Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier

When this book's first edition appeared in 1949 it was warmly received as an outstanding explication of western history using as its organizing principle Frederick Jackson Turner's "Frontier Thesis." Since that time it has gone through six editions, the last two with Martin Ridge as a co-author, an especially important development since Ray Allen Billington died in 1981. I first encountered "Westward Expansion" as an undergraduate in the mid 1970s--by then the book was in its fourth edition--and recognized it as a comprehensive overview of the subject. It is still a massively significant book, mostly because of its detailed sweep of the history of the westward movement that it relates. It begins with an explanation of the "Frontier Thesis" first crafted by Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893, with its emphasis on American exceptionalism and subjugation of the North American continent. Reflective of an earlier perspective on the history of the West, the first editions of "Westward Expansion" viewed the movement of Euro-Americans westward as a positive development. This perspective is still present in the 6th edition, but there is much more questioning of the conquest of place and peoples, exploitation without concern, environmental wastefulness, political corruption, Euro-American misbehavior, and other inefficiencies. This edition concentrates on the trans-Mississippi West, rather than earlier periods in American history. It also treats the West as more a place than a process, something Billington routinely did. This is probably the result of the powerful influence of the "new western history" in the last quarter century and the work of Martin Ridge in revising Billington's work. I recommend this edition of "Westward Expansion" as a detailed exploration of its subject. It is not perfect, but it is highly useful and remains an important reference work on my bookshelf.