An economic interpretation of the history of the American West that
seeks to correct what the author sees as the misperception of the
West as a "frontier" ripe for the taking. Limerick (History/Univ.
of Colorado) attempts nothing less in this volume than the
displacement of the Frederick Jackson Turner school of "closed
frontiers" with the Limerick school of open vistas, in exploding
Turner's famous dictum, first promulgated in 1891, that the
American frontier was closed, Limerick imputes Turner's motives as
nationalistic and ethnocentric. "English-speaking white men were
the stars of his story: Indians, Hispanics, French Canadians, and
Asians were at best supporting actors and at worst, invisible." But
those groups, and others, were, and continue to be, involved in a
struggle for conquest and a contest for property and profit - and
their great meeting ground was the West. The motivating factor
behind every trapper was trade; behind every cowboy, ranching.
Miners and gold-seekers were usually only fronts for larger
economic thrusts. In defending her thesis, Limerick explores how
every major issue from frontier history has resurfaced in our own
time in either the courts or the Congress, including struggles over
Indian resources and tribal autonomy, Mexican-American relations,
the controversy over the origins of Mormonism, conflicts over water
allocation, farm crises, the use of public lands, and the boom/bust
cycles of oil, copper, and timber, to name only a few. The
demythifying of the West, with panache. (Kirkus Reviews)
"With a grace, clarity, and vision all her own, Patricia Nelson Limerick places the myths and realities of the American West and its history in freshperspective." —C. Vann WoodwardThe "settling" of the American West has been powerfully perceived throughout the world as a series of quaint, violent, and romantic adventures—most withhappy endings— and a process that came to an end with the "closing" of thefrontier in the 1890s. But in fact, Patricia Nelson Limerick argues, the AmericanWest has a history grounded in primary economic reality—in hardheaded questionsof profit, loss, competition, and consolidation. In
The Legacy of Conquest,she interprets the sotries and the characters in a new way: the trappers, traders,Indians, farmers, oilmen, cowboys, and sheriffs of the Old West "meant business"in more ways than one, and their descendents mean business today.
"Written with extraordinary grace and understanding, Patricia Nelson Limerick'sThe Legacy of Conquest returns the Western American past to the mainstreamof national history. . . . Most important of all is her eloquent plea for Westerners,whether Anglo, Hispanic, Indian, Asian, o black, to see the West as a shared place,a splended whole which each has helped create." —Howard R. Lamar
"The Legacy of Conquest is going to be the most talked about and influentialbook in Western history in years. The pleasure of Patricia Limerick's prose willlead readers painlessly into a subtle and careful reconsideration of the AmericanWest. [She] is one of the most engaging historians writing today." —RichardWhite
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