Frontiers : A Short History of the American West

by Robert V. Hine and John Mack Faragher

• ISBN13: 9780300136203
• ISBN10: 030013620X
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2008-05-01
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

Published in 2000 to critical acclaim,The American West: A New Interpretive Historyquickly became the standard in college history courses. Now Robert V. Hine and John Mack Faragher offer a concise edition of their classic, freshly updated. Lauded for their lively and elegant writing, the authors provide a grand survey of the colorful history of the American West, from the first contacts between Native Americans and Europeans to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Frontiersintroduces the diverse peoples and cultures of the American West and explores how men and women of different ethnic groups were affected when they met, mingled, and often clashed. Hine and Faragher present the complexities of the American Westas frontier and region, real and imagined, old and new. Showcasing the distinctive voices and experiences of frontier characters, they explore topics ranging from early exploration to modern environmentalism, drawing expansively from a wide range of sources. With four galleries of fascinating illustrations drawn from Yale University's premier Collection of Western Americana, some published here for the first time, this book will be treasured by every reader with an interest in the unique saga of the American West.

Author Biography

Robert V. Hine is professor emeritus, University of California, Riverside and Irvine. He lives in Irvine. John Mack Faragher is Arthur Unobskey Professor of American History, Yale University. He is the author of Women and Men on the Overland Trail and Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie, both published by Yale University Press. He lives in Hamden, CT.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Introduction: Dreams and Homelands	p. 1
A New World Begins	p. 7
Contest of Cultures	p. 17
The Struggle of Empires	p. 28
The Western Land and Its Markers	p. 39
The Fur Trade	p. 52
From Texas to Oregon	p. 62
War and Destiny	p. 80
Mining Frontiers	p. 94
The Power of the Road	p. 109
Open Range	p. 121
The Safety Valve	p. 133
A Search for Community	p. 147
The Urban Frontier	p. 163
Plunder and Preservation	p. 176
The Myth of the Frontier	p. 191
The Frontier and West in Our Time	p. 204
Further Reading	p. 227
Index	p. 231
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