"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 a series of quaint, violent, and romantic adventures. But in fact, Patricia Nelson Limerick argues, the West has a history grounded primarily in economic reality; in hardheaded questions of profit, loss, competition, and consolidation. Here she interprets the stories and the characters in a new way: the trappers, traders, Indians, farmers, oilmen, cowboys, and sheriffs of the Old West "meant business" in more ways than one, and their descendents mean business today.

Describes changes in how the West has been seen, from a male-dominated frontier, to a region with a powerful sense of place, to a modern center of both genders, ethnic groups, and environmental interests

A Companion to 19th-Century America is an authoritative overview of current historiographical developments and major themes in the history of nineteenth-century America. Twenty-seven scholars, all specialists in their own thematic areas, examine the key debates and historiography. A thematic and chronological organization brings together the major time periods, politics, the Civil War, economy, and social and cultural history of the nineteenth century. Written with the general reader in mind, each essay surveys the historical research, the emerging concerns, and assesses the future direction of scholarship. Complete coverage of all the major themes and current debates in nineteenth-century US history assessing the state of the scholarship and future concerns. 24 original essays by leading experts in nineteenth-century American history complete with up-to-date bibliographies. Chronological and thematic organization covers both traditional and contemporary fields of research - politics, periods, economy, class formation, ethnicity, gender roles, regions, culture and ideas.

Whether they prefer blockbusters, historical dramas, or documentaries, people learn much of what they know about history from the movies. In American History Goes to the Movies, W. Bryan Rommel-Ruiz shows how popular representations of historic events shape the way audiences understand the history of the United States, including American representations of race and gender, and stories of immigration, especially the familiar narrative of the American Dream. Using films from many different genres, American History Goes to the Movies draws together movies that depict the Civil War, the Wild West, the assassination of JFK, and the events of 9/11, from The Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind to The Exorcist and United 93, to show how viewers use movies to make sense of the past, addressing not only how we render history for popular enjoyment, but also how Hollywood’s renderings of America influence the way Americans see themselves and how they make sense of the world.

This four-part chronology presents the unfolding of the American West from 23,000 B.C.E. to A.D. 2001 Not long ago, the story of the American West was an uncomplicated tale. Its theme was "The Winning of the West," and its plot simply followed Euro-Americans as they galloped across the continent. But throughout the last two decades, historians like Scott C. Zeman have begun to examine the story and separate the myths from the facts. Today the history of the American West is about the land itself; about conquest and colonization; about migration and social change. Its heroes are not only white men, but also women and children, and peoples of African, Asian, Native American, and European descent. In this up to date chronology, readers can explore hundreds of political, social, and cultural plot points, from the arrival of the continent's first migrants more than 20,000 years ago to the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, and from the completion of the trans-Alaska pipeline in 1977 to the shootings at Columbine High School in 2000.

This wide-ranging book illuminates the importance of the Western in American history. It explores the interconnections between the Western in both literature and film and the United States in the 20th century.Structured chronologically, the book traces the evolution of the Western as a uniquely American form. The author argues that America's frontier past was quickly transformed into a set of symbols and myths, an American meta-narrative that came to underpin much of the 'American century'. He details how and why this process occurred, the form and function of Western myths and symbols, the evolution of this mythology, and its subversions and reconstructions throughout 20th-century American history.The book engages with the full range of historical, literary and cinematic perspectives and texts, from the founding Western histories of Theodore Roosevelt and Frederick Jackson Turner to the New Western history of Patricia Nelson Limerick and Richard White.

The Encyclopedia of Local History addresses nearly every aspect of local history, including everyday issues, theoretical approaches, and trends in the field. The second edition highlights local history practice in each U.S. state and Canadian province.

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

The Routledge History of the Twentieth-Century United States is a comprehensive introduction to the most important trends and developments in the study of modern United States history. Driven by interdisciplinary scholarship, the thirty-four original chapters underscore the vast range of identities, perspectives and tensions that contributed to the growth and contested meanings of the United States in the twentieth century. The chronological and topical breadth of the collection highlights critical political and economic developments of the century while also drawing attention to relatively recent areas of research, including borderlands, technology and disability studies. Dynamic and flexible in its possible applications, The Routledge History of the Twentieth-Century United States offers an exciting new resource for the study of modern American history.

Men are usually the heroes of Western stories, but women also played a crucial role in developing the American frontier, and their stories have rarely been told. This anthology of biographical essays on women promises new insight into gender in the 19C American West. The women featured include Asian Americans, African-Americans and Native American women, as well as their white counterparts. The original essays offer observations about gender and sexual violence, the subordinate status of women of color, their perseverance and influence in changing that status, a look at the gendered religious legacy that shaped Western Catholicism, and women in the urban and rural, industrial and agricultural West.