The American West: A Narrative Bibliography and a Study in Regionalism

Denver, Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 1989. K3 - A hardcover book in very good condition in very good dust jacket that is mylar protected. Book has previous owner's name written on the front free endpaper and right side page edges, some scattered light foxing on the page edges, dust jacket and book have some bumped corners, light discoloration and shelf wear. 9.25"x6.25", 144 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. This brightly written book is about the West itself and serves as a ready guide to the region's literature. Charles Wilkinson organizes hundreds of works of fiction and nonfiction in broad conceptual categories - "the events," "the people," "the terrain," and "the ideas" - and discusses the most useful source in the context of topics such as the California Gold Rush, the Johnson County War, and the Post-World-War II Boom; the mountain men, John Muir, and contemporary political leaders; the Rio Grande Valley, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and the bald eagle; and modern market-based economics and geologic time. Wilkinson also presents a "baker's dozen" of major works that give a comprehensive sense of the West, including Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, by Wallace Stegner, The Year of Decision: 1846, by Bernard DeVoto, and The Milagro Beanfield War, by John Nichols. Drawing upon his years of experience as a scholar of Western issues, Wilkinson analyzes in an innovative, captivating way the trends that have dominated the region in the past and those that promise to govern its future. He concludes that, due in part to the contribution of western writers over the last thirty years, "westerners now have access to a great amount of information about themselves, their surroundings, their common history, and their possibilities. It is . . . exactly those things that is the stuff of the best societies.". Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.