustrious career, he sailed into every ocean and was one of the first, if not the first, British explorers to set foot on most of the world's major continents. He was also the first to...  more

James Cook, sailor, surveyor, cartographer, and explorer, was born in 1728 in Yorkshire. In the course of his illustrious career, he sailed into every ocean and was one of the first, if not the first, British explorers to set foot on most of the world's major continents. He was also the first to cross both the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. Captain Cook's World is an atlas, chronology, and biography of the life and voyages of this celebrated explorer. A set of 128 specially drawn maps and accompanying text give a detailed overview of his life, including his early years in England, his time in the North Sea coal trade and with the Royal Navy in Canada, and his three great voyages around the world in HMB Endeavour and HMS Resolution. Included on the maps are locations visited, named, or surveyed by Cook; the routes of his voyages; and sites that have been marked in his honor, such as monuments. Based on meticulous scholarship but aimed at a general audience, Captain Cook's World is a fascinating and accessible record of Cook's life and travels.

Four lectures by noted historian Joseph Needham on Chinese scientific history:  guns and gunpowder; chemistry and macrobiotics; the practice of acupuncture and moxibustion; and clocks and concepts of time.

From 1855 to 1966 nearly 8,000 railroad locomotives were built at the Gorton Foundry, near Manchester England, by Beyer, Peacock & Co. Ltd. Some of these steam locomotives were the famous elongated Garratts which have fascinated railfans for years.The Garrett locomotive allowed...  more

From 1855 to 1966 nearly 8,000 railroad locomotives were built at the Gorton Foundry, near Manchester England, by Beyer, Peacock & Co. Ltd. Some of these steam locomotives were the famous elongated Garratts which have fascinated railfans for years.The Garrett locomotive allowed railroads to increase tonnage and reduced operating time between stations, as well as the number of trains run on a line. In the 1925 catalog, the Garratts shown had tractive effort capabilities of between 7,950 pounds and 69,150 pounds at 75% boiler pressure. The 11-1/4" x 8-1/2” softbound reprinted catalog features a four-color cover, and shows the Garrett locomotives that were delivered to the Argentine North-Eastern Railway, Burma Railways, Benguella Railway, Indian State Railway, London & North-Eastern Railway, Mauritius Government Railways, Rhodesia Railways, South African Railways and the Victorian Government Railways, among others.

This formative period of diesel locomotive evolution is examined with the help of more than 250 modern and period photos depicting passenger, freight, and switching locomotives. Author Brian Solomon covers every prominent manufacturer of the period?including Electro-Motive, Alco, Baldwin, and...  more

This formative period of diesel locomotive evolution is examined with the help of more than 250 modern and period photos depicting passenger, freight, and switching locomotives. Author Brian Solomon covers every prominent manufacturer of the period?including Electro-Motive, Alco, Baldwin, and GE?as well as iconic models like Geeps, E and F units, PAs and FAs, sharknoses, U-boats, and more. The photographs take in the grand geographic and technological breadth of North American railroading and are accompanied by detailed captions identifying the locomotives pictured and explaining their roles in this crucial era of American railroading.

Developed from lectures delivered in San Francisco, 1981-1984, to themes proposed by Barbara McClintock, Director of Public Programs at the C. G. Jung Institute in that city, and by Lynne Kaufman, Program Director, International Studies, at the University of California, Berkeley.

Contains the recollections of many of the major figures responsible for the development of the rail system, along with the original illustrations from their reports.

A moving love story with grand melodramatic touches, Ramona was linked with Uncle Tom's Cabin as one of the great ethical novels of the 19th century. A bestseller in 1884, Ramona was both a political and literary success and will continue to move modern readers with its sympathetic characters...  more

A moving love story with grand melodramatic touches, Ramona was linked with Uncle Tom's Cabin as one of the great ethical novels of the 19th century. A bestseller in 1884, Ramona was both a political and literary success and will continue to move modern readers with its sympathetic characters and its depiction of the Native American's struggle in the early West.

