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Trails: Toward a New Western History
This is the new story of the Old West, told by ten historians who dare to reenvision the American West and knock the field of Western history on its ear. Some historians call it a revolution.
The Trails Conference in Santa Fe, a 1989 gathering organized by “new" western historian Patricia Nelson Limerick, spawned widespread media coverage and academic debate and provided the impetus for this volume. There, at the end of the Santa Fe Trail, leading scholars came together to discuss, debate, and evaluate an exciting new view of our past. It amounts to a far-reaching reexamination of the role of the West in U.S. history and of the field of Western history itself.
Trails brings together the best of this new work. The contributors provide a range of views that clarify the changes in Western history. They consider what the "New Western History" is, what its impact on Western history has been thus far, and where it might lead as we move into the 1990s and beyond.
These historians reject both the "tall in the saddle" myth and the concept of the frontier and its settlement described by Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893: a single, triumphant process that began with the arrival of white settlers and ended a century later when all the land was claimed. Instead, they see continuity. To them, the West is a region, washed by waves of successive emigrants over a period of 25,000 years; a place with climate, resources, and sustained damage of human habitation.
Contributors: Brian W. Dippie, Patricia Nelson Limerick, Michael P. Malone, Walter Nugent, Peggy Pascoe, William G. Robbins, Gerald Thompson, Elliott West, Richard White, Donald Worster
The Trails Conference in Santa Fe, a 1989 gathering organized by “new" western historian Patricia Nelson Limerick, spawned widespread media coverage and academic debate and provided the impetus for this volume. There, at the end of the Santa Fe Trail, leading scholars came together to discuss, debate, and evaluate an exciting new view of our past. It amounts to a far-reaching reexamination of the role of the West in U.S. history and of the field of Western history itself.
Trails brings together the best of this new work. The contributors provide a range of views that clarify the changes in Western history. They consider what the "New Western History" is, what its impact on Western history has been thus far, and where it might lead as we move into the 1990s and beyond.
These historians reject both the "tall in the saddle" myth and the concept of the frontier and its settlement described by Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893: a single, triumphant process that began with the arrival of white settlers and ended a century later when all the land was claimed. Instead, they see continuity. To them, the West is a region, washed by waves of successive emigrants over a period of 25,000 years; a place with climate, resources, and sustained damage of human habitation.
Contributors: Brian W. Dippie, Patricia Nelson Limerick, Michael P. Malone, Walter Nugent, Peggy Pascoe, William G. Robbins, Gerald Thompson, Elliott West, Richard White, Donald Worster
312 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1991
About the author
Patricia Nelson Limerick
38 books30 followersPatricia Nelson Limerick is an American historian, considered to be one of the leading historians of the American West. She was born and raised in Banning, California.
Limerick received a B.A. in American Studies in 1972 from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Ph.D. in American Studies in 1980 from Yale University. She worked at Harvard University as an Assistant Professor from 1980 to 1984. Previously she taught at Yale as a graduate teaching assistant, where she helped teach the highly-regarded 'daily themes' class. Since then Limerick has been at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she is Professor of History and chair of the Board of the Center of the American West.
Limerick is a former president of the American Studies Association (1996-1997) and the Western History Association (2000). She is known for her 1987 book The Legacy of Conquest, which is part of a body of historical writing sometimes known as the New Western History. In 1995, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
Her essay on the Modoc War, titled "Haunted America" appears in the collection "Ways of Reading," a textbook widely used by undergraduate English students. She also co-edited a collection of essays, titled "Trails: Toward a New Western History," which relate to her famous 1989 Trails Through Time exhibit.
Limerick received a B.A. in American Studies in 1972 from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Ph.D. in American Studies in 1980 from Yale University. She worked at Harvard University as an Assistant Professor from 1980 to 1984. Previously she taught at Yale as a graduate teaching assistant, where she helped teach the highly-regarded 'daily themes' class. Since then Limerick has been at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she is Professor of History and chair of the Board of the Center of the American West.
Limerick is a former president of the American Studies Association (1996-1997) and the Western History Association (2000). She is known for her 1987 book The Legacy of Conquest, which is part of a body of historical writing sometimes known as the New Western History. In 1995, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
Her essay on the Modoc War, titled "Haunted America" appears in the collection "Ways of Reading," a textbook widely used by undergraduate English students. She also co-edited a collection of essays, titled "Trails: Toward a New Western History," which relate to her famous 1989 Trails Through Time exhibit.
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