Hell on the Range

In this lively account of Arizona's Rim Country War of the 1880s, historian Daniel Justin Herman explores a web of conflict involving Mormons, Texas cowboys, New Mexican sheepherders, Jewish merchants, and mixed-blood ranchers. Their story, contends Herman, offers a fresh perspective on Western violence, Western identity, and American cultural history. At the heart of Arizona's range war, argues Herman, was a conflict between cowboys' code of honour and Mormons' code of conscience. He investigates the sources of these attitudes, tracks them into the early twentieth century, and offers rich insights into the roots of American violence and peace.