Cowboy Culture, A Saga of Five Centuries ~ Dary

Description

From the Civil War and Western research/reference library of Jerry Crandall

Cowboy Culture, A Saga of Five Centuries 

by David Dary

Condition; good, some shelf wear on dust jacket over hard cover

Knopf, 1981

For the first time, this five-century experience is considered as a whole as the author shows how the foundations of our own ranching society were set down on the vast Mexican holdings of the 1500s and 1600s, how the American cowboy of chuck-wagon and bunkhouse was descended from the Spanish and Indian cowherder working on horseback with a lasso to rope his quarry, a broadbrimmed hat to keep off the sun, and leather chaparejos to protect his legs.

Here they all are: the millionaire ranchers with their powerful cattlemen’s associations, hard-fought range wars and exclusive clubs with foreign chefs, as well as the eager young cowpunchers, eating dust behind the herd, sleeping a blanket of stars. And here is the new wave of settlers, arriving by the thousands, who by fencing the land changed the shape of the cowboy culture and the lives of it people – cattle baron and lowly cowhand alike – forever.