Continental Reckoning

The American West in the Age of Expansion

By: Elliott West

Narrated by: Christopher Grove

Finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in History

In Continental Reckoning renowned historian Elliott West presents a sweeping narrative of the American West and its vital role in the transformation of the nation. In the 1840s, by which time the United States had expanded to the Pacific, what would become the West was home to numerous vibrant Native cultures and vague claims by other nations. Thirty years later it was organized into states and territories and bound into the nation and world by an infrastructure of rails, telegraph wires, and roads and by a racial and ethnic order, with its Indigenous peoples largely dispossessed and confined to reservations.

Unprecedented exploration uncovered the West's extraordinary resources, beginning with the discovery of gold in California within days of the United States acquiring the territory following the Mexican-American War. As those resources were developed, often by the most modern methods and through modern corporate enterprise, half of the contiguous United States was physically transformed. Continental Reckoning guides the listener through the rippling, multiplying changes wrought in the western half of the country, arguing that these changes should be given equal billing with the Civil War in this crucial transition of national life.

©2023 The Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska (P)2024 Tantor

Fresh take on the history of the West

I’ve always wanted to learn more about the frenetic years prior to the Civil War and the incessant push westward. Our generation grew up watching western movies and we knew that something was amiss with the story of the native people. This book provides an unbiased account of the native tribes along with Mexicans and Californios who lived at that time. It’s also enlightening as to the influx of foreign immigrants and the different status that they held in the society of the day.

One big guilt trip

It’s a good book, if you’re into that sort of thing. Covers different aspects of mid-1800s westward expansion America from a 2020s perspective. Not a narrative history but hops around every few paragraphs.

Great detail

Very detailed book just long. Reads more like a text books through various times than a cohesive story. Overall really good for those interested in how the western US came into being.

Deeply researched

Well written accurate history of European western expansion of The United States, the assumed superiority of the Europeans. subjugation of freed slaves, and near extermination of indigenous Peoples who lived on the land for thousands of years. As a descendant of Mayflower settlers and Northeastern Woodland native people, I live the unreconciled conflict that informs 21st Century culture and politics.

A beast of a book

Is the most thorough discussion of the American west you’ll ever find. I highly recommend.