Patricia Nelson Limerick

The Legacy of Conquest

"With a grace, clarity, and vision all her own, Patricia Nelson Limerick places the myths and realities of the American West and its history in freshperspective." —C. Vann Woodward

The "settling" of the American West has been powerfully perceived throughout the world as a series of quaint, violent, and romantic adventures—most withhappy endings— and a process that came to an end with the "closing" of thefrontier in the 1890s. But in fact, Patricia Nelson Limerick argues, the AmericanWest has a history grounded in primary economic reality—in hardheaded questionsof profit, loss, competition, and consolidation. In The Legacy of Conquest,she interprets the sotries and the characters in a new way: the trappers, traders,Indians, farmers, oilmen, cowboys, and sheriffs of the Old West "meant business"in more ways than one, and their descendents mean business today.

"Written with extraordinary grace and understanding, Patricia Nelson Limerick'sThe Legacy of Conquest returns the Western American past to the mainstreamof national history. . . . Most important of all is her eloquent plea for Westerners,whether Anglo, Hispanic, Indian, Asian, o black, to see the West as a shared place,a splended whole which each has helped create." —Howard R. Lamar

"The Legacy of Conquest is going to be the most talked about and influentialbook in Western history in years. The pleasure of Patricia Limerick's prose willlead readers painlessly into a subtle and careful reconsideration of the AmericanWest. [She] is one of the most engaging historians writing today." —RichardWhite