The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West

In The Legacy of Conquest, Patricia Nelson Limerick accomplishes three feats not usually accomplished by historians. With some trepidation and the risk of offending others in the field, she writes a readable and entertaining narrative. This is however, not a prerequisite of good academic history, so possibly her second accomplishment is more worthy, that with her thesis she debunks a cornerstone in American history which is as over-mentioned as Tocqueville, she lays Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis to waste. To this, legions of young upstarts have no doubt said "thank you." While this daring move may be enough to celebrate on its own, it is her third feat that is most worthy. Limerick views western history with continuity--as an ongoing process, unfettered by Turner's geographic and periodized borders, and demonstrates the usefulness of looking at the West for what it has always been, a historical pallet.My use of the word pallet may be a bit clumsy, but with deference to Richard White, I am trying to avoid using his term "Middle Ground," which in itself is overused--pallet may be more apt in the case of Legacy. The reason for this is that Limerick correctly describes the West as a great mixing ground of cultures, motives, and nature that has continually been redefined. No "closed" sign hung on the West side of the Mississippi after Turner wrote in 1893, quite the contrary. As long as there is profit in "them thar hills," the West lived, and lives on--this statement in itself may be a sufficient quick summary of Limerick's work.Starting her work dispelling the myth of Westerners as innocent victims, the real story of the West cannot be neatly divided into good guys and bad guys. In Legacy we learn of a mixed-gendered West with complicated dynamics between Native Americans, Mexicans, missionaries, and the discontented. All in some way are seeking their own interests, whether it is to live peacefully, save souls, or extract fortunes--Limerick teaches us that there is no one size fits all narrative to the West.The most powerful theme, underlying all else however, is private property. Limerick goes far in describing the basis for "the emotional center of Western history" as the establishment of private property. It was then and remains today that the "dominance of the profit motive" that was the driver of westward manifest destiny--this point in itself dispels Turner's thesis, if the frontier closed, then why did profit seekers continue heading west?Linking profit to myth, Limerick dashes the myth of the self-employed adventurer making it on his or her own past the prairie. While we learn that there was work done by individuals "laboring on their own," it was big capital, especially in mining that defines rapid westward expansion. One could go farther to equate western expansion as technological expansion, for as transportation, extraction, and communications advanced, so did the drive west. Despite the specifics, Legacy forever links capital to Western History, and the "rape of the land" to capital, here it was more the drive for profits and wages that defines the American character than Turner's independent adventurer.No story of the West can be told without the discussion of the Native American, and it is here that we most realize that Limerick's book is not a book of history; it is a debunker of history. Possibly no truer statement has ever been made than "The historiographic past has not, after all, provided the firmest ground for launching a defense of professional history." The history of the western United States cannot be defined by the old consensus ethnographic notion of savages versus civilized, yet it cannot be defined by history written by Indians either. The West is and was "a complex cultural world" and in Legacy, it is presented in all of its complexities. Limerick concludes that the interrelationship between the Europeans and the Indians by its very nature is unsettled. She is clear that there can only be versions of the Western past, not an objective account.Ethnicity as a part of Western development is not limited to Native Americans, certainly Mexico plays a role in the development of the American West. Framing the Western legacy of borderlands as a continuation of the British/Spanish imperial struggle, Limerick also brings the Puritan belief that the "papists to the south" were problematic into the fold. Here Legacy speaks as much about today as it does in the past, that even though the mestizos have played a major role in the history of North America, they were and are still viewed as alien by Americans.Whether it was Indians, Mexicans, Chinese, or Mormons, culturally constructed divisions of race and religion were key factors in dividing the West and play a vital part in the complex and misunderstood history of the West. As one reads farther into Legacy, the one-history-fits-all approach of the Turnerian thesis as an accepted part of the scholarship of the past seems more like an embarrassment in the annals of the academy.The story of the West is not just a story of people, it is also a story of nature. The frontier as a measurement was defined by population--trees, water rights and environmental exploitation never played into the picture. Gifford Pinchot and John Muir should play prominently in any history of the West, their work went far preserve some of the most beautiful lands on the planet. Those are just the well known spots however. Legacy correctly identifies the past crimes of buffalo and bear slaughter as well as the ongoing destruction wrought by the extractive industries. Long after Limerick's writing the boom and bust of the West is continually defined by technological advances in extraction, from horizontal boring to fracking.For Limerick, the difficulty in writing objective Western history has been the inevitability of "friction with popular beliefs," and while we know that is true with all history, Legacy convinces us it is perhaps most difficult with Western history. As Americans, the myths are deeply engrained within us. This is what made Limerick's work important, Legacy defined the so-called New Western History, finally putting Turner's legacy to rest. Western history cannot be defined by the myths of good versus bad or savage versus civilized, it is a complicated story intertwining capitalism, nature, and the notion of the other, which continues into the present.

