Tracing events from the pre-history to the present day, this book offers a concise and accessible history of the American West.

• Explores the complex interactions between and among cultures in the American West
• Chronologically organized and informed by the latest scholarship
• Grounded in attention to race, class, gender, and the environment, the text focuses on social, economic, and political forces that shaped the lived experiences of diverse westerners and influenced the patterns of western history.

Anne M. Butler is Trustee Professor, Emeritus, at Utah State University and a past editor of the Western Historical Quarterly. Author of numerous articles and books, including Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery: Prostitutes in the American West (1985), she has published extensively on matters of race, class, and gender in western history.

Michael J. Lansing is Assistant Professor of History at Augsburg College. His essays have appeared in the Western Historical Quarterly, Utah Historical Quarterly, Journal of Historical Geography, and Ethics, Place, and Environment. He serves on the editorial board of the University of Arizona Press monograph series “Western Women’s Voices.”