Description

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"True West disentangles reality from centuries of myth and mystique."

--HAMPTON SIDES, New York Times bestselling author of Blood and Thunder

From the Northern Rockies to the Southwest deserts, Betsy Gaines Quammen explores how myths shape our identities, heighten polarizations, and fracture our shared understanding of the world around us. As she investigates the origins and effects of myths of the American West, Gaines Quammen travels through small towns and big cities, engaging people and building relationships at every stop.

Misperceptions about land, politics, liberty, and self-determination threaten the well-being of people and communities across the country, and Gaines Quammen interrogates it all as she seeks to reconcile the anger and misunderstandings that continue to be fueled by the West's enduring myths and complex history. Whether sitting down with a local resident seeking to protect his rural Utah town from Antifa or talking with grassroots organizers working across ideological divides, Gaines Quammen brings to life connections and contradictions that shape our politics and our lives far beyond the West.

About the Author

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Betsy Gaines Quammen is a historian and writer who examines the intersections of extremism, public lands, wildlife, and western communities. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Daily News, and the History News Network. She received a PhD in history from Montana State University and an MS in environmental studies from University of Montana. Betsy is the author of American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God, and Public Lands in the West and lives in Bozeman, Montana, with her husband, writer David Quammen.