Distant horizon

the long version

From Thomas Hart Benton's famous speech in the Senate when he argued that nonwhite civilizations must fall before the western expansion of white Americans to Black Elk's story of a way of life lost on the frozen ground at Wounded Knee, Gary Noy offers a representative sampling of the many Wests that historians have struggled to define for over a century. Distant Horizon chronicles the dusty world of the cowboy, the hardscrabble existence of the farmer and the settler, and the miner's vision of golden glory. It examines the independent nature of the explorer and mountain man and the sometimes heroic, sometimes cruel existence of the soldier. We hear the voices of those outside the mainstream of power - women and westerners of color - and explore the most tragic element of western history: the confinement, subjugation, and extermination of Native Americans. No other single volume provides as many readings on as many topics in the history of the American West.