The Best of the West: Anthology of Classic Writing from the American West, an

This is a wonderful collection of fact and fiction about the West covering all eras of cowboys, Indians, outlaws, explorers, Hispanos, frontier women and much, much more.

With 142 separate readings in this 500+ page book, Hillerman's anthology of Western writing makes a great bedside reader for anyone with an interest in the frontier West as it was lived by a vast variety of people. Not surprisingly, this writer of great crime fiction set on the Navajo reservation of New Mexico and Arizona devotes many of the first 100 pages to the "first Westerners," Native Americans, and the Hispanic history of the Southwest. The rest of the book has sections on settlers, cowboys, mining, the military, and the law and outlaws. Additional sections represent women, tall tales and practical jokes, travel, language, and "characters." The book closes with a fiction section of short stories and excerpts from novels.As you might expect in a book called "The Best of the West," there are writings by Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, Owen Wister, N. Scott Momaday, J. Frank Dobie, Meriwether Lewis, and Helen Hunt Jackson. The great surprise of the book, if you're familiar with Western literature, is the many readings from sources you're likely not to have heard of before. There are absorbing vignettes drawn from period newspapers, journals, memoirs, letters and other little-known publications. Some of my favorites include a far-fetched autobiographical sketch by Calamity Jane, an account of a "love scrape" in Las Cruces by cowboy writer Charlie Siringo, Eugene Manlove Rhodes' description of loading up a chuck wagon, Raphael Pumpelly's report of the discomforts of travel by overland stage, H. M. Chittenden's account of the amazing bad luck of a man who survived a series of near-death mishaps on a visit to Yellowstone country in 1877, James Rusling's description of traveling down the Columbia River by steamboat and train, Alexander Majors' informative account of the short, perilous history of the pony express, a description of young J. C. Penney's first day of business in Kemmerer, Wyoming, and a selection on sod houses from social historian Everett Dick.Excerpts from novels are mixed in with the historical accounts. I especially liked John Steinbeck's rhapsodic description of Highway 66 from "The Grapes of Wrath," a breathless homage to the title character of Owen Wister's "The Virginian," a description of the Colorado mining town, Leadville, from Wallace Stegner's Pulitzer Prize winning "Angle of Repose," Dorothy Scarborough's grim account of West Texas wind, in her novel "The Wind," and a description of driving down an early paved road in California from Upton Sinclair's "Oil!" And there are complete short stories: Stephen Crane's "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," capturing the impact that a young bride has on the rough world of frontier men, and Bret Harte's "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," set in 1850 California and giving the reader a more melodramatic rendering of a the same theme -- the taming influence of a young woman's innocence.I'm happy to recommend this enjoyable anthology to anyone with an interest in the social history of the Americ

This is a terrific book for anyone that enjoys history but is not looking for a detailed, academic analysis. This book lets you learn about the old west from the people that lived there. It contains excerpts from a wide variety of primary sources including newspaper articles, letters, and diaries. You'll recognize the names of many of the people whose stories appear. There is also plenty of material written by people who never became famous, but who do have stories to tell about real life in the west.This book did what all good books should do - it left me fascinated and wanting to learn more.

Among the history books about the Wild West this is like a siver dollar among paper money: While many of them are just so much rustling paper, unable to wake the spirit of the time or bring the people to life, this one speaks with their own voice, loud and clear. To me, a student from Germany, who knew the West only from Hollywood movies and Karl May (the only author I missed in the anthology, but he is rather a German speciality), the whole time gained flesh and bones while reading the accounts of such divers people as Indian chiefs and Philadelphia ladies turned Cowgirl. The possibilities of a place where conventions didn't count as much as your ability to ride a horse or rope a cow strike one very vivid from these pages. Besides - not all cowboys were white (or male). All the different people that made up the Wild West get to have their say and your can, after reading this anthology, truly say for yourself that you can picture, say Dalton City at it's peak.