Teddy Roosevelt once exclaimed, ''When I am in California, I am not in the West, I am west of the West,'' and in this book, Mark Arax sets out to explain just w

When American slaveholders looked west in the mid-nineteenth century, they saw an empire unfolding before them. They pursued that vision through diplomacy, migr

You die when you die . . . You can't change your fate -- so throw yourself into battle, because you'll either win or wake up drinking mead in the halls of your

The West is on everyone's lips: it is defended, celebrated, hated. But how and why did it emerge? And whose idea is it? This book is about representations of th

“A calculated nail-biter that shines a dark light on life in the 21st century.” —The Washington Post “A story no one has ever written before, and one we