By the acclaimed author of the classic Patriots and Union 1812, this major work of narrative history portrays four of the most turbulent decades in the growth of the American nation. After the War of 1812, President Andrew Jackson and his successors led the country to its manifest destiny...  more

By the acclaimed author of the classic Patriots and Union 1812, this major work of narrative history portrays four of the most turbulent decades in the growth of the American nation. After the War of 1812, President Andrew Jackson and his successors led the country to its manifest destiny across the continent. But that expansion unleashed new regional hostilities that led inexorably to Civil War. The earliest victims were the Cherokees and other tribes of the southeast who had lived and prospered for centuries on land that became Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. Jackson, who had first gained fame as an Indian fighter, decreed that the Cherokees be forcibly removed from their rich cotton fields to make way for an exploding white population. His policy set off angry debates in Congress and protests from such celebrated Northern writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson. Southern slave owners saw that defense of the Cherokees as linked to a growing abolitionist movement. They understood that the protests would not end with protecting a few Indian tribes. Langguth tells the dramatic story of the desperate fate of the Cherokees as they were driven out of Georgia at bayonet point by U.S. Army forces led by General Winfield Scott. At the center of the story are the American statesmen of the day?Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun?and those Cherokee leaders who tried to save their people?Major Ridge, John Ridge, Elias Boudinot, and John Ross. Driven West presents wrenching firsthand accounts of the forced march across the Mississippi along a path of misery and death that the Cherokees called the Trail of Tears. Survivors reached the distant Oklahoma territory that Jackson had marked out for them, only to find that the bloodiest days of their ordeal still awaited them. In time, the fierce national collision set off by Jackson?s Indian policy would encompass the Mexican War, the bloody frontier wars over the expansion of slavery, the doctrines of nullification and secession, and, finally, the Civil War itself. In his masterly narrative of this saga, Langguth captures the idealism and betrayals of headstrong leaders as they steered a raw and vibrant nation in the rush to its destiny.

John Colter was a crack hunter with the Lewis and Clark expedition before striking out on his own as a mountain man and fur trader. A solitary journey in the winter of 1807-8 took him into present-day Wyoming. To unbelieving trappers he later reported sights that inspired the name of...  more

John Colter was a crack hunter with the Lewis and Clark expedition before striking out on his own as a mountain man and fur trader. A solitary journey in the winter of 1807-8 took him into present-day Wyoming. To unbelieving trappers he later reported sights that inspired the name of Colter's Hell. It was a sulfurous place of hidden fires, smoking pits, and shooting water. And it was real. John Colter is known to history as probably the first white man to discover the region that now includes Yellowstone National Park. In a classic book, first published in 1952, Burton Harris weighs the facts and legends about a man who was dogged by misfortune and "robbed of the just rewards he had earned."

The samurai were the most skilled elite group of combatants the world has ever seen. Their name means "one who serves." Years of training, discipline, and self-sacrifice combined with advanced weaponry and unprecedented tactical acumen created a force unmatched over centuries of...  more

The samurai were the most skilled elite group of combatants the world has ever seen. Their name means "one who serves." Years of training, discipline, and self-sacrifice combined with advanced weaponry and unprecedented tactical acumen created a force unmatched over centuries of Japanese history. Samurai explores the essence, truth, and wisdom of these remarkable warriors. It features renowned samurai warriors, their weapons, armor, and military strategies and illuminates their unwavering Bushido philosophy -- the strict code of honor requiring absolute loyalty to their master above all else, and ritual suicide in preference to dying a dishonorable death. This book explores the spirit, body, and minds of these sublime paladins who long ago passed into legend, but still live on today.

An acclaimed Western historian reveals the man behind the myth and illuminates the realities of the old West In American popular culture, Wyatt Earp, a law officer in nineteenth-century Dodge City and Tombstone, is an icon of justice. The subject of dozens of films, his memory has been invoked...  more

