DISCUSSION TOPIC: THE WEST

PART A: THE HISTORY

1.  Read through the text that accompanies the post 1868 episodes of the eight-part PBS documentary series The West.  Links to each episode summary are listed below.  Then click through the several episode sub-sections in the right-hand margin.

• Episode 5:

• Episode 6:

• Episode 7:

• Episode 8:

2.  View the images and captains that accompany each episode.

• Episode 5 Images:

• Episode 6 Images:

• Episode 7 Images:

• Episode 8 Images:

PART B: THE HISTORIANS

Read about how interpretations of the meaning of the West and of Western history have changed in recent decades.

• Walter Nugent, "Western History, New and Not So New," OAH Magazine of History, 9 (Fall 1994).

• Susan Armitage, "Women and the New Western History," OAH Magazine of History, 9 (Fall 1994).

• Larry McMurtry, "How the West Was Won or Lost," New Republic (October 22, 1990).

• If you have time, read the 1893 article by Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History."  Perhaps the most influential article ever written by an American historian, it helped to crystallize the popular mythic interpretation of the meaning of the west.