Miners, loggers, railroad men, and others flooded into the American West after the discovery of gold in 1848, and entertainers seeking to fill the demand for distraction from the workers' daily toil soon followed. Actors, actresses and traveling troupes crisscrossed the American frontier, performing in tents, saloons, fancy theaters, and the open air. This exploration of the heyday of popular theater in the Old West chronicles its emergence and growth from 1850 to the early twentieth century. Here is the story of the men and women who provided myriad types of entertainment in the Old West, and brought excitement, laughter and tears to generations of pioneers.
Winner of the Bancroft Prize The world of the California Gold Rush that comes down to us through fiction and film is one of half-truths. In this brilliant work of social history, Susan Lee Johnson enters the well-worked diggings of Gold Rush history and strikes a rich lode. Johnson explores the dynamic social world created by the Gold Rush in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of Stockton, charting the surprising ways in which the conventions of identity—ethnic, national, and sexual—were reshaped. With a keen eye for character and story, she shows us how this peculiar world evolved over time, and how our cultural memory of the Gold Rush took root.
Ex-navy test pilot, Jack Carlton operates his 90-foot charter schooner out of the English harbor, Antigua. With his trusty mate Cobb and beautiful cook Megan, Jack sails the Fandango through squalls and reef-strewn waters to an appointment with fate on remote Aves Island. On a routine dive expedition, an old Spanish document written by a 19th-century monk comes to light and his passengers turn out to be more than just tourists. Long lost treasure spells trouble for Jack and his crew as they find themselves unwillingly embroiled in a plan to salvage the gold. Marooned on the lonely sandspit in the middle of the Caribbean, Jack and Megan survive a hurricane only to face certain death on the waterless Caribbean cay.
The traditional narrative of the American West tells of a frontier settled by pioneers emigrating from the east to the Pacific coast. Yet Spanish conquistadors arrived in Central America 150 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. With them came missionaries who tried to convert the Pueblo and Plains Indians to Christianity by force, a suppression of native religious beliefs that led to cultural clashes and outright war. This is the story--fully documented--of how Spanish explorers, soldiers and men of the church pushed north from Mexico in the 1500s, seeking riches and establishing settlements from Texas to California 250 years before the influx of American settlers in the mid-1800s.
He's got the devil on his tail... and an itchy trigger finger. Cowboy Sol Redding is ready to raise hell when he rides into town after being bushwhacked while driving a herd of Texas longhorns from Amarillo to Sheol Springs. Redding has lost his cattle, his friends, and his fortune -- and he wants swift justice. However, powerful enemies will do whatever it takes to shut him down... or stamp him out. When the sheriff turns up dead, the town needs a scapegoat--and Redding fits the bill. Can he find the real killer before they string him up for a crime he didn’t commit?
Historical insight is the alchemy that transforms the familiar story of the Gold Rush into something sparkling and new. The world of the Gold Rush that comes down to us through fiction and film--of unshaven men named Stumpy and Kentuck raising hell and panning for gold--is one of half-truths. In this brilliant work of social history, Susan Johnson enters the well-worked diggings of Gold Rush history and strikes a rich lode. She finds a dynamic social world in which the conventions of identity--ethnic, national, and sexual--were reshaped in surprising ways. She gives us the all-male households of the diggings, the mines where the men worked, and the fandango houses where they played. With a keen eye for character and story, Johnson restores the particular social world that issued in the Gold Rush myths we still cherish.
