Under an open Sky / Rethinking American s Western Past / William Cronon, George Miles, Jay Gitlin

What was the significance of the frontier in American history? What are the foundations of Western identity? What themes connect the twentieth-century West to its more distant past? The transformation of Western history remains an open-ended, turbulent process. The original essays in this volume are accounts from the frontier of change. In their divergent assumptions and conclusions, they reflect the vitality of the field. They are successful in raising new questions and suggesting possible answers. They do not advocate a single agenda. But taken together, they represent well the passion and high level of craftsmanship with which scholars are creating a new Western history.