The West

For the first time in paperback--the magnificent, copiously illustrated companion volume to the landmark PBS television series. Featuring more than 400 illustrations, many of them never before published--and many of them reproduced here in striking full color--this vivid narrative history takes us on a gripping journey through the turbulent history of the region that has come to symbolize America around the world. Drawing on hundreds of letters, diaries, memoirs, and journals as well as the latest scholarship, the book--like the television series--presents a cast as rich and diverse as the western landscape itself: explorers and soldiers and Indian warriors, settlers and railroad builders and gaudy showmen. THE WEST is an unrivaled work of history that brilliantly captures all the drama and excitement, the sober realities and bright myths, of the American West.