The editor of the “History of the American West” series predicts that this book “will capture readers and win major prizes.” I thought that was rather presumptuous when I read it in the Introduction, but now that I have completed reading the book, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the prediction of winning major prizes comes true. It is an extremely well-written history, almost poetic in its rhetoric. And even though I’ve read a fair amount of Western history lately, I still learned a lot from this book.

My one major criticism is that the summing-up section “Creating the West” at the very end is tediously repetitious. If you have the strength to skip the final section of a book, you might want to skip the final section of this one.

Some minor criticisms:

1) On page 11, it says that Panama City (Panama) is “9 degrees north of the equator, 21 degrees closer than Boston and 16 closer than even New Orleans”. Actually, it is 33 degrees closer than Boston and 21 degrees closer than New Orleans.
2) On page 11, it says: “In 1849 about five thousand persons followed the Gila River route to Santa Fe and then across the southwestern deserts to Southern California”. But for westward travelers, the Gila River was a way out of Santa Fe, not a way in.
3) On page 43, there is an unnecessarily lengthy argument that 2-dimensional growth is more powerful than 1-dimensional growth, that is then followed by the statement that a certain quantity grows “by more than nine and a half times, from 640 to 2276 acres.” (It should be three and a half.)
4) As important of a book as this one deserved better proofreading. As an example, a sentence on page 72 ends with the clause “but even before the Civil War it clear that the disposal of much of for farming.”
5) On page 198, we read: “Even correcting for lively exaggeration, there seems something like a compulsive inflation of mayhem and dissipation that would be repeated over and again by visitors to the new country.” This seems to be saying that even correcting for lively exaggeration, there was lively exaggeration! ( )

renowned historian
Elliott West presents a sweeping narrative
of the American West and its vital role in
the transformation of the nation.