Prof. Limerick's _Legacy of Conquest_ is a classic in the field of the history of the American West. While it is certainly not a flattering history (the mythological west is directly addressed here), Limerick's analysis and evaluation of history of the region on its own, and as part of wider US history has been influential since its first publication in 1986.Limerick makes several bold - and for the time - revolutionary critiques of the west: the notion of Americans (and especially westerners) as "rugged individualists" who have made their way in the world by their own merits, hard work and pluck - without any assistance from the government, who is held in contempt - is destroyed by the abundance of evidence she provides, but is also interpreted as part of a larger theme in America as a whole. The perception by westerners as "injured parties" whenever there is any perceived (or real) limits on settlement or the exploitation of natural resources or regulation by the government is similarly called into question. What is most important, however, is Limerick's astute recognition that the west has always been a diverse place (from the earliest settlement of First Peoples through Spanish conquest and into the settlement by Chinese, Japanese, Pacific Islanders and white Americans from the eastern parts of the continent) - and that this has resulted in not only the development of a unique culture, but also of tension and conflict, which remains very much a part of the west to this day.In fact, it is the connections between the settlement and "opening" of the west in the 19th century to the attitudes and perspectives of westerners today that makes this such a classic in the field: a "sagebrush rebellion" remains, the sense that westerners deserve and ought not to share the natural resources of the region (from timber and minerals, to water - a particularly valuable commodity given the agricultural demands of the region), and the strong competing interests between business and ecology. For anyone interested in American history, this should be on your reading list, and is a "must read" for those interested in western history in general.

For a variety of reasons, not including the book itself, it has taken me quite a while to finish this book. When I recently continued reading, beginning at Part Two, I was struck by the themes here of “conquerors” which are paralleled in the recent book “Caste.” Ms. Limerick’s examples of White prejudice toward Native people, Hispanics, Asians and other groups fit that which has been described in the newer publication.The author’s description of women’s place in the country’s westward expansion, in Part One, is worth a read by itself.Although originally published in 1987, this book is pertinent to understanding today’s social issues in their historical context.

to depressing a view of the world .

Still a classic despite being 30 + years since publication. Not many books on history achieve this.The negative reviews can be summarized, as Limererick foresaw them all, on page 221. She realized weak individuals look to history as a toddler reaches for their favorite blanket. If Turner and his ‘son’Billington are still your pacifier, this book will be unsettling.However, if you want to look at things with a fine tuned critical thinking skill set and abandoned simplistic answers for complex issues, this is an excellent overview to start with.Four stars are no fault of the author, but simply there has been many things published on topics covered. Another testament to the ground breaking nature and influence of the work, as she stimulated much of it.

It was an intriguing book for an historiography class. I enjoyed the way Limerick weaved in stories throughout the narrative.

Limerick uses both the 19th century and occasional anecdotes from the 20th Century/Reagan Era to back up a convincing thesis about the West: namely, that it has always been marked by internal contradictions. The industriousness, self-reliance, and anti-DC views of its inhabitants was balanced by the federal government's frequent support to the region in financial aid, settlement laws, and wars against Indian tribes. The boom-and-bust cycle of Western industries (which continues to this day in areas reliant on timber, oil, etc) meant that success for pioneers was often a matter of luck. Bad harvests, emptied gold mines, and arid land often left migrants disappointed. But the mythology of the West has never died.Limerick also shines a light on the more unsavory parts of the historic West (defined in the book as the West Coast to Texas/Upper Midwest). Displacement of Indians was a constant feature, with both sides often engaging in bloody raids. Many Indian tribes only survived by working with the new white settlers. The Hispanics of the Southwest and California took a similar route. Submerged by whites from America and beyond, they quickly made peace with a form of second-tier citizenship. Perhaps the most under-covered part of Western mythology was the vicious treatment meted out to Asian immigrants. As Limerick points out, assimilation was not a protector. While the Chinese were stereotyped as barbarians, the Japanese were portrayed as devious spies precisely due to their economic success! Limerick paints a clear line between the Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese Internment 60 years later, with both actions receiving nearly unanimous support across white society.All in all, this is a very comprehensive book that tries to analyse as much of the West's characteristics as possible: its environment, political culture, Indian conflicts, and racial conflicts. Some of these will appeal more than others, depending on the reader.

Interesting book

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