The story behind the Scots at the Alamo “I was fascinated with the role the Scots played in early Texas history.... I used this connection to tell a...
My Name is Falon
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Book Reviews
Red Light Women of the Rocky Mountains
In this book, the Rocky Mountains somehow includes Arizona. Jan MacKell’s observations of the Earp women and the “control of prostitution” for the...
Making the Grade
These women, many teenagers themselves, often faced unruly children. You have to admire the pluck of these frontier women. Working with wit, quick...
Social Class in the Writings
A popular writer of the early 1900s, Foote would gain fame much later, in 1979, when Mary Ellen Williams-Walsh exposed Wallace Stegner’s liberal...
Circle The Wagons!
An interesting book, Circle the Wagons! is a deliberately controversial one, combining early Western movies with actual events in an effort to...
Agnes Lake Hickok
In this first biography of Agnes Lake, the woman finally steps out of the shadows of her famous husband Wild Bill Hickok. Working through Agnes’s...
The Dark Border (Fiction)
Legendary penman Frank Bonham sold more than 50 novels during his 54-year-career. This Western Quartet demonstrates his superb writing. ‘“Brand of...
North Star (Fiction)
An aura of depression suggests this might be the last chapter in the “Barnaby Skye” mountain man series as Skye submits to old age. The fur trade is...
Cowboy Park (Nonfiction)
At the turn of the 20th century, cattlemen’s associations voiced opposition to steer roping because of injuries to expensive cattle. Texas, New...
Family Ranch: Land, Children, and Tradition in the American West (Nonfiction)
As activists used to say: the personal is political, and so it is with modern family ranching in the West. These stories of six ranching families...
Mormonism’s Last Colonizer (Nonfiction)
The author, a descendant of Mormon leader William H. Smart, by his own admission, gives an honest and detailed account of the ardent leader. Through...
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...