Nonfiction About the West

Nothing Like it in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869   by Stephen Ambrose
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
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 Haward 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
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.

Jefferson's Great Gamble: The Remarkable Story of Jefferson, Napoleon and the Men Behind the Louisiana Purchase by Charles 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.

Son of the Morning Star by Evan S. Connell
Connell's book is one of the most well regarded and readable treatments of the story of General George Armstrong Custer and the massacre of the Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 26, 1876.

The Story of the West by Robert M. Utley
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
Wright shares stories and little-known facts about the Old West in this easy and fun-to-read collection.