Product Description

The American West centers on three subjects: Native Americans, settlers, and ranchers. Dee Brown re-creates these groups struggles for their place in this new landscape and illuminates the history of the old West in a single volume, filled with maps and vintage photographs. In his spirited telling of this national saga, Brown demonstrates once again his abilities as a master storyteller and as an entertaining popular historian.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #320173 in Books
• Published on: 1995-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780684804415
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Drawing on his earlier books coauthored with Martin Schmitt (The Settlers West; Trail Driving Days), Brown focuses here on the inland American West during the last half of the 19th century as the railroads opened up the area to settlers, the Plains Indians made their final stand and cattle ranches spread from Texas to Montana. Brown examines the origins of the Western myth in literature, from the dime novels of Mayne Reid and Ned Buntline to Owen Wister's The Virginian, and traces the rise of rodeos and Wild West shows. Here is a galaxy of famous characters: Geronimo, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull; Wyatt Earp, Buffalo Bill, Charles Goodnight, Billy the Kid, Teddy Roosevelt, Generals Crook and Custer. The author takes us on cattle drives to Dodge City and other western towns, then completes this sprightly history with the arrival of law and order and the birth of populism. Informative and entertaining. Illustrations.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Historian and prolific author Brown presents a lively history of the settling of the West from the vantage point of the Native Americans who suffered in the wake.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
A pleasant but uninspired collection of vignettes about the history of the West that offers nothing new. Noted Western author Brown (When the Century Was Young, 1993, etc.) serves up a new volume detailing the life and history of the American frontier. The material is culled from the text of three previous picture books--Fighting Indians of the West, Trail Driving Days, and The Settlers' West--that he co-authored in the 1940s and 1950s with the late Martin Schmitt (editor of General George Crook: His Autobiography, 1946); this version also includes several photographs from the earlier volumes. Always sensitive to the long, losing struggle of the Indians, Brown movingly depicts Sioux chief Red Cloud's successful war to close the Bozeman Trail (including the so-called Fetterman Massacre) and Cheyenne chief Black Kettle's unsuccessful attempts to keep the peace, shattered by the Sand Creek and Washita massacres. But the white West is also covered, with glimpses of life on the great cattle drives and of the boomtowns at the end of the beef trails--towns like Abilene, Tex., and Wichita, Kans., which thrived as rail centers for the shipment of cattle. The mythmaking process that shaped the West of popular imagination is also dear to Brown's heart, and he brings into focus the impact of tall tales (Paul Bunyan, etc.), Wild West shows (Buffalo Bill, et al.), rodeos, Billy the Kid's inflated legend, and The Virginian, a novel by Harvard-educated Philadelphia lawyer Owen Wister that supplanted real-life cowboy Charlie Siringo's much more authentic A Texas Cow Boy in the public imagination. Brown writes in an engaging style, but our view of frontier history has changed a lot in 40 years. Rather than this recycled material, itself seduced by the myths it seeks to expose, better to read Brown's own Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Amusing and Informative
This collection of chapters on the American West is an entertaining and informative glimpse into the history of our nation's most misunderstood and glamorized region, but the book seems to try and do too much, and thus ultimately accomplishes little. Dee Brown writes about Indian wars, life in a great cattle drive, and then shifts to such topics as the reading habits and wardrobes of gents and housewives in the old west. There is a noticeable lack of continuity in many of the chapters, but overall almost all of them were enjoyable and educational on their own. There are also some very unique photographs, such as a shot of Big Foot frozen dead in the snow. Brown has done his research, and while not all of his topics will fascinate you, it is easy enough to skip through the chapters you care little about, and to savor the excellent discussions of Wounded Knee, Dodge City, Geronimo, etc.

Text Jumps Around But Still Good!
Brown's American West book can be difficult to follow at times. But it was worth wading through to read the in-depth details of folks who lived back then. I believe this was such a fascinating era in our history that reading new details is worth the price of the book (which was very nominal). If you like the Old West, you will find more than enough to satisfy you.

A good overview of Wild West history
"The American West" provides readers with an excellent overview of the colorful history of its namesake. Brown exposes the myths behind western legends like Geronimo, Billy the Kid, Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickock and many others. Perhaps most interesting are the chapters on the trailblazing of the cowboys and the perils they faced on their long cattle drives. Photographs are interspersed throughout the book and add to the story. I highly recommend this book to readers who are not terribly familiar with our western history and would like a nice primer.