Treating issues of cowboys and frontiers throughout the western hemisphere, this collection of essays builds on Richard Slatta’s earlier work, including his excellent monograph on the social history of the gaucho in Argentina. Presented as a guide of how to do comparative research, the book serves as a vehicle for collecting scattered pieces. Some of these were published earlier, at times in places perhaps obscure to the readers of this journal. Others given as addresses appear in print for the first time. Written for different audiences, the essays exhibit a far from unified feel. As in Slatta’s previous work, however, the writing is usually lively throughout, drawing the reader in. He makes heavy but effective use of vivid quotation from primary sources, especially from travel accounts.
This book appears to be aimed less at the Latin Americanist than at broadening the intellectual horizons of scholars of the American West. It...
