The American West and Its Interpreters
Essays on Literary History and Historiography

Richard W. Etulain (Author)

9780826364456

Paperback / softback, published 1 May 2023

304 pages
21.9 x 14.4 x 1.8 cm, 0.216 kg

Richard Etulain is one of the most significant interpreters of Western history, and especially its literary and cultural history, of the past half-century. To gather his essays, old and new, in one volume is a great contribution." —Michael S. Green, author of Nevada: A History of the Silver State "An important topic masterfully executed by the leading authority in the dual fields of literary history and historiography." —David V. Holtby, author of Lest We Forget: World War I and New Mexico

Distinguished historian Richard W. Etulain brings together a generous selection of essays from his sixty-year career as a specialist on the US West in this essential volume. Each essay provides an invaluable overview of the rise of western literary history and historiography--including insightful evaluations of individual historians--revealing summaries of regional literature and discussions of western stories yet to be told. Together these writings furnish readers with useful considerations of important subjects about the American West. All those interested in the American West and its interpreters will find these illuminative moments of literary history and historiography especially appealing.

• Preface
• Chapter One. Transitions in Western Historiography
• Chapter Two. The American Literary West and Its Interpreters: The Rise of a New Historiography
• Chapter Three. Shifting Interpretations of Western American Cultural History
• Chapter Four. The Twentieth-Century American West: A New Historiographical Frontier
• Chapter Five. Research Opportunities in Twentieth-Century Western Cultural History
• Chapter Six. After Turner: The Western Historiography of Frederic Logan Paxson
• Chapter Seven. Earl Pomeroy: Reorienting Western History
• Chapter Eight. Inventing the Pacific Northwest: Novelists and the Region'
  s History
• Chapter Nine. Western Stories for the Next Generation
• Chapter Ten. Beyond Conflict, Toward Complexity: New Views of the American West
• Chapter Eleven. Research Opportunities in Western History
• Poll: The Most Influential Western Historians
• Notes
• American West Historiography: Books and Essays