The Mythic West in Twentieth-Century America by Robert G. Athearn (review)

170 Western American Literature numerous credits in both media, has created a remarkably attractive and informative collection of color photographs and an informed text that makes a definitive statement on the life of today’scowboys across the American West. Nelson, the wife of a cowboy, has one other book to her credit, The Last Campfire (Texas A&M University Press, 1984) and will likely produce more work on the subject because she has both the perception and the contacts to continue her work as a cowhand and a writer/photographer. Voices and Visions is organized in chapters dealing with various facets of cowboy life. The first addresses the romance of range life; the second deals with the heritage of the West. One of the most revealing is the third, “The Cowboy,” subtitled “How They Look to the World and How They Look at It.” Here Nelson points out that the cowboy’s “outfit,” his appearance, is an integral part of his image and that he sees the world at large with his own particular kind of existence as a referent. The fourth chapter, on the work the men do, helps define the folk group by making it clear that the cowboy is what he is because of the work he does. Chapter Five deals with the folk artists who make the gear these men and women use in the work, and the utilitarian nature of the objects. A particu­ larly perceptive and timely pair of chapters comments on women who work alongside or lead in the work, and on the future cowboys and cowgirls, young­ sters who have set out to follow the life of a cowboy. The volume smacks of authenticity because of the numerous statements from the cowboys young and old, and even contains some cowboy poetry. From the Introduction by novelist and western life authority Elmer Kelton to the last photograph of the text, the life that many fear—or want—dead is revealed in all its vibrancy and color. There have been earlier attempts to depict the life of the cowboy in various periods of his existence, but Nelson’s is authoritative and certainly the best visual work on the subject to date. LAWRENCE CLAYTON Hardin-Simmons University The Mythic West in Twentieth-Century America. By Robert G. Athearn. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986. 319 pages, $25.00.) In his chapter “The Fictional West,” Robert G. Athearn comments that “anyone who grazes through novels like these” will perceive certain recur­ ring themes. The same metaphor applies to readers of The Mythic West in Twentieth-Century America. Plenty to chew on bursts through its sod. Athearn, a noted historian and author from the University of Colorado, died just before completing this book. A former student—another noted his­ torian and author—added one more chapter and a foreword, then readied the manuscript for publication. The result is the fruition of a contemplative life­ time, the capstone to a career. Reviews 171 It breathes fresh air, though, not a library’s dust. Beginning with an episode from Athearn’s own boyhood on his grandfather’s Montana ranch, The Mythic West crops its way through the real West in an effort to explain how the twentieth century has adapted the clichés of frontier experience. Juxtaposing the idealism of expansion and progress with the realities of resources and politics, the author exposes the ironies inherent in our notions of the West. At the same time, he explains our need for those notions and shows how the Edenic dream sustains us. Ranging from that ranch in Mon­ tana to the boomtowns of Colorado and from Owen Wister’sworld to Ronald Reagan’s, he examines just why the nation has remained captivated by the West’s individualism turned archetype. Since this is a book that cultivates familiar territory, it unearths little new scholarly ground. Athearn often relies on secondary sources—liberally quot­ ing John Milton, for example, when discussing fictional patterns, and citing Bernard De Voto in almost every chapter. But the fields into which he leads the general reader—or anyone who wants to gather a vast acreage of knowl­ edge—yield the harvest of a lifetime. An overview, The Mythic...