Hunting the American West: The Pursuit of Big Game for Life, Profit, and Sport, 1800-1900

by Richard C. Rattenbury

Hunting the American West is a thoroughly illustrated, narrative history of big-game hunting in the nineteenth-century American West. The engaging narrative draws extensively on the writings of original participants and observers of the subject and — along with an abundance of pictorial material — affords unusual insight into the diverse methods and motives for hunting big game in the Old West. No other work on the subject conveys the feeling and character of the hunt in its various eras and styles, or its profound consequences, as convincingly.

This book covers the principal big-game species; subsistence, commerce, and sport hunting; the variety of methods used over time and among different peoples in the harvest; the evolving weaponry involved; the artistic expression engendered by the western chase; and the rise of the hunter-conservation movement, which led to the founding of the Boone and Crockett Club.

While it presumes solid scholarship, Hunting the American West is intended for a broad popular audience, including those interested in hunting, western history, firearms, sporting art, and conservation.

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