A Frontier Without Borders

Where is the West and what defines it? Great questions that historians love to debate and have yet to be definitively answered. A recent released new edition of Garrett Wilson’s Frontier Farewell: The 1870s and the End of the Old West (University of Regina Press, $34.95) stokes the fires of the debate with a perspective from Western Canada versus the traditional Western United States. Wilson’s research and conclusions clearly demonstrate that the history of the West is a North American story, not just an American story. Extremely well-researched with an excellent bibliography and detailed endnotes, Wilson’s Frontier Farewell is must reading for students of the West seeking a greater understanding on the borderless nature of Western history.