Southwest Books of the Year 2010: Bruce Dinges' Picks

James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent

by Merry, Robert W.

Book - 2009

Towering personalities and intense political battles propel Merry’s lively narrative of mid-nineteenth century American expansionism. Describing the eleve...Show more Towering personalities and intense political battles propel Merry’s lively narrative of mid-nineteenth century American expansionism. Describing the eleventh president as a man of “limited imagination tied to a propulsive ambition and an unceasing tenacity,” Merry, the former editor of Congressional Quarterly, describes how, during his single term, Polk harnessed the forces of Manifest Destiny to expand the nation’s boundaries to encompass Texas, the Southwest, California, and Oregon. While painting history in broad strokes, Merry captures the drama, and tragedy, of an exuberant young nation flexing its muscles Show less

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A Country of Vast Designs

James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent

by Merry, Robert W.

Downloadable Audiobook - 2010

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From Cochise to Geronimo

The Chiricahua Apaches, 1874-1886

by Sweeney, Edwin R.

Book - 2010

Sweeney, the author of landmark biographies of Cochise and Mangas Coloradas, chronicles the epic struggle of the Chiricahua Apaches to survive as a people...Show more Sweeney, the author of landmark biographies of Cochise and Mangas Coloradas, chronicles the epic struggle of the Chiricahua Apaches to survive as a people and culture in the face of the federal government’s efforts to confine them on reservations. Sweeney’s astute analysis of published sources and three decades of exhaustive research in U.S. and Mexican archives, combined with extensive use of Apache oral tradition, elevate his story of heroism and betrayal head and shoulders above anything else in print. This engrossing book is an instant classic. Show less

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Hell on the Range

A Story of Honor, Conscience, and the American West

by Herman, Daniel Justin

Book - 2010

Herman focuses a scholarly eye on the Pleasant Valley War, a topic that heretofore has been almost the exclusive province of novelists and amateur histori...Show more Herman focuses a scholarly eye on the Pleasant Valley War, a topic that heretofore has been almost the exclusive province of novelists and amateur historians. In his painstaking dissection of the 1880s’ bloodbath that inspired Zane Grey’s To The Last Man and Earle Forrest’s Arizona’s Dark and Bloody Ground, Herman explores alliances and conflicts among Mormons, Hispanics, Native Americans, merchants, cattle companies, ranchers, sheepmen, and cowboys that spawned violence in the wake of economic depression and the competition for open range. The roots of the bloodshed, he argues, are found in competing notions of honor and conscience. While acknowledging that Don Dedera’s A Little War of Our Own (A Southwest Books of the Year pick in 1987) remains the best and most readable narrative of the Pleasant Valley conflict, Herman performs a huge service by casting his loop wide enough to provide a rich interpretive framework for Arizona’s legendary range war and its cousins elsewhere in the West. Show less

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To Hell on A Fast Horse

Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West

by Gardner, Mark Lee

Book - 2010

Gardner catapults into the front rank of western writers with this riveting account of the pursuit and slaying of the Southwest’s most notorious outlaw. D...Show more Gardner catapults into the front rank of western writers with this riveting account of the pursuit and slaying of the Southwest’s most notorious outlaw. Drawing on meticulous research, coupled with a keen eye for character and plot, Gardner constructs a compelling portrait of two men locked in a death struggle that captured the contemporary imagination and reverberates down to the present day. Sallie, the niece of cattle baron John Chisum, put it best when she told the writer Walter Noble Burns (quoted in Gardner’s final paragraph) that “there was good mixed with the bad in Billy the Kid and bad mixed with the good in Pat Garrett . . . . Both were real men. Both were worth knowing.” Gardner shows why that was so, and why it matters. Along the way, he provides one hell of a good read. Show less

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Southwest Books of the Year 2010: Bruce Dinges' Picks

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