Creating the West

Résumé · This book appears at a time of radical reassessment of what settling the West has meant in American history. Admidst questions now being asked about violence and exploitation as leitmotifs in western history, it is more important than ever to understand historians and their biases. In this interpretive synthesis, a major historian argues that the visions of the West held by successive generations of historians were as important as the historical record in shaping their writings. As Nash notes, since 1890 perceptions of the West–not only by historians, but by scholars in many disciplines, by politicians, and by average Americans–have undergone many changes. He analyzes and describes these changes by presenting intellectual portraits of such historians as Frederick Jackson Turner, Walter Webb, Ray Allen Billington, and Earl Pomeroy as well as many others over the past century who have contributed to our views of the West as frontier, region, urban osasis, and myth. This engagingly written volume will interest anyone seeking to understand the meaning and importance of western history.