Before the West Was West - by Amy T Hamilton & Tom J Hillard (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Before the West Was West examines the extent to which scholars have engaged in-depth with pre-1800 "western" texts and asks what we mean by "western" American literature in the first place and when that designation originated.

Calling into question the implicit temporal boundaries of the "American West" in literature, a literature often viewed as having commenced only at the beginning of the 1800s, Before the West Was West explores the concrete, meaningful connections between different texts as well as the development of national ideologies and mythologies. Examining pre-nineteenth-century writings that do not fit conceptions of the Wild West or of cowboys, cattle ranching, and the Pony Express, these thirteen essays demonstrate that no single, unified idea or geography defines the American West.

Contributors investigate texts ranging from the Norse Vinland Sagas and Mary Rowlandson's famous captivity narrative to early Spanish and French exploration narratives, an eighteenth-century English novel, and a play by Aphra Behn. Through its examination of the disparate and multifaceted body of literature that arises from a broad array of cultural backgrounds and influences, Before the West Was West apprehends the literary West in temporal as well as spatial and cultural terms and poses new questions about "westernness" and its literary representation.

Review Quotes

"Before the West Was West marks a productive step back to the future."--Keri Holt, Western Historical Quarterly

"By asking early Americanists to understand that they can also be westernists, and by asking westernists to understand their work as early, Hamilton and Hillard compel scholars in both fields to continue testing the intersections and assumptions of their disciplines."--Edward Watts, Early American Literature

"The insights into the 'when' of the American West offered by this book are both timely and essential to our further understanding of how cultures developed in the contact zones of the northern parts of the western hemisphere."--Nicolas S. Witschi, coeditor of Dirty Words in Deadwood: Literature and the Postwestern-- (3/3/2014 12:00:00 AM)

About the Author

Amy T. Hamilton is an associate professor of English at Northern Michigan University.

Tom J. Hillard is an associate professor of English at Boise State University.

Michael P. Branch is professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno, and the editor of Reading the Roots: American Nature Writing Before Walden.