A Legendary Year, an Epic Story

A rollicking chronicle of the West, plus a new Arizona Rangers history, new bios of Hopi potter Nampeyo and Apache Chiquito, and a new classic Western from Mark C. Jackson.

- -Stuart Rosebrook

Nearly 150 years ago, America was a nation in total flux. President Ulysses S. Grant was campaigning hard for his second term. The economy was in shambles. Immigration from Europe was at an all-time high. Urban slums were overflowing with poverty and disease. Reconstruction of the South had failed. The industrial revolution was transforming the United States. Unions were on the rise. Railroads were expanding. Settlers, miners, ranchers and speculators were flooding the West. Grant's Indian peace policy had failed, and America was at war with the Native tribes from Texas to California. 1876: Year of the Gun: The Year Bat, Wyatt, Custer, Jesse, and the Two Bills (Buffalo and Wild) Created the Wild West, and Why It's Still With Us (Bancroft Press, $33) is journalist and author Steve Wiegand's ambitious synthesis of this violent and transformative ti