The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West

The "settling" of the American West has been perceived throughout the world as a series of quaint, violent, and romantic adventures. But in fact, Patricia Nelson Limerick argues, the West has a history grounded primarily in economic reality - in hardheaded questions of profit, loss, competition, and consolidation.

Here, she interprets the stories and the characters in a new way: The trappers, traders, Indians, farmers, oilmen, cowboys, and sheriffs of the Old West "meant business" in more ways than one, and their descendants mean business today.