An acclaimed Western historian reveals the man behind the myth and illuminates the realities of the old West In American popular culture, Wyatt Earp, a law officer in nineteenth-century Dodge City and Tombstone, is an icon of justice. The subject of dozens of films, his memory has been invoked in battles against organized crime (in the 1930s), communism (in the 1950s), and Al Qaeda (after 2001). ���� Yet as Andrew C.�Isenberg shows in Wyatt Earp: A Vigilante Life, the Hollywood Earp is largely a fiction created by Earp himself, whose life was characterized not by an unflinching devotion to law and order but by inconstancy, defiance of authority, and repeated self-invention. The Earp played on-screen by Henry Fonda and Burt Lancaster is stubbornly duty bound; in actuality, Earp led a life of impulsive law-breaking and shifting identities. When he wasn?t wearing a badge, he was variously a thief, a brothel bouncer, a gambler, and a confidence man. He spent his last decades in Los Angeles, where his plastic identity and his penchant for reinvention freely lent themselves to Hollywood mythmaking. Befriending Western silent-film actors and directors, he presented himself to them as a lawman singularly committed to justice. Having tried and failed over the course of his life to invent a better future for himself, in the end Earp invented a better past. Though Earp, who died in 1929, did not live to see it, Hollywood?s embrace of him as a paragon of law and order was his last and undoubtedly greatest confidence game.

With nuanced observations from the star author and historian, here are the celebrated journals documenting Lewis and Clark's legendary expedition into the uncharted American West, abridged into a single volume and translated into modern English. At the start of the 19th century,...  more

With nuanced observations from the star author and historian, here are the celebrated journals documenting Lewis and Clark's legendary expedition into the uncharted American West, abridged into a single volume and translated into modern English. At the start of the 19th century, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on an unprecedented voyage of discovery. Their assignment was to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory and record the geography, flora, fauna, and people they encountered along the way. This updated edition of the captains' journals combines historical insight from editor Anthony Brandt with the rich detail of Lewis and Clark's original writing, as well as archival maps and artwork. An enthralling portrait of the unspoiled West, this true-life adventure story is a window to the dawning of America--from encounters with grizzly bears to councils with tribal leaders and perilous mountain crossings.

Colleen McCullough captivated millions with her beloved worldwide bestseller The Thorn Birds. Now she takes readers to the birth of modern Australia with a breath-taking saga brimming with drama, history, and passion. It was one of the greatest human experiments ever undertaken: to populate...  more

Colleen McCullough captivated millions with her beloved worldwide bestseller The Thorn Birds. Now she takes readers to the birth of modern Australia with a breath-taking saga brimming with drama, history, and passion. It was one of the greatest human experiments ever undertaken: to populate an unknown continent with the criminals of English society. For Richard Morgan, twelve months as a prisoner on the high seas would be just the beginning in a soul-trying test to survive in a hostile new land where, against all odds, he would find a new love and a new life. From the dank cells of England's prisons to the unforgiving frontier of the eighteenth-century outback, Morgan's Run is the epic tale of one man whose strength and character helped settle a country and define its future.

In a remarkable early life as an Indian scout, trapper, miner and Pony Express rider, William F. Cody developed a reputation for courage. Yet it was buffalo hunting that earned his nickname. Turning his life into a theatrical spectacular which toured the United States and Europe and brought him...  more

In a remarkable early life as an Indian scout, trapper, miner and Pony Express rider, William F. Cody developed a reputation for courage. Yet it was buffalo hunting that earned his nickname. Turning his life into a theatrical spectacular which toured the United States and Europe and brought him fame and fortune, Cody almost single-handedly invented the Wild West. His autobiography vividly captures the excitement of a time which has passed into American folklore.

Lizzie Fisk's letters from Montana to her parents in Connecticut are more than an intimate glimpse into the life of a pioneer woman, they are also an opportunity for us to actually share life back then.

A riveting portrait of the Gold Rush, by the award-winning author of Down the Great Unknown and The Forger's Spell. In the spring of 1848, rumors began to spread that gold had been discovered in a remote spot in the Sacramento Valley. A year later, newspaper headlines declared "Gold Fever!" as...  more

A riveting portrait of the Gold Rush, by the award-winning author of Down the Great Unknown and The Forger's Spell. In the spring of 1848, rumors began to spread that gold had been discovered in a remote spot in the Sacramento Valley. A year later, newspaper headlines declared "Gold Fever!" as hundreds of thousands of men and women borrowed money, quit their jobs, and allowed themselves- for the first time ever-to imagine a future of ease and splendor. In THE RUSH, Edward Dolnick brilliantly recounts their treacherous westward journeys by wagon and on foot, and takes us to the frenzied gold fields and the rowdy cities that sprang from nothing to jam-packed chaos. With an enthralling cast of characters and scenes of unimaginable wealth and desperate ruin, THE RUSH is a fascinating-and rollicking-account of the greatest treasure hunt the world has ever seen.

