Elliott West

Heartbreaking and clear eyed professional historical discussion filled with many trenchant observations about this particular chapter in the theft of indigenous lands and ways of life by predominantly white Americans. One of the most hard hitting of those is that in many ways this theft and imposition of Christianity counts as, in essence, a religious war. We would do well do learn these lessons again or for the first time.

"From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." -- Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce First Nation. This is a very in-depth look at the Nez Perces and their struggle to integrate with the migration west of the white culture. This is a great history of the development of the northern High Plains and mountain regions of the west where the Nez Perces made their home, but it is not for the casual reader. West does a masterful job of telling the Nez Perce story, but this book is much show more closer to a graduate text than to a casual read. Still, for those who are interested, especially in Native American or First Nation history, this is a very detailed account both of the history of this people and of the migration of the white people. West uses both source documents and old photographs to document his story of this amazing people who struggled to understand what the white migration meant, and who were completely misunderstood by the European Christian settlers who moved into the lands that they had always roamed. I am always amazed at the way Americans can point to the violence of other religions and cultures and not see the violence of manifest destiny upon the Native cultures of this land this country. West does a good job of exploring manifest destiny and its resultant consequences on this particular people who fought the culture and religion that were destroying their ways of life until they just could not fight anymore. A longer but very similar story to that told by the Lakota in "Black Elk Speaks." show less

The editor of the “History of the American West” series predicts that this book “will capture readers and win major prizes.” I thought that was rather presumptuous when I read it in the Introduction, but now that I have completed reading the book, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the prediction of winning major prizes comes true. It is an extremely well-written history, almost poetic in its rhetoric. And even though I’ve read a fair amount of Western history lately, I still show more learned a lot from this book.

My one major criticism is that the summing-up section “Creating the West” at the very end is tediously repetitious. If you have the strength to skip the final section of a book, you might want to skip the final section of this one.

Some minor criticisms:

1) On page 11, it says that Panama City (Panama) is “9 degrees north of the equator, 21 degrees closer than Boston and 16 closer than even New Orleans”. Actually, it is 33 degrees closer than Boston and 21 degrees closer than New Orleans.
2) On page 11, it says: “In 1849 about five thousand persons followed the Gila River route to Santa Fe and then across the southwestern deserts to Southern California”. But for westward travelers, the Gila River was a way out of Santa Fe, not a way in.
3) On page 43, there is an unnecessarily lengthy argument that 2-dimensional growth is more powerful than 1-dimensional growth, that is then followed by the statement that a certain quantity grows “by more than nine and a half times, from 640 to 2276 acres.” (It should be three and a half.)
4) As important of a book as this one deserved better proofreading. As an example, a sentence on page 72 ends with the clause “but even before the Civil War it clear that the disposal of much of for farming.”
5) On page 198, we read: “Even correcting for lively exaggeration, there seems something like a compulsive inflation of mayhem and dissipation that would be repeated over and again by visitors to the new country.” This seems to be saying that even correcting for lively exaggeration, there was lively exaggeration! show less

It's good enough, it covers all the major events and forces in the Western USA's history. It places the genocide of indigenous people at the center of its telling, which is a low bar but a very important one. I knew it was bad prior to reading this book, but only now has it actually clicked for me the scale and violence of what was done. sometimes I think that California (and probably everywhere else in the USA, but especially California) should be considered as a place akin to Israel or the show more Deep South. Just an intensely evil history that's somehow very difficult to notice.

on the other hand, the prose is bizarrely jocular at times and the broader frame it's trying to place Western history into isn't an interesting one at all. the information in the book is good but that's IT, the other stuff i do not care about. Fortunately information is the main reason to read a nonfiction book, so I still managed to plow through this one despite being kind of annoyed at how it's written the whole time.

Also elliot west (haha) is comically bad at figurative language. there's a bit in the mining chapter where he talks about how underground mining claims were shaped like "a cubical loaf of bread hundreds of feet across". okay Elliot, what does bread have to do with any of this? why not just way that the mining claims were cubical and hundreds of feet across? show less