Ranging from an analysis of John Ford's "My Darling Clementine", to a revisionist look at cattle grandee Granville Stuart, to a survey of Western art and literature, this volume aims to broaden the reader's understanding of the vast American West.

When we think of the American West, we tend to conjure up images that are known the world over: bearded forty-niners leading pack mules up a mountain trail, the Oklahoma land stampede, Custer's Last Stand, and especially the range-riding, quick-shooting cowboy. But these familiar images are only a small part of a story that stretches across centuries and embraces many voices and contrasting cultures. Lavishly illustrated and based on the finest scholarship, The Oxford History of the American West is the first comprehensive study to do full justice to the rich complexity of this region. It brings together the work of twenty-eight leading western historians who explore this area from a dazzling number of perspectives. Providing distinctive portraits of all the peoples of the West, and following the frontier as it moves across terrains ranging from the Dakota Badlands to the icy cliffs of Glacier Bay, Alaska, this lively volume discusses economics, politics, family life, and popular culture (including the West in fiction and in art), continually challenging the familiar as it broadens the reader's understanding of a vast and varied region.

No one can understand American culture without coming to terms with the myth, imagery and ideology of the West, and anyone who wants to understand the West should read this book.