Winning the Wild West: The Epic Saga of the American Frontier, 1800--1899

by Page Stegner, Larry McMurtry (Foreword by)

One of the greatest stories of nineteenth-century America is its expansion into the lands west of the Mississippi. Now acclaimed author Page Stegner shows in one sweeping volume how the opening of the western frontier ignited and defined a young nation's spirit of enterprise and discovery. Winning the Wild West is an illustrated celebration of that epoch, rich in the deeds and exploits of legendary and forgotten characters, replete with hundreds of never-before-published artifacts and archival images reproduced in full color. Stories of life on the frontier fire our imaginations, but Page Stegner looks upon this epic story with an unflinching gaze, recognizing, as Larry McMurtry notes in his foreword, how severe and equivocal the struggle to "win" the West was. Our great land was once filled with millions of buffalo that were needlessly slaughtered, the rivers of our heartland were also mismanaged, and California, the most western state, saw the complete eradication of native tribes now lost forever. The era's pioneers were often doing little more than clinging to life*with what little strength they had left. From Lewis and Clark to the massacre at Wounded Knee, Page Stegner re-creates an engrossing, gorgeous panorama of trappers, wagon trains, cattle drives, guns, gold rushes, outlaws, lawmen, settlers, buffalo hunters, railroads, cowboy hats, and barbed wire-the hard lives of the people and the items they carried that made a new culture, a new society...a new nation.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

400 pages, Hardcover

First published October 10, 2002

About the author

Page Stegner is a novelist, essayist, and historian who has written extensively about the American West. He is the son of novelist Wallace Stegner.

Stenger received his B.A. in history from Stanford University in 1959, followed by a Ph.D in American literature in 1964. He served as a Professor of American Literature and Director of the creative writing program at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 1965 to 1995, at which time he focused his efforts on writing. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship (1980), a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship (1981) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1982). He is married to novelist Lynn Stegner. They live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really fine book covering the westward expansion of the American frontier during the 19th century. The quality of page design, richness of images (photos new and old, paintings by western artists, maps, posters), and the rich detail and freshness of the text make this a book that's a feast for the eye and the curious mind with every turn of the page.

As just one example, the chapter on cowboys and the open range includes reproductions of paintings by Charles Russell, Frederic Remington, and other western artists (including a two-page spread of Russell's dramatic "Smoke of a .45"); a page-long quote from "Teddy Blue" Abbot's "We Pointed Them North"; a map of the cattle drive trails and railroad lines; vintage photographs of cowboys on the trail, roping and branding cattle, breaking horses, as well as studio portraits of cowboys; two-page illustrated essays on Dodge City and its peace keepers, the Colt Revolver, the Stetson hat, Black cowboys, and vigilantes; and full-page color photographs of rolling grassland in the Black Hills, the high deserts east of the Southwest, and cattle under a big sky with snow covered mountains in the distance.

Stegner's book is both political and social history, and it captures both the triumphs and losses that represent the "winning" of the West, including the wars declared and undeclared against the Native American tribes. The strongest image in this regard is a vintage photograph of the mass burials at Wounded Knee in 1890. His book is also an album of brilliantly photographed color images of the western landscape -- plains, mountains, lakes, deserts, in all seasons. You understand that these breathtaking spaces are as much a part of the Western experience as the stories of the people who traversed and settled in them.

The nearly square format of the book gives the pages room to breathe, allowing the book to absorb a vast amount of textual and visual materials. Stegner's text is richly interlaced with quotations from 19th-century contemporaries and established historians. The credits pages are a distinguished list of sources including the Amon Carter Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; the Buffalo Bill Cody Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming; Harper's Weekly; and the Joslyn Art Museum of Omaha, Nebraska. There's an excellent bibliography of over 60 books about the West, from "Teddy Blue" Abbot's and Andy Adams' cowboy memoirs to "American Life Histories" by the WPA Project. There's also a handy index of over 550 items.

I highly recommend this book. It is 400 pages that will absorb anyone interested in the Western experience, whether they know a little or a lot about the subject.

[Julianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as everyone before me has said, full of facts! I stumbled upon this gem in my college library. He is a true historian. Usually as a history major I am baffled by the amount of opinion historians put while retelling American history, especially about the west. But this was full of facts, words, dates, figures, great artwork and organized nicely. Probably one of my favorite books.

I am highly considering buying this to own after returning this to the library, just for reference. I cannot recommend this book anymore. I didn't know much about the West initially but this was an excellent introduction, and more than that gratefully.

[Matthew Griffin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nuggets of info. Def one sided re: "human evil". Business as usual.