HIST2451 — The American West
The American West has loomed large in the imagination of the public since the first Europeans set foot on what would become the United States of America. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner argued that the frontier of the West was what distinguished Americans from their European counterparts. However, the West was already home to complex and sophisticated cultures long before the first fur trapper, gold miner, missionary, or cowboy arrived. Disagreements over the future of the West fueled violent confrontation, disagreements that continue to reveal themselves on contemporary relations among a variety of ethnic, class, and cultural backgrounds. Explore the historical underpinnings of confrontations between settlers and indigenous inhabitants, farmers and ranchers, and the federal, state, private, environmental, and tribal interests in the West. These historical underpinnings help to re-imagine the West and the American identity, and continue to shape contemporary controversies.