This cultural journey down memory lane showcases how major Western figures, events, and places have been portrayed in folk legends, art, literature, and popular culture. Ever since the days of the 49ers and George Armstrong Custer, the Old West has been America's most potent source of legend. But it is sometimes hard to separate fact from fiction. Did you know, for example, that Annie Oakley was a talented marksman who shot an estimated 40,000 rounds per year while practicing and performing for Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show in the late l800s? Or that many interpreters believe that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is not just a fairy tale, but also a Populist allegory? These are just two of the folk legends dissected and examined in this veritable cultural geography. The volume covers everything from billionaire Howard Hughes and composer Aaron Copeland to Aztlan (the legendary first city of the Aztecs) and Area 51, the top-secret U.S. Air Force base at Groom Lake, Nevada, that has fascinated UFO and conspiracy buffs.

Alphabetically organized and thoroughly cross-referenced entries provide information on cowboy history, culture, and myth in North and South America. Entries include cowboy types, equipment, dress, work, and recreation. illustrated, with informative appendixes, an index, and bibliography.

This collection explores the varieties of banditry in Latin America and provides a major comparative testing of Hobsbawm's model of the social bandit. Comprised of a unique collection of essays, it contributes to a more accurate understanding of bandit leaders and followers, as well as to the analysis of banditry as a social phenomenon.

A century ago, when Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona outlawed steer roping contests, there was one place a southwestern roper could go to hone his skills: Cowboy Park, the arena established in 1907 in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. During the formative years of rodeo that preceded the first Calgary Stampede in 1912, Cowboy Park promoted the sport of steer roping and provided a ready training ground for up-and-coming champions. From its inception until growing political turmoil in Mexico brought the enterprise to a halt, Cowboy Park kept the sport alive and fostered celebrity--its "alumni" swept the first prizes in Calgary and continued to dominate for some years. This unique institution, despite its significant influence on the future of rodeo, has until now received scant attention. Through the history he has recovered and photographs--many published here for the first time--John Baxter documents and illuminates the era of Cowboy Park and the early champions who won their spurs there. "Rodeo fans will find some familiar names . . . and places here--Guy Weadick, Zack and Lucille Mulhall, Bill Pickett, Will Rogers, Fog Horn Clancy, Guy Allen, Dan Patch, and Calgary, Pendleton, and Cheyenne. But most of the names will be unfamiliar, all but forgotten in the annals of early rodeo. Baxter's] penetrating and original research is underpinned by the use of nearly fifty different newspapers from around the country." --Richard W. Slatta, from the foreword

Spanish is an important source for terms and expressions that have made their way into the English of the southwestern United States. "Vocabulario Vaquero/Cowboy Talk" is the first book to list all Spanish-language terms pertaining to two important activities in the American West--ranching and cowboying--with special reference to American Indian terms that have come through Spanish. In addition to presenting the most accurate definitions available, this A-to-Z lexicon traces the etymology of words and critically reviews and assesses the specialized English sources for each entry. It is the only dictionary of its kind to reference Spanish sources.

The scholarly treatment of this volume makes it an essential addition to the libraries of linguists and historians interested in Spanish/English contact in the American West. Western enthusiasts of all backgrounds will find accessible entries full of invaluable information.

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Historians of the American west, perhaps inspired by NAFTA and Internet communication, are expanding their intellectual horizons across borders north and south. This collection of essays functions as a how-to guide to comparative frontier research in the American. Frontiers specialist Richard W. Slatta presents topics, techniques, and methods that will intrigue social-science professionals and western-history buffs alike as he explores the frontiers of North and South America from Spanish colonial days into the twentieth century. The always popular cowboy is joined by the fascinating gaucho, llanero, vaquero, and charro as Slatta compares their work techniques, roundups, songs, tack, lingo, equestrian culture, and vices. We visit saloons and pulperIas as well as plains pampas, and Slatta expertly compares clothing, weather, terrain, diets, alcoholic beverages, card games, and military tactics. From primary records we learn how Europeans, Native Americans, and African Americans become the ranch hands, cowmen, and buckaroos of the Americas, and why their dependence on the ranch cattle industry kept them bachelors and landless peons. Richard W. Slatta is Professor of History at North Carolina State University and the author of numerous books, including Comparing Cowboys and Frontiers. "Slatta vigorously examines the historical, cultural, and populist aspects of cowboying, paying close attention to their material culture, recreation, and working conditions. This is an enormously interesting and informative study."---Books of the Southwest

Although as much romanticized as the American cowboy, the Argentine gaucho lived a persecuted, marginal existence, beleaguered by mandatory passports, vagrancy laws, and forced military service. The story of this nineteenth-century migratory ranch hand is told in vivid detail by Richard W. Slatta, a professor of history at North Carolina State University at Raleigh and the author of "Cowboys of the Americas" (1990).