Let the Cowboy Ride: Cattle Ranching in the American West (Creating the North American Landscape) - Hardcover

"This is an important book, a contribution both to scholarship and to urgent public debate. Few of its readers will find their view of the American West unchanged, and those few will probably be of Starrs's party already." -- Hugh Brogan, Times Literary Supplement

The dime novel and dude ranch, the barbecue and rodeo, the suburban ranch house and the urban cowboy -- all are a direct legacy of nineteenth-century cowboy life that still enlivens American popular culture. Yet at the same time, reports of environmental destruction or economic inefficiency have motivated calls for restricted livestock grazing on public lands or even for an end to ranching altogether. In Let the Cowboy Ride, Starrs offers a detailed and comprehensive look at one of America's most enduring institutions. Richly illustrated with more than 130 photographs and maps, the book combines the authentic detail of an insider's view (Starrs spent six years working cattle on the high desert Great Basin range) with a scholar's keen eye for objective analysis.