Publisher's Synopsis
"America, land of opportunity" - when was the legend forged? What drove men, women and children to migrate by the thousands to the Pacific coast? Do the names Jesse James, Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill ring a bell? How did Luzena Wilson or Belinda Mulrooney prosper? What was hidden behind the gold in the mines of Colorado? How did the Lakota defend the Black Hills against Crow and white invaders? Did you know that modern barbecue was born here and that a Spaniard was the first outsider to talk about it? John Wayne or Clint Eastwood: what's true about the image of cowboys that has come down to us? Besides the love of poker and rodeos, what did the West bequeath to the United States? The story of the Wild West remains shrouded in the mists of myth and fiction, and the turbulent, wild nature of this time of train robberies, violent gunfights, dangerous cattle drives and deadly Indian ambushes does not seem far removed from that literary notion. But what really was that separate world beyond the Mississippi? Nothing less than the land where the American dream took root. After "That Wasn't in My History Book of the United States of America", following in the footsteps of his ancestors, Californian John C. R. Bell plunges into a gripping account of the more unknown aspects of the primordial Wild West. He rescues newspaper accounts, explores early testimonies and even offers us a recipe in the style of those delicious American barbecues. His words and fascinating photographs bring us closer to the reality of what is still today perhaps the greatest adventure ever experienced by man in search of fortune.
