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An award-winning environmental historian explores American history
through wrenching, tragic, and sometimes humorous stories of
getting lost "Fascinating. . . . Underlying . . . is a deep belief
in the importance of collaboration and cooperation between humans
and their environments, as well as between humans and other
humans."-Robert Macfarlane, New York Review of Books The human
species has a propensity for getting lost. The American people,
inhabiting a mental landscape shaped by their attempts to plant
roots and to break free, are no exception. In this engaging book,
environmental historian Jon Coleman bypasses the trailblazers so
often described in American history to follow instead the strays
and drifters who went missing. From Hernando de Soto's failed quest
for riches in the American southeast to the recent trend of getting
lost as a therapeutic escape from modernity, this book details a
unique history of location and movement as well as the
confrontations that occur when our physical and mental conceptions
of space become disjointed. Whether we get lost in the woods, the
plains, or the digital grid, Coleman argues that getting lost
allows us to see wilderness anew and connect with generations
across five centuries to discover a surprising and edgy American
identity.
A fully revised and updated new edition of the classic history of
western America The newly revised second edition of this concise,
engaging, and unorthodox history of America's West has been updated
to incorporate new research, including recent scholarship on Native
American lives and cultures. An ideal text for course work, it
presents the West as both frontier and region, examining the
clashing of different cultures and ethnic groups that occurred in
the western territories from the first Columbian contacts between
Native Americans and Europeans up to the end of the twentieth
century.
Best known for catching wolves alive with his bare hands, John R.
Abernathy (1876-1941) was born to Scottish ancestors in Texas.
Raised in the burgeoning railroad town of Sweetwater, Abernathy
considered himself a true son of the Wild West. In his amazing life
he worked as a U.S. marshal, sheriff, Secret Service agent, and
wildcat oil driller. But it was the accidental discovery of a bold
means of catching wolves alive that made Abernathy famous and drew
the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt. By forcing his hand
deep enough into a wolf's mouth, he could stun the creature long
enough to capture it, a service for which he was paid fifty dollars
by eager ranchers. This Bison Books edition brings Abernathy's
vivid account of his life into print for the first time since its
original publication in 1936.
A provocative history of wolves in America and of the humans who
first destroyed them and now offer them protection "A shocking
cultural study of our long, sadistic crusade against wolves. Moving
brilliantly through history, economics, and biology,
Coleman...explains America's fevered obsession with these
animals."-Ron Charles, Washington Post Book Club Over a continent
and three centuries, American livestock owners destroyed wolves to
protect the beasts that supplied them with food, clothing,
mobility, and wealth. The brutality of the campaign soon exceeded
wolves' misdeeds. Wolves menaced property, not people, but
storytellers often depicted the animals as ravenous threats to
human safety. Subjects of nightmares and legends, wolves fell prey
not only to Americans' thirst for land and resources but also to
their deeper anxieties about the untamed frontier. Now Americans
study and protect wolves and jail hunters who shoot them without
authorization. Wolves have become the poster beasts of the great
American wilderness, and the federal government has paid millions
of dollars to reintroduce them to scenic habitats like Yellowstone
National Park. Why did Americans hate wolves for centuries? And,
given the ferocity of this loathing, why are Americans now so
protective of the animals? In this ambitious history of wolves in
America-and of the humans who have hated and then loved them-Jon
Coleman investigates a fraught relationship between two species and
uncovers striking similarities, deadly differences, and, all too
frequently, tragic misunderstanding.
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