Why read The Legacy of Conquest?

Book cover of The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West

Book description

The "settling" of the American West has been perceived throughout the world as a series of quaint, violent, and romantic adventures. But in fact, Patricia Nelson Limerick argues, the West has a history grounded primarily in economic reality; in hardheaded questions of profit, loss, competition, and consolidation. Here she interprets…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Legacy of Conquest as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Tore C. Olsson

Author

I can’t tell you how often I hear people talking about an Old West–an era imagined as distinct from a New West that followed. Spoiler alert–that makes no sense. No author does a better job blowing up this fantasy than Patty Limerick, who argues that there’s a single throughline in Western history–that of conquest by external forces, usually the federal government or big businesses from Wall Street.

You’ll never think of the West in the same after reading this powerful book.

From Tore's list on The best books on the Wild West that turn the myths upside down.