Beyond the Missouri: The Story of the American West

by Richard W. Etulain

This new historical overview tells the dramatic story of the American West from its prehistory to the present. A narrative history, it covers the region from the North Dakota-to-Texas states to the Pacific Coast. This West has always been home to richly diverse cultural groups, including today's growing numbers of Indian, Hispanic, Asian and African Americans. Other distinctions have marked the western first, the differences among prehistoric peoples and among hundreds of Indian tribes at first white contact; next, the varied western subcultures that emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; third the social, cultural, and political complexities of the West in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In Beyond the Missouri , Richard Etulain provides a fresh, balanced narrative of this geographically and culturally vast area and emphasizes two change and complexity. His perspective is neither the too-optimistic, homogenized position of the Turnerian school of historians nor the less optimistic, conflicted approach of the revisionist western historians. Etulain begins his study with a discussion of western landscapes and Native inhabitants. He next examines the Spanish Southwest, colonial rivalries, mountain men, missionaries, and the Oregon Trail. Then Etulain looks at Mormons, miners, western communities, ranching and farming, and transportation networks. He treats western frontier social patterns and cultures and contributes several chapters on the modern West, including the pre-World War II and the Cold War Wests. Etulain concludes with today's continuing search for an American West. Each of the fifteen chapters contains a helpful list of suggested readings.
"Richard Etulain has done a remarkable job in this major new book. He incorporates current research into a West-centered narrative, all the while being judicious in his interpretations. Beyond the Missouri is sure to have classroom appeal, but it will also attract readers interested in an engaging and lively narrative history of the West."--Elliott West, Alumni Distinguished Professor, University of Arkansas

Genres: History

480 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2006

Reviews

[Julia Bilderback · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the main text book that was used for my graduate course in American Western history at Adams State. This book was read over the time frame of the whole class and was used each week to answer discussion questions. It was also used to compare views of different topics in the other books we also had to read for the course.

The book tries to cover a lot of ground. Sometimes it went into too much detail and at others not enough. This is a good base book for Western history students because of all of the subject matter it does cover. One of the things that stands out is how Etulain looks at how the stereotypes that we associate with the West developed and the impact that the media, authors, and movies had on these images over time. He also does cover the experiences of different cultural and religious groups. The book does include a good amount of pictures and maps to help people build images of what they are reading about. The one real negative that I saw with Etulain's book is that most of his resources were just other books. There was little use of primary source material, newspapers, or articles. I just felt he needed a little more diversity in his resources.

I think that this is a good book for instructors to use as an overarching book on the West, but it must be paired with others because it is very top level and to get a deeper understanding of Western history it just does not go into enough detail. No book can be everything on a subject so this is understandable.

[Neil Lovell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Etulain is a pretty comprehensive and broad overview of the American West. As to be expected, no single overview could cover any expanse for as lengthy a time. He convincingly asserts the West has been a place of change, complexity, ane diversity.