Nonfiction About the West

Nothing Like it in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 by Stephen Ambrose (385 Amb)
From the politicians who realized the importance of this railroad, to the investors who financed the project, to the engineers and surveyors who designed the path and the immigrants and laborers who laid the track, this is a story of tenacity, bravery and perseverance.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose (978 Amb)
Filled with adventure, politics, suspense and history, this is the definitive tale of the Lewis and Clark expedition, a trip that opened the settlement of the American West.

The Old Iron Road: An Epic of Rails, Roads, and the Urge to Go West by David Howard Bain (385 Bain)
The past called to Bain through his grandmother, born in a covered wagon somewhere in Kansas in 1889. He took his family on a summer-long exploration of the West, tracing portions of emigrant routes between the Missouri River and the Golden Gate – parts of the Oregon, California, Mormon Pioneer, and Overland Trails; the Pony Express; and the railroad. It was a trip, he told his children, about the journey and not the destination.

The Age of Gold : the California Gold Rush and the New American Dream by H.W. Brands (979.4 Brand)
Pulitzer Prize winner Brands tells the story of the California Gold Rush of 1848 and the men and women who went west to change their lives and ended up changing the world.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown (970.5 BROWN)
Traditional texts glory in our nation's western expansion, the great conquest of the virgin frontier. But how did the original Americans – the Dakota, Nez Perce, Ute, Ponca, Cheyenne, Navaho, Apache, and others – feel about the coming of the white man, the expropriation of their land, the destruction of their way of life? What really happened to Geronimo, Chief Joseph, Cochise, Red Cloud, Little Wolf and Sitting Bull as their people were killed or driven onto reservations during decades of broken promises, oppression and war?

Jefferson's Great Gamble: The Remarkable Story of Jefferson, Napoleon, and the Men Behind the Louisiana Purchase by Charles Cerami (973.44 Cerami)
Cerami illuminates the largest recorded real estate deal in history, when the U.S. doubled its size on one April day in 1803. He focuses on the nine principal American and French players in the 30 months of negotiations leading to the sale.

The Story of the West by Robert M. Utley (978 Utl)
This beautifully illustrated book tells the tales of the west from the Mammoth Hunters of prehistory to the technophiles of present day Silicon Valley.

What They Didn't Teach You About the Wild West by Mike Wright (978 Wri)
Wright shares stories and little known facts about the Old West in this easy and fun to read collection.