Winner: John Burroughs MedalLong ago we invited bears into our stories, our dreams, our nightmares, our lives. We have always sought them out where they live, for their hides, their meat, their beauty, their knowingness. Human country and bear country exist side by side.As Sherry Simpson suggests, the relationship between bears and humans is ancient and ongoing and, in Alaska, profoundly and often uncomfortably close. A huge number of North America...

An extraordinary portrait of a fast-changing America—and the Western writers who gave voice to its emerging identityAt once an intimate portrait of an unforgettable group of writers and a history of a cultural revolution in America, The Bohemians reveals how a brief moment on the far western frontier changed our culture forever. Beginning with Mark Twain’s arrival in San Francisco in 1863, this group biography introduces readers to the other young eccentri...

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Revenant—the basis for the award-winning film starring Leonardo DiCaprio—tells the remarkable story of the worst hard-rock mining disaster in American history.A half-hour before midnight on June 8, 1917, a fire broke out in the North Butte Mining Company's Granite Mountain shaft. Sparked more than two thousand feet below ground, the fire spewed flames, smoke, and poisonous gas through a labyrint...

More than forty million visitors per year travel to Sin City to visit the gambling mecca of the world. But gambling is only one part of the city’s story. In this carefully documented history, Geoff Schumacher tracks the rise of Las Vegas, including its vital role during World War II; the rise of the Strip in the 1950s; the explosive growth of the 1990s; and the colossal collapse triggered by the real estate bust and economic crisis of the mid-2000s. Schumacher surveys the history of the ic...

**"The best all-around study of the American cowboy ever written. Every page crackles with keen analysis and vivid prose about the Old West. A must-read!" —Douglas Brinkley, The New York Times–bestselling author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for AmericaThe open-range cattle era lasted barely a quarter century, but it left America irrevocably changed. Cattle Kingdom reveals how the West rose and fell, and how its leg...

The legend of Doc Holliday is now well past a century old. While his time on earth was brief, troubled and filled with pain, his legend took wings and flew. Beginning with his part in the now famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Denver newspapers first told his story in the late 19th century. They, followed by words of Wyatt Earp, grasped the glimmer of his tale. So enamored was the public that by 1939 he was a literary icon and his character had appeared in eight films. Historians, authors...

Frederic L. Paxson's 'The Last American Frontier' is a comprehensive exploration of the closing of the American frontier and its impact on the evolution of the nation. Written in a scholarly and engaging style, the book delves into the social, economic, and political factors that shaped the frontier experience, revealing the complexities of a transformative era in American history. Paxson's detailed analysis provides a nuanced understanding of the challenges and opportunities that characte...

Environmentalists and the timber industry do not often collaborate, but in the years immediately following gray wolf reintroduction in the interior American West, a plan to reintroduce grizzly bears to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness of Idaho and Montana brought these odd bedfellows together. The partnership won praise from diverse interests across the country and in 2000 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved a plan for reintroduction. When the Bush Administration took office, howev...

The rollicking true story of a 1930s version of Bernie Madoff—and the building and loan crash he helped precipitate—in a wonderful work of narrative nonfiction by the Gustavus Myers book award winnerShortfall opens with a surprise discovery in an attic—boxes filled with letters and documents hidden for more than seventy years—and launches into a fast-paced story that uncovers the dark secrets in Echols's family—an upside-down version of the building and lo...

Lesser known than the gold and silver mines of Western lore, Southern Colorado�s extensive coal mines fueled the engines for Western industrialization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Of the numerous companies operating the mines, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) was king. With a total of 62 mines, the majority of them in Colorado�s Las Animas, Huerfano, and Fremont Counties, CF&I ruled the lives of countless miners in company towns scattered throughout Southern Colorado...

California's name was associated with stories of romance and adventure as far back in history as the year 1510. Among those who heard and half believed the romantic tale was Hernando Cortes. By the year 1521 he had conquered the Aztecs of Mexico and forced them to become the subjects of Spain. He was now looking over the western seas for new worlds to conquer. He firmly believed that somewhere in the direction ascribed to California there was a rich and prosperous country. But there were m...

The four-square-mile incorporated city of Solana Beach rests along the coast of northern San Diego County. The name Solana means "sunny spot" in Spanish. For centuries, native Kumeyaay Indians called this once arid, sagebrush-covered landscape home. The land remained mostly untouched until the turn of the 19th century, when a local businessman named Ed Fletcher began to turn the tiny little hamlet into a full-fledged community. Fletcher was instrumental in working with the county in paving...