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The Cowboy Way: An Exploration of History And Culture |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Idaho History > Item 199
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The Cowboy Way: An Exploration of History And Culture
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by Paul Howard Carlson
Sales Rank: 817103
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List Price: $18.95
$14.78
At Amazon
on 9-16-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 236 pages
Published by: Texas Tech University PressEdition: 1st Edition May 30, 2006
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0896725839
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0896725836
Book Dimensions:
8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
Weighs: 10.4 ounces
Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Cowboy Way: An Exploration of History and Culture (Hardcover)
The term "cowboy way" has an infectious effect on those who love cowboys and everything about them. If this is truly the case, then Paul H. Carlson is infected. He is deathly ill from "cowboy fever." His book The Cowboy Way: An Exploration of History and Culture is loaded with sixteen essays all dealing with cowboy culture. Each is well written and thoroughly researched. Paul H. Carlson is a professor of history at Texas Tech University. He has written a number of articles and several books that deal with Western American culture. Two of his books are Empire Builder in the Texas Panhandle: William Henry Bush and The Plains Indians. Since Carlson is the editor and also a contributor to The Cowboy Way, there are many other authors to make mention of. Lawrence Clayton is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Hardin-Simmons University. He has written several books, including Historic Ranches of Texas and Watkins Reynolds Matthews: Biography of a Texas Rancher. J'Nell L. Pate is a professor of history at Tarrant County College and has written many articles and four books dealing with western history, including the award-winning Livestock Legacy: The Fort Worth Stockyards, 1887-1987. Other authors that contributed include graduate students, a freelance writer, an archivist, a reference librarian, a book review editor for the Permian Historical Annual, a French teacher, and the Executive Vice President of San Antonio College, Robert E. Zeigler. (pp. 217-219) In his preface, Carlson begins by saying, "Although there is no dominant thesis, there are many themes." (p. ix) Carlson is correct in saying there are many themes throughout the book. Each essay deals with a specific aspect of cowboys and their way of life. I must disagree with his denying the existence of an overall thesis. From what I could garner from the book as a whole, it is an effort to help the public get the truth about cowboys. I might suggest that the thesis is cowboys are an important part of America's past, but much myth has been made out of them. The book is not intended to destroy that myth but to educate us about it. There is still much about the cowboys that the public does not know. One of the essays, "Today's Cowboy: Coping with a Myth" written by Lawrence Clayton, expounds on this point. There are some out there who want to destroy the cowboy myth entirely. Clayton refers to them as "demythologizers." They "describe the cowboy as only a hired hand working for low wages . . . He was just a laborer who happened to ride a horse to do his work." (pp. 201-202) Clayton goes on to describe what efforts the demythologizers are making. He concludes by saying that with all those efforts they are not making much headway. He says that the truth about cowboys has no effect on the public. People love the cowboy and enjoy the "aura of romance that elevates him to a pure-hatred knight-errant." (p. 205) Carlson's essay, "Myth and the Modern Cowboy," expounds more on the same point. The truth and the myth both exist. It is our choice to accept or not accept both. Many of the topics or themes covered in the book help to reinforce the thesis. Each is designed to educate and not to destroy the myth. They include the origins of the word "cowboy"; discussions on vaqueros, African American cowboys, and American Indian cowboys; cowboy labor strikes; clothing cowboys wore; cowboy relationships with sheepherders and Europeans; cowboy humor; the origins of the rodeo; and western movies. Each essay is well researched and documented. Their sources include interviews, newspapers, journal articles, photographs, surveys, movies, the Sears and Roebuck Catalog, and books written by other historians. Each essay is easy to read and very informative. One essay that I really enjoyed was "Black Cowboy: Daniel Webster `80 John' Wallace" written by Douglas Hales. Hales gives a brief history of Daniel Webster Wallace who was born a slave and died a rich cattleman. At a young age, just after emancipation, Wallace started work on a ranch as a "hoss stink" caring for the ranch's horses. He soon moved up the scale to become one of very few african-American trail bosses in the late 1800s. Through hard work and a little help from friends, he was able to buy some land and cattle to start his own ranch. Good management skills and a little luck made him one of the wealthiest ranchers in all of Texas. This story is important because many don't know that there were African American cowboys and that they became important to western history. Throughout the book there are photographs depicting cowboys at work and rest. They are used to depict the subject of the particular essay and some are just for show. One essay uses the photographs as a reference to help the reader better "see" the author's argument. Susan Karina Dickey went through 254 photographs to write her essay, "Work Clothes of American Cowboys: The Pictorial Record." The Cowboy Way is written very well. Credits go to Carlson for his editing to produce a magnificent work on cowboy culture. The index and "A Cowboy Bibliography," done by Freedonia Paschall (which could be considered as essay seventeen), make the book complete and very useful. The bibliography includes the best and most accredited primary and secondary sources available today. Anyone wanting to research cowboys should consult Paschall's bibliography first. It's hard to find anything wrong with the book. If I were to do anything to change it, I would change the order of some of the essays so that the book flowed better. A couple seemed out of place and became difficult to read because they didn't seem to fit. Other than that, the book is very well done. It has brought better understanding to myself and I know that it will infect many others.
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