Winner of three O. Henry Awards, the Commonwealth Gold Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Kirsch Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, Wallace Stegner was a literary giant. In Marking the Sparrow's Fall, the first collection of Stegner's work published since...  more

Winner of three O. Henry Awards, the Commonwealth Gold Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Kirsch Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, Wallace Stegner was a literary giant. In Marking the Sparrow's Fall, the first collection of Stegner's work published since his death, Stegner's son Page has collected, annotated, and edited fifteen essays that have never before been published in any edition, as well as a little-known novella and several of Stegner's best-known essays on the American West. Seventy-five percent of the contents of this body of work is published here for the first time.

As settlements and civilization moved West to follow the lure of mineral wealth and the trade of the Santa Fe Trail, prostitution grew and flourished within the mining camps, small towns, and cities of the nineteenth-century Southwest. Whether escaping a bad home life, lured by false...  more

As settlements and civilization moved West to follow the lure of mineral wealth and the trade of the Santa Fe Trail, prostitution grew and flourished within the mining camps, small towns, and cities of the nineteenth-century Southwest. Whether escaping a bad home life, lured by false advertising, or seeking to subsidize their income, thousands of women chose or were forced to enter an industry where they faced segregation and persecution, fines and jailing, and battled the other hazards of their profession. Some dreamed of escape through marriage or retirement, and some became infamous and even successful, but more often found relief only in death. An integral part of western history, the stories of these women continue to fascinate readers and captivate the minds of historians today. Arizona and New Mexico each had their share of working girls and madams like Sara Bowman and Dona Tules who remain notorious celebrities in the annals of history, but Collins also includes the stories of lesser-known women whose roles in this illicit trade help shape our understanding of the American West.

An anthology of classic articles tells the history of the American West, from women's property rights in Spanish-Mexican California to the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, and from Homesteading and mining to the Great Depression and World War II. Where is the American West?: report on a...  more

An anthology of classic articles tells the history of the American West, from women's property rights in Spanish-Mexican California to the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, and from Homesteading and mining to the Great Depression and World War II. Where is the American West?: report on a survey / Walter Nugent -- The American West: from frontier to region / Martin Ridge -- Frontiers and empires in the late nineteenth century / Walter Nugent -- Rancheras and the land: women and property rights in Hispanic California / Gloria Ricci Lothrop -- Mountain man as Jacksonian man / William H. Goetzmann -- Bison ecology and bison diplomacy: the southern Plains from 1800 to 1850 / Dan Flores -- Mexican opinion, American racism, and the War of 1846 / Gene M. Brack -- Mormon "deliverance" and the closing of the frontier / Martin Ridge -- Sand Creek / Janet LeCompte -- Cowboy strikes and unions / David E. Lopez -- "Everything I want is here!": the Dakota farmer's rural ideal, 1884-1934 / Paula M. Nelson -- "The men have become organizers": labor conflict and unionization in the Mexican mining communities of Arizona, 1900-1915 / Phil Mellinger -- Idaho and the Great Depression / Leonard J. Arrington -- The impact of the Second World War on Los Angeles / Arthur C. Verge -- Japanese-American women during World War II / Valerie Matsumoto -- From Esteban to Rodney King: five centuries of African American history in the West / Quintard Taylor -- Regional city and network city: Portland and Seattle in the twentieth century / Carl Abbott

The women who traveled west in covered wagons during the 1840s speak through these letters and diaries. Here are the voices of Tamsen Donner and young Virginia Reed, members of the ill-fated Donner party; Patty Sessions, the Mormon midwife who delivered five babies on the trail between Omaha and...  more

The women who traveled west in covered wagons during the 1840s speak through these letters and diaries. Here are the voices of Tamsen Donner and young Virginia Reed, members of the ill-fated Donner party; Patty Sessions, the Mormon midwife who delivered five babies on the trail between Omaha and Salt Lake City; Rachel Fisher, who buried both her husband and her little girl before reaching Oregon. Still others make themselves heard, starting out from different places and recording details along the way, from the mundane to the soul-shattering and spirit-lifting.