Almost a thousand years ago, when most of Europe was just edging out of the Dark Ages, the south of Spain was a brilliant center of world culture, a site of splendor, and a magnet for the talented and ambitious from all around the Mediterranean, the Near East, and beyond. In the days before Isabel and Ferdinand (and the Inquisition), the indigenous culture of Spain was enriched by the artistic, scholarly, technical and commercial contributions of Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Jews and Gypsies. Even under the Catholic Monarchs, these diverse influences continued to add spice to a vibrant society evolving under the generous rays of the sun. Written with verve and personality, this book is based in part on the author's personal research in Spain and France and her interviews with celebrated dancers, musicians and others. Topics include early settlers, the Moors, the grandeur of Al-Andalus, Gypsies, the music and dance of Flamenco and Zambra, the individual provinces of the region, Arabisms in the language today, and, of course, the delicious paella. Sites of historic and cultural interest are identified and described, including the best venues for Flamenco performances, historical monuments from the Alhambra to less famous fortresses, fountains and places of worship, markets and scenic outlooks. The text is illustrated by many photographs and original artwork. * Ana Ruiz has worked as a columnist and freelance writer for several magazines and publications in Canada, United States, and Great Britain. She is the author of several books including The Spirit of Ancient Egypt, Algora Publishing (2001), reprinted as Daily Life in Ancient Egypt by Souvenir Press, London, 2004. Ruiz is also astudent of dance, specializing in Oriental and Flamenco styles. While her roots are Andalusian, Basque, and Castilian, she and her family now reside in Montreal, Canada.
Michel Gobat traces the untold story of the rise and fall of the first U.S. overseas empire to William Walker, a believer in the nation’s manifest destiny to spread its blessings not only westward but abroad as well. In the 1850s Walker and a small group of U.S. expansionists migrated to Nicaragua determined to forge a tropical “empire of liberty.” His quest to free Central American masses from allegedly despotic elites initially enjoyed strong local support from liberal Nicaraguans who hoped U.S.-style democracy and progress would spread across the land. As Walker’s group of “filibusters” proceeded to help Nicaraguans battle the ruling conservatives, their seizure of power electrified the U.S. public and attracted some 12,000 colonists, including moral reformers. But what began with promises of liberation devolved into a reign of terror. After two years, Walker was driven out. Nicaraguans’ initial embrace of Walker complicates assumptions about U.S. imperialism. Empire by Invitation refuses to place Walker among American slaveholders who sought to extend human bondage southward. Instead, Walker and his followers, most of whom were Northerners, must be understood as liberals and democracy promoters. Their ambition was to establish a democratic state by force. Much like their successors in liberal-internationalist and neoconservative foreign policy circles a century later in Washington, D.C., Walker and his fellow imperialists inspired a global anti-U.S. backlash. Fear of a “northern colossus” precipitated a hemispheric alliance against the United States and gave birth to the idea of Latin America.
In the classic tradition of The Big Sky and Carry the Wind, an epic adventure of the rugged West “AS BOLD AND TOWERING AS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS THEMSELVES.”—John Legg, author of the Mountain Country Trilogy FROM THE RED-TINGED SANGRE DE CRISTO MOUNTAINS TO THE SNOWS OF THE GREAT SALT LAKE, THEY TOOK THEIR DREAMS, THEIR SECRETS, AND THEIR COURAGE INTO THE UNFORGIVING LAND. They plunged into a pristine wilderness, pursuing a rich man's vendetta and a missing trove of beaver pelts. Among the high, harsh peaks and embracing valleys they would fight, hunt, and die, pulled into an epic confrontation with the warriors of a murderously mad Indian renegade; an outlaw mountain man, and a traitor within their own ranks. In the tradition of Lonesome Dove, FANDANGO is the gripping, beautiful, and vividly realistic saga of men who gave their blood and tears to a country as wild as their souls. "A SPLENDID, TAUT, TOWERING NOVEL. ZIMMER WRITES WITH GRACE AND POWER. THE STORY RESONATES AND BECKONS TO THE HIGH, LONELY UPLANDS OF THE HEART. ONE OF THE BEST MOUNTAIN MAN STORIES EVER WRITTEN."—Richard S. Wheeler, author of Goldfield "FANDANGO is a magnificent novel of sweeping proportions. Zimmer's characters are superbly drawn, and live way beyond the ordinary imagination. He takes you back in time to an exciting era in U.S. history so vividly that the reader will feel as if he has been over the old trails, trapped the shining streams, and gazed in wonder at the awesome grandeur of the Rocky Mountains. Here is a writer to welcome into the ranks of the very best novelists of today or anytime in the history of literature."—Jory Sherman, author of Grass Kingdom
