The West: An Illustrated History - Softcover

Ward, Geoffrey C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0316735892 ISBN 13: 9780316735896

Publisher: Back Bay Books, 2003

Synopsis

For the first time in paperback comes the magnificent, copiously illustrated companion volume to the landmark PBS television series. 400+ illustrations, many in full color.

About this title

Review:

The companion volume to the stunning PBS television series, and an encore the acclaimed bestsellers The Civil War and Baseball. In a vivid narrative that begins with the arrival of the first Europeans and ends well into the twentieth century, author Geoffrey C. Ward provides a gripping journey through the turbulent history of the region that has come to symbolize America around the world. Drawing upon hundreds of letters, diaries, memoirs, and journals as well as the latest scholarship, and vividly illustrated with over 400 photographs, many of them never before published, The West: An Illustrated History chronicles the arrival of wave after wave of newcomers from every direction of the compass, each of which invested the harsh but majestic western landscape with its own myths and desires and dreams.

It is the central story of America, a story filled with heroism and hope, enterprise and adventure as well as tragedy and disappointment. It explores the tensions between whites and the native peoples that they sought to displace, but it also encompasses the Hispanic experience in the West, from the time of the conquistadors to the transformation of a Mexican-American village called Los Angeles into the region's major metropolis; the lives of Chinese immigrants who called the region "Gold Mountain"; and the ordeals of freed slaves from the South who sought a better life homesteading on the Great Plains. This book is as sprawling, vast, and rich as the history and land it describes.

About the Author:

Geoffrey C. Ward's books include A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Francis Parkman Prize.Stephen Ives is the producer and director of The West television series. Ken Burns, executive producer of The West, has been making documentary films for more than two decades.

About this edition

• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0316735892
• ISBN 13: 9780316735896
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464