This study corrects the misperceptions of the American West based on representations from novels and films and shows how western history was--and is--a vast eco

"Limerick is one of the most engaging historians writing today." --Richard White The "settling" of the American West has been perceived throughout the world as

"Patricia Limerick is simply one of the best writers alive."--Garry Wills

Reexamination of the role of the West in U.S. history and of the field of western history itself told by ten historians.

In these 11 essays, all originally published in "The New York Review of Books," McMurtry brings his unique narrative gift and dry humor to a variety of western