02626cam a2200349 i 4500 615166967 TxAuBib 20230306120000.0 220322s2023||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2022013275 9781496233585 HRD 39.95 1496233581 HRD 39.95 (OCoLC)1301903434 TxAuBib rda West, Elliott, 1945- Continental reckoning [BOOK] : the American West in the age of expansion / Elliott West. American West in the age of expansion. Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2023] xxxiii, 628 pages, 14 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references (pages 521-595) and index. In Continental Reckoning renowned historian Elliott West presents a sweeping narrative of the American West and its vital role in the transformation of the nation. In the 1840s, by which time the United States had expanded to the Pacific, what would become the West was home to numerous vibrant Native cultures and vague claims by other nations. Thirty years later it was organized into states and territories and bound into the nation and world by an infrastructure of rails, telegraph wires, and roads and by a racial and ethnic order, with its Indigenous peoples largely dispossessed and confined to reservations. Unprecedented exploration uncovered the West’s extraordinary resources, beginning with the discovery of gold in California within days of the United States acquiring the territory following the Mexican-American War. As those resources were developed, often by the most modern methods and through modern corporate enterprise, half of the contiguous United States was physically transformed. Continental Reckoning guides the reader through the rippling, multiplying changes wrought in the western half of the country, arguing that these changes should be given equal billing with the Civil War in this crucial transition of national life. Provided by publisher. 20230306. Land use West (U.S.) History. West (U.S) History 1860-1890. West (U.S) History 1858-1860. West (U.S) Economic conditions 19th century. West (U.S) Environmental conditions History. United States Territorial expansion.