The Wild West surveys the people, economies and conflicts associated with United States expansion across the nineteenth-century West. It examines migration, ranching, mining, railroads, federal forts and the growth of towns, placing famous gunfighters and outlaws within broader systems of work and law.
The book gives equal attention to Native dispossession, Mexican and Black westerners, women and immigrant labour. It also explains how dime novels, travelling shows and films transformed a diverse and often violent historical region into a simplified national myth.
