The New Encyclopedia of the American West

International Social Science Review, Spring-Summer, 2000 by Vera Laska

Howard R. Lamar, The New Encyclopedia of the American West, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998. xv + 1324 pages, $60.00, illustrated, oversize, hardcover.

The press release of the Yale Book News, an organ of the publisher, quotes from the review of this tome by Stephen F. Ambrose that The New Encyclopedia of the American West is "a monumental achievement in the historiography of the American West.... magisterial and an indispensable reference volume. Contrary to frequent overblown superlatives in publishers' press releases, this is a fair judgment. Yale University Press did itself proud by producing this superb volume, and considering its contents and physical qualities, it is surprising that the price is only $60, worth every penny for its seven pounds of weight.

It is a revised and expanded version of the same editor's 1977 edition then entitled Readers Encyclopedia of the American West that took a dozen years to see the light of publication. This opus is the result of cooperation by over 300 contributors, who came up with over 2,400 entries and 600 illustrations and maps. Chronologically, it covers the various Wests in all 50 states, yes, including Hawaii and Alaska, from prehistory to the present. Symbolic of the changed concept of the West is the fact that the front endpapers depict the 20th century Denver skyline of skyscrapers; the back endpaper is more true to the classical image of the frontier and the old West, showing a herd of buffaloes in Texas. A five page "Timeline of the American West" precedes the alphabetical listing from "A and M Colleges" to "Zuni Indians."

The scope of the encyclopedia is far and wide, encompassing the geography, history, natural history, arts and crafts, music and literature of the West. It includes the westward movements of various groups and the wars that touched the West and offers a picture of the West from explorations to the present. Folklore and fiction about the West are also included. Suggestions for more detailed readings for the individual entries are appended to them. Some entries are overview essays, others thematic and specific articles; many are biographies of the movers and shakers of the developing West, also including historians of the West like Frederick Jackson Turner and Walter Prescott Webb, not omitting Howard R. Lamar, a lifetime scholar and teacher of the subject.

The book reflects the recent emphasis on historical studies of minorities, and considerable space is devoted to Indians, their languages and cultures, and to African Americans who played a significant role in the settling of the West. The entry on music in the West is especially interesting, On the other hand, the one on the women is relatively skimpy, although there are separate entries on women of such variable shades as Cattle Kate (Ella Watson, 18627-1888), madam and cattle rustler and Willa Cather (1873-1947) the author, or Lola Montez (1818-1861) the dancer and Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973) the pacifist congresswoman from Montana.

The book is full of temptations, wherever you open it. I like the general concept of extending the time limit of the frontier beyond the census bureau's "pronunciamento" that it closed in 1890. I learned a lot from the information on Indian languages: there were about 2,000 of them in the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus, and about 300 north of Mexico, of which 200 are still in use in the United States and Canada. They are enjoying growing attention by scholars. Some are spoken just by a handful of people, others by 80,000, in case of the Navajo of the Southwest; even the famous Navajo Code Talkers of World War II in the Pacific are mentioned; the Japanese never cracked their code.

Considering the general thoroughness of this encyclopedia, I missed entries on the Passamaquodies of Maine or the Wampanoags of Massachusetts; there is no entry on them, perhaps because they were not considered as being on the frontier - which is debatable. They do appear on the map of Indians of the United States (p. 531).

The editor of this grandum opus is originally from Tuskegee, Alabama, but is a true Yaleman, a product of Yale's graduate school and a member of its faculty since 1949. Among others, he taught the course lovingly nicknamed "Cowboys and Indians;" he was dean of the college and president of Yale University. He is considered the intellectual father of the new western history. He is now Sterling Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University, and also a past president of the Western Historical Association. On top of his other writings, he produced as a crowning glory a masterpiece in The New Encyclopedia of the American West.

It is a sine qua non for every public library and for every high school and university library.

Dr. Vera Laska Department of History Regis College Weston, Massachusetts 02493