Cattle Kingdom, Christopher Knowlton
Cattle Kingdom, Christopher Knowlton
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Cattle Kingdom
The Hidden History of the Cowboy West

Author: Christopher Knowlton

Narrator: John McLain

Unabridged: 14 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 01/05/2021


Synopsis

A revolutionary new appraisal of the Old West and the America it made

The open range cattle era lasted barely a quarter-century, but it left America irrevocably changed. These few decades following the Civil War brought America its greatest boom-and-bust cycle until the Depression, the invention of the assembly line, and the dawn of the conservation movement. It inspired legends, such as that icon of rugged individualism, the cowboy. Yet this extraordinary time and its import have remained unexamined for decades.

Cattle Kingdom reveals the truth of how the West rose and fell, and how its legacy defines us today. The tale takes us from dust-choked cattle drives to the unlikely splendors of boomtowns like Abilene, Kansas, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. We venture from the Texas Panhandle to the Dakota Badlands to the Chicago stockyards. We meet a diverse array of players—from the expert cowboy Teddy Blue to the failed rancher and future president Teddy Roosevelt. Knowlton shows us how they and others like them could achieve so many outsized feats: killing millions of bison in a decade, building the first opera house on the open range, driving cattle by the thousand, and much more. Cattle Kingdom is a revelatory new view of the Old West.

About Christopher Knowlton

Christopher Knowlton is the author of Bubble in the Sun: The Florida Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought on the Great Depression and Cattle Kingdom: The Hidden History of the Cowboy West. He is a former staff writer and London bureau chief for Fortune magazine. He also spent fifteen years in the investment business. He is a trustee of the Teton Raptor Center and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Christopher and his wife, Pippa, live in Jackson, Wyoming.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jill on July 24, 2017

This is one heck of a good book, so full of interesting historical facts and vignettes that you will be driving everyone around you crazy as you read by calling out repeatedly, “Listen to THIS!” It tells the story of the open-range cattle era and the rise of the cowboy from the perspective of its eco......more

Goodreads review by James on October 21, 2017

The subtitle of Christopher Knowlton's excellent "Cattle Kingdom" is "The Hidden History of the Cowboy West". This is a first rate work of scholarship, describing the massive cattle drives from Texas to the massive western ranches. This is an origin story. How did the drives begin? Where did the ran......more

Goodreads review by Frank on September 02, 2020

This book starts out a little earlier than you'd expect. It begins with the destruction of the bison. In the period from 1872 to 1875, the "southern herd" below the Union Pacific Railroad was hunted to extinction, largely to make leather belts out of their hides. The "northern herd" above the railro......more

Goodreads review by Ann on August 09, 2017

A comprehensive study of the cattle barons, Theodore Roosevelt, the cowboy, demise of the bison population, conservation , natural resources and the mistakes that the wealthy cattle barons made by underestimating the weather conditions, getting stock to market , refrigeration and a general loose wit......more

Goodreads review by John on July 07, 2017

The history of the cattle industry in west along with cowboys, gunfighters, the good, the bad, the ugly and an American President throw in for good measure. You also get interesting facts like the Big-Die Up, new information on the Johnson County War and what started it (and just maybe the real reas......more