The Not So Wild, Wild West

by Hill, Peter J.

• ISBN13: 9780804748544
• ISBN10: 0804748543
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-05-04
• Publisher: INGRAM

Summary

Mention of the American West usually evokes images of rough and tumble cowboys, ranchers, and outlaws. In contrast, The Not So Wild, Wild West casts America's frontier history in a new framework that emphasizes the creation of institutions, both formal and informal, that facilitated cooperation rather than conflict. Rather than describing the frontier as a place where heroes met villains, this book argues that everyday people helped carve out legal institutions that tamed the West. The authors emphasize that ownership of resources evolves as those resources become more valuable or as establishing property rights becomes less costly. Rules evolving at the local level will be more effective because local people have a greater stake in the outcome. This theory is brought to life in the colorful history of Indians, fur trappers, buffalo hunters, cattle drovers, homesteaders, and miners. The book concludes with a chapter that takes lessons from the American frontier and applies them to our modern "frontiers"the environment, developing countries, and space exploration.

Author Biography

Terry L. Anderson is Executive Director of PERC, the Center for Free Market Environmentalism; Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; and Professor Emeritus at Montana State University. He has published 28 books. P. J. Hill is Professor of Economics at Wheaton College, Illinois, and a PERC Senior Associate. This is his eleventh book.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations and Tables	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
1. Heroes, Villains, and Real Cowboys	1	(8)
2. The Institutions That Tamed the West	9	(25)
3. Property Rights in Indian Country	34	(19)
4. Might Takes Rights in Indian Country	53	(24)
5. Soft Gold: Traders, Trappers, and Hunters	77	(27)
6. There's Property Rights in Them Thar Hills	104	(16)
7. Wagon-Train Governments	120	(18)
8. Cowboys and Contracts	138	(21)
9. Home on the Range	159	(18)
10. Making the Desert Bloom	177	(24)
11. New Frontiers	201	(12)
Notes	213	(24)
Bibliography	237	(14)
Index	251