The Revenger: The Life and Times of Wild Bill Hickok examines Wild Bill?s life in the context of 19th Century American history, from his birth, through his early manhood, and to his eventual demise. Woven into his life story are the significant role played by the Civil War in the development of...  more

The Revenger: The Life and Times of Wild Bill Hickok examines Wild Bill?s life in the context of 19th Century American history, from his birth, through his early manhood, and to his eventual demise. Woven into his life story are the significant role played by the Civil War in the development of his character and philosophy, the role played by popular media in the creation of his legendary status, and the changing of the western landscape and lifestyle that began to eliminate the need for gunmen such as Wild Bill. The book discusses Hickok?s early jobs in law enforcement and his associations with other significant westerners and recounts the events that transformed Hickok from a formidable lawman into a national celebrity and popular hero. Details of Hickok?s most famous gunfights, including weapons used and participants and outcomes and, of course, the end of his career including his famous death at the hands of an assassin in a saloon in Deadwood South Dakota are all explored. The book also incorporates changing views of historiographical interpretation of lawmen/gunmen in general and Wild Bill in particular. The book will have extensive illustrations?archival photos of Wild Bill, his contemporaries, his guns, etc.

A superlative collection, reflecting the same wide variety of songs that you’d hear at any Doc Watson concert. In addition to words, melody, and chord names, more than half the book is filled with guitar transcriptions and standard notation.

In "Saga of Chief Joseph," Helen Addison Howard has written the definitive biography of the great Nez Perce chief, a diplomat among warriors. In times of war and peace, Chief Joseph exhibited gifts of the first rank. Even though he was a leader for peace and tribal liberty, he was destined to...  more

In "Saga of Chief Joseph," Helen Addison Howard has written the definitive biography of the great Nez Perce chief, a diplomat among warriors. In times of war and peace, Chief Joseph exhibited gifts of the first rank. Even though he was a leader for peace and tribal liberty, he was destined to see the defeat of his people in the Nez Perce War of 1877 and the loss of all that was important to them -- their lands, their horses, and their independence. The struggle of the Nez Perces for the freedom they considered paramount in life constitutes one of the most dramatic episodes of Indian history. This completely revised edition of the author's earlier "War Chief Joseph" presents in exciting detail the full story of Chief Joseph, with a reevaluation of the five bands engaged in the Nez Perce War, objectively told from the Indian, the white military, and the settlers' points of view. Especially valuable is the reappraisal, based on significant new material from Indian sources, of Joseph as a war leader. Of "War Chief Joseph, reviewers said: "A priceless contribution to the history of a great and noble race" (Lost Angeles Times); "A stirring and dramatic biography of a great man" (Montreal Star); "This work... is a standard in the field" (Choice Books for College Libraries. A western writer whose stories and historical and general articles have been published in magazines throughout the country, Helen Addison Howard is also the author of "Northwest Trail Blazers (1963).

"I love life. But I don't love life because it is pretty. Prettiness is only clothes-deep. I am a truer lover than that. I love it naked. There is beauty to me even in its ugliness. In fact, I deny the ugliness entirely, for its vices are often nobler than its virtues, and nearly always...  more

"I love life. But I don't love life because it is pretty. Prettiness is only clothes-deep. I am a truer lover than that. I love it naked. There is beauty to me even in its ugliness. In fact, I deny the ugliness entirely, for its vices are often nobler than its virtues, and nearly always closer to a revelation ....To me, the tragic alone has that significant beauty which is truth. It is the meaning of life -- and the hope. The noblest is eternally the most tragic. The people who succeed and do not push on to a greater failure are the spiritual middle-classers. Their stopping at success is the proof of their compromising insignificance. How petty their dreams must have been!"-- Eugene O'Neill, from the biography by Barbara and Arthur Gelb. Included: "The Dreamy Kid", "Before Breakfast", "Gold", "Diff'rent", "The Straw", and "Welded".

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Easy-to-read facts about bison. Includes 52 outstanding color photos.