The dawn of the twentieth century saw enormous changes throughout the United States, reflecting technological advances, population growth, widespread industrialization, and the establishment of a nati... more

Mountain climbing is a relatively new sport in human history. Until the eighteenth century, mountains were considered inhospitable, even evil. Since then, most of the world’s peaks have been climbed, ... more

Nevada entered the Union in 1864 as the thirty-sixth state, a mere two decades after John Charles Frémont and his party undertook the first Euro-American exploration of the Great Basin. However, the i... more

Popular western writer Zane Grey was a literary celebrity during his lifetime and the center of a huge enterprise based on his writing, which included books, magazine serials, film and stage versions ... more

A Jewish, Latvian-born tailor patented the design for the world-famous Levi’s blue jeans. An industrious Jewish casino pioneer with a dubious past played an important role in the development of Las Ve... more

In the seven stories and novella of Minimal Damage, veterans search for dignity in a civilian life that has no need for men who were soldiers. Finding themselves psychically scarred, in crisis,... more

The memoir of a scientist and the wild silk moths he studies

Biologist Michael Collins has been studying wild silk moths since he was a boy. This family — which includes the largest a... more

Obesity is a major national health problem, and science has been developing a number of ways to address it. The most revolutionary is surgical intervention to alter the gastrointestinal system so that... more

Nineteenth-century California was a society in turmoil, with a rapidly growing population, booming mining camps, insufficient or nonexistent law-enforcement personnel, and a large number of ethnic gro... more

The final volume in the complete history of Nevada and Eastern California railroads

David Myrick's monumental railroad histories have become essential reference works for railroaders,... more

The desolate Mojave Desert in Nevada’s extreme southern tip is one of the least hospitable environments in the United States. However, its rugged mountains concealed rich deposits of gold and silver t... more

Speaking Through the Aspens analyzes the content of thousands of arboglyphs in the mountains of Nevada and California by topic—language, politics, the Basque homeland, the sheepherd’s life, sex... more

These sixteen new essays offer new insights into the practice of teaching about place


The astonishing mobility of modern Americans and the homogenizing tendencies of our economy and s... more

The wagon trail between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles is one of the most important and least-known elements of nineteenth-century Western migration. Known as the Southern Route, it included the weste... more

A finalist for the 2005 Harry Chapin Media Award

“I came to Las Vegas a year ago. . . . I am homeless. I’m fifty-three, an alcoholic, but I have chronic emphysema. I’m having a hard time ... more

War and occupation anywhere test the resilience of local values and institutions and often undermine accepted standards of human conduct. The Basque communities in the Pyrenees of southwestern France ... more

Just who wrangles whom in the West?

In Winthrop, Washington, a small Methow Valley community that has reinvented itself as a western theme town, women who function as trail guides, wr... more