Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion

Elliott West has constructed a serviceable and often enticing examination of the ways in which the US government and white Americans who ran it “reckoned” its expansion in the mid-nineteenth century. In three parts across twenty-three chapters, he lays out some familiar stories of the West. In many instances, some of these “persistent impressions” are turned on their heads in helpful ways that introduce readers to the stories and region in a new light (374–80). That this book is penned by a master of the written word is a great advantage. Not only does West synthesize a wealth of material from which to draw his narrative, but as is typical with most of his writing, Continental Reckoning is equal parts accessible, clever, entertaining, and informative.Continental Reckoning explores the foreign and domestic policies of the United States, science and engineering, the extractive nature of living in the vast spaces across the West, and attitudes toward concepts of citizenship and relations within the region's diverse population. The main title, Continental Reckoning, is an appropriate choice, encompassing both the decades-long historiographical challenge of coming to terms with American expansion and the deep-set consequences of that same expansion in the decades between the 1840s and 1880s. In an introduction, History of the American West series editor Richard Etulain states that West's efforts at knitting together the narrative of the reconstruction era and the creation of the western region are arguably the book's “most important contribution” (xiv).West's goals are to describe the birth of the West as a region and place its story in the “broader narrative of American history” (xix). He says that birth will “see it [the West] take form as a political entity, as an arrangement of power, as part of a global community, and as an imagined space” (xix). After laying out and contextualizing his argument clearly in the introduction, West consistently introduces the reader to important narratives and personalities connected to the story of American expansion. In some instances, these events and characters reappear within the text. Readers should keep in mind that this book is firmly focused on how the forces of government, business, economics, and science reshaped and formed the region. There is ample acknowledgement that the diversity of the West includes more than just white America, but throughout, the discussion is focused on how the West appeared to officials in Washington, DC. At times this is done cleverly, as at the start of chapter 5. Here, readers are asked to envision James Polk standing in Washington, musing on the sudden physical enlargement of the nation as well as how the government of the United States might be practically expanded along with the nation itself.One critique is that because of some organizational choices, there are occasions of repetition throughout various chapters. For example, when we are taken through the great council held at Fort Laramie in 1851, we might wonder why the council and its consequences, such as the Grattan incident, appear twice in the span of twenty pages (77–83). By far the biggest challenge in a book of this magnitude is including multiple voices. West acknowledges the rich diversity that exists in the US West throughout the text, but the specific perspective remains focused on the reshaping of the region by the forces of the federal government (165). Finally, while the series is intended to appeal to both specialists and general readers, the press's style of citations is disappointing. Endnotes rather than footnotes are now the usual process, but combining endnotes with incomplete citations in the endnote section, requiring readers to flip back and forth to the complete bibliography section, is frustrating.I found that the text moved swiftly despite its breadth, and it was replete with fascinating insights and humor. Referring to estimates on the cost of bison hunting along the upper Missouri, West states of his 1857 source, “he almost surely overshot” (56). His observations as to the similarly extractive and destructive nature of agriculture and mining will be of interest to many (345–80), particularly the point that the energy, connectivity, and nature of production was completely transformed (380).The text is illustrated with ten maps and fifty additional images that come with helpful explanatory captions. Tying together themes of rural distance and the text's consistent discussion of connectivity, I was struck by the map on page 427. It visually accounts for known trips between reservations and other locations taken by Native people between 1880 and 1890. Such journeys encompass the nature of what West calls the “resistance, adjustment, persistence” of Native nations throughout the region (424). Extraction and movement, whether of resources, Native people, immigrants, government officials, or internal migrants binds the West and the United States as a whole, transforming the nation in what the author calls “Greater Reconstruction” (433–35). Continental Reckoning largely succeeds in achieving West's goals.