The Ne Country A Social History of the American Frontier 1776-1890 [Paperback]

From borax mule trains to the canoe stop that was Chicago in the 1830s, this book vividly recreated the tale of the westward movement of pioneers into the heartland of North America. With nearly a century separating historian Richard Bartlett from the end of the movement, Bartlett's broad perspective stresses the continuity and inevitability of this greatest element of America's Golden Age. The book focuses on the settlement of the country, the racial and ethnic composition of the people, agriculture, transportation, developments of the land, the growth of towns and cities, and the nature of frontier society as it brilliantly brings to life the frontier experience as lived by millions of Americans. Bartlett concludes that the pioneer's freedom from restrictions in a new country resulted in the unprecedented burst of energy that settled America in some 114 years.

A vivid and detailed account of life in the westward sweep between 1776 and 1890. --The Los Angeles Times

With the book's sophisticated concepts of organization and approach, its rewarding details, and its vivid and imaginative writing, it supersedes other social histories of the frontier. --The Journal of Southern History

This is clearly a labor of love by the author, and the respect and admiration he has for his subject is infectious in creating for the reader a small part of the thrill felt by the actual pioneer in going West. --The Journal of American History

Bartlett has an excellent eye and pen for the rich human diversity that made up the westward movement....His book charts the story in a way which recapture the thrill without exaggeration or sentimentality. It combines scholarship with imagination, the prose of the West with its poetry. --TheEconomist