The political economy of the American West
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The political economy of the American West
（The political economy forum）
Rowman & Littlefield, c1994
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Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In the American West, trappers, miners, and farmers often preceded the formal institutions of government and therefore had to invent their own institutional framework. Early historians like Frederick Jackson Turner and Walter Prescott Webb found heroes in this romantic frontier. Modern historians, however, are challenging the traditional histories, arguing that the history of the West is one of natural resource waste, minority exploitation, and political manipulation by a powerful elite. This book challenges many conclusions from both schools in a framework that considers Western history as an episode in the evolution of property rights. The authors in this volume provide a new way of thinking about the West that relies neither on heroes nor villains but argues that economics and politics shaped the institutional environment of the American West.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 The Race for Property Rights Chapter 3 Homesteading and Property Rights: Or, "How the West Was Really Won" Chapter 4 When Common Property Rights Can Be Optimal: Nineteenth-Century Cattle Grazing in the Semi-Arid American West Chapter 5 The Political Economy of Early Federal Reclamation in the West Chapter 6 The Progressive Ideal and the Columbia Basin Project Chapter 7 Rents from Amenity Resources: A Case Study of Yellowstone National Park Chapter 8 Forseeing Confiscation by the Sovereign: Lessons From the American West Chapter 9 Public Policy and the Admission of the Western States Chapter 10 About the Political Economy Forum and the Authors
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