Front cover of "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own", 1993 edition.

"It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own": A New History of the American West is a history of the American West. The book's title comes from the lyrics to the traditional cowboy ballad Git Along Little Dogies. The 684 page history was written by Richard White and first published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1991. It covers the history of the West from the Spanish conquest in the 1500s to the presidency of Ronald Reagan. The Western United States, also referred to as the American West or simply The West, traditionally refers to the region constituting the westernmost states of the United States (see geographical terminology section for further discussion of these terms). ... Cowboy songs are often associated with songs that the cowboys sang at night around the campfire with a lot of yodeling and sometimes accompanied by a guitar, banjo (and perhaps some canned beans). ... Richard White (born 1947) is an American historian, currently the President-elect of the Organization of American Historians, and the author of influential books on the American West, Native American history, and environmental history. ... Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975). ...

The book is a notable example of an approach sometimes called the "New Western History", which tells the story of the American West as the history of all the people in the region rather than the story of the expanding frontier of the United States. ([1]). White's departure from the traditional intepretation of the American West—embodied in Frederick Jackson Turner's influential Frontier Thesis—is reflected in the fact that White never uses the word "frontier" in his book. ([2]) On the theory of the meaning of the frontier see Frontier Thesis. ... Frederick Jackson Turner Frederick Jackson Turner (November 14, 1861–1932) was, with Charles A. Beard, the most influential American historian of the early 20th century. ... The Frontier Thesis or Turner Thesis is the conclusion of Frederick Jackson Turner that the wellsprings of American exceptionalism and vitality have always been the American frontier, the region between urbanized, civilized society and the untamed wilderness. ...

The book received the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum's Western Heritage Award for non-ficiton books in 1992. White is McClelland Professor of History at the University of Washington. Bronze Wrangler The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum and art gallery, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, housing one of the largest collections of: Western, American cowboy, American rodeo, and American Indian; art, artifacts, and archival materials, in the world. ...

Chapters

I. The Origins of the West

1. The Seeds of the West

2. Empires and Indians

II. The Federal Government and the Nineteenth-Century West

3. The Conquest of the West

4. The Federal Government and the Indians

5. Exploring the Land

6. Distributing the Land

7. Territorial Government

III. Transformation and Development

8. The Transformation of Western Society: Migration

9. Transforming the Land

10. The West and the World Economy

11. The Economic Sturcture of the West

12. New Communities and the Western Social Order

13. Social Conflict

14. Western Politics

IV. The Bureucratic Revolution in the West

15. At the Centers of Power

16. On the Peripheris of Power

V. Transforming the West

17. The Depression

18. War II and Its Aftermath: Reshaping the West

Editions

• Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. ISBN 0806123664
• Norman: University of Oklahoma Press (paperback reprint edition), 1993. ISBN 0806125675

External links

• "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own"; University of Oklahoma Press