Harold J. Weiss Jr. tells the story of Ranger Capt. Bill McDonald in Yours to Command. A compulsive lawman, Ranger McDonald was also a deputy...
The Last Indian War (Nonfiction)
Despite the somewhat misleading title (for example, the Apache Wars ended in the 1880s), this is an excellent study of the relations between whites...
Wallace Stegner and the American West (Nonfiction)
Fradkin is the perfect fit to study Stegner’s career in the West, as he himself is also a polished writer, historian and environmentalist. Stegner...
Searching for Tamsen Donner (Nonfiction)
This odd-but-interesting book provides an easy way of briefing someone on the tragic story of the Donner party, trapped in winter snows during...
Finding Chief Kamiakin (Nonfiction)
This oversized and extra-illustrated paperback introduces us to a neglected chief, Kamiakin of the Yakimas. Among the illustrations are beautiful...
Blacks in East Texas History (Nonfiction)
This scholarly, heavily annotated book reminds us that the Old South met the Old West in Texas during the 19th century. The wetter portions of...
Inkpaduta (Nonfiction)
Egad! This is an annoying book; half-good and half-bad. Beck does not exactly coat the Santee chief with whitewash, but he asks us to “redeem” him....
Death of a Gunfighter (Nonfiction)
Rottenberg is to be commended for rescuing Jack Slade from relative obscurity. Slade has, indeed, slipped through the cracks of history and into...
Texas Devils: Rangers & Regulars on the Lower Rio Grande, 1846-1861 (Nonfiction)
The Texas Rangers earned the condemnatory nickname Los Diablos Tejanos (the Texas Devils) during the Mexican-American War because of their brutality...
Towers of Gold (Nonfiction)
It is a stretch to call Isaias Hellman the creator of modern California, as the author (a descendant) does, but the Los Angeles banker did have much...
Fugitive Landscapes (Nonfiction)
This is a heavily-annotated Ph.D dissertation transformed into a readable history. The book is really the story of the Arizona-Sonora border....
The American Far West in the 20th Century (Nonfiction)
Richard W. Etulain has rescued and edited the last manuscript of the late University of Oregon professor. Pomeroy proves his thesis that